Today's Simple Pleasure

As a parent there are moments in your life when your children help you appreciate the simpler things in life. A resolution of mine for this year was to start getting back to basics as much as possible. While I have always home cooked our meals and stay away from processed foods for our main meals, convenience has admittedly crept into other areas of our eating. I have stopped buying goldfish, fruit snacks, and other processed foods there were once staples in our snack diet. After a week of protests from my kids they stopped asking. But, I digress. That topic is a whole other post.

Today I wanted to share with you a simple pleasure my boys and I enjoyed this afternoon. Normally when school is done for the day we head outside or to the park for playtime. However, today the sickies have become too much to venture outside. My youngest son is tired and needs some forced rest. To keep him occupied and entertained I though we would have a special afternoon of a movie and popcorn. A treat in our house! Popcorn is not something I keep in the house so off to the store I went with boys in tow to get some kernels. Initially I thought we would just get the usual, Pop-Secret in a bag. God had a different plan for us this afternoon though. A lesson he wanted to teach me. My little 5 year old, being closer to the bottom shelves than I am saw a novel item; real popcorn in a bag. Imagine the wonder in his eyes. "Cool Mom, look at this, real popcorn." That got me thinking, not only is it cheaper but it will be fun for the boys to see real popcorn pop on the stove. I have fond memories of cooking popcorn at my Grandma's house in the midwest when I was young. So much popcorn would pop that the top would be pushed off of the pan. So with our bag popcorn in hand we headed home.

Into the pan goes the olive oil. Followed by a kernel from each of us. When those popped I poured in 1/3 cup of popcorn. And viola! The ooohhhs and aaahhhs and wows began. The excitement in their eyes was priceless. And over what? Simple popcorn popping in a pan. How magical!

Thank you Heavenly Father for that simple pleasure today with my boys!