Reverse Lent?

What is Lent anyways? According to google, "Lent is a special time of prayer, penance, sacrifice and good works in preparation of the celebration of Easter." Lent sort of snuck up on me this year, usually I know far ahead of time when it's coming and what I'm going to give up for 40 days. In the past couple of years I have felt a personal conviction to celebrate Lent by giving up facebook for 40 days and it's been a great experience. This year, on ash Wednesday (the day Lent began), I mentioned to Michael that it was the beginning of Lent and that I wasn't feeling any convictions in particular and wondering if I should even take part in Lent this year. Afterall, we are not even Catholic. I love the idea though, and really wanted to incorporate something into the next 40 days leading up to Easter. We talked about some things that maybe we could do as a couple or as a family in celebration of Lent but we soon got distracted by the days events and no decision had been made when we crawled into bed that night. We started discussing it again before we fell asleep and my husband came up with a great idea, something we can do together for the next 40 days to draw us closer to the Lord and keep our focus on Him. We decided that instead of taking something away for 40 days we would be intentional about adding something in that is purposeful and meaningful where prayer would be our focus. I guess you could call it a reverse Lent (since we are not taking something away but instead adding something in) but it still brings about the same outcome. So we have made a commitment to pray together every night a specific blessing over our children for the next 40 days. 40 days=40 blessings. We have come up with virtues that we want our kids to possess and those are the ones we are praying over them. On Ash Wednesday we prayed a blessing of peace over them, that they would be peaceful people and that during the trials of life they would experirence a peace that passes their own understanding. We also prayed that they would spread peace to others. Night #2 we prayed a blessing of Love over them, that they will love others deeply- friends, family, each other, future spouses, etc... And most importantly that they will Love the Lord their God with all their heart, mind, soul, and strength. We are taking turns coming up with the blessing and then we pray together. I had an idea this morning to take this a step further and that is to write down the one word blessing each night on a piece of paper (times three), in both my writing and in Michael's, and when we are done we will frame them and give them to our kids showing that we prayed those 40 blessings over them. I can't wait to see the finished the product! So do you practice Lent? If so, what do you do?