Giving Thanks

1. I'm thankful Paul and I were able to go on a date last night. We had dinner at TGIFridays, and our bill for 2 entrees and 1 soda (I always just get water) was $4.54. COUPONS! I gave the waitress a $3 tip so our total cost for the meal was $7.54. Fridays has been my favorite place lately. The only bummer was I didn't get the meal special, which includes a dessert. You can get an entree plus either a dessert or appetizer for $10, or for $12.99 you get all three. I usually go the $12.99 route, and Paul and I share the appetizer. The dessert is all mine (Paul wouldn't want it anyhow). Their peanut butter pie is divine! Friendly's and Fridays are my two favorite restaurants right now because of the nice meal deals that include dessert. I have a sweet tooth, but I very rarely order dessert at a restaurant because it usually costs over $5. When it's included in a $10 meal, I'm in! Fridays is also having a deal where if you go 4 times within a few months then they'll give you a $20 credit. So our $4 charge brought us closer to earning that $20 credit. Sweet! I should add that whenever we go out to eat, we always use gift cards that we've either received as Christmas/birthday gifts from our relatives OR that we've gotten through "thank you points" earned through our credit cards. So actually the dinner was free, but I'm all for stretching the gift cards as much as possible!

2. We also were able to do some shopping with some other coupons last night. I had $7 off a $12 purchase coupon for Hallmark, $5 off a $15 purchase at Bed Bath and Beyond, etc. We did some Christmas shopping for others and also did a little shopping for our home at Lowe's as the electrician and plumber each left some holes in our drywall earlier this year.

3. I'm grateful my hubby can do things like repair drywall. That's definitely out of my comfort zone.

4. I'm thankful that I'm still learning new ways to save money. For years I've searched for coupon codes when ordering online, but it was only in 2010 that I learned about sites like Ebates and Shopathome. I have to admit sometimes I still forget to start at those sites if I'm shopping online, but most of the time I now remember, and it's such an easy way to save money. Usually the rebate is not very large, but I just made some purchases through Snapfish (via Shopathome), and the rebate was 24%. That's terrific especially as I was already using a coupon code for 35% off plus free shipping. The newest strategy I've begun to use is to buy gift cards from sites like Giftcardgranny.com. I bought a JCP gift card there with a 15% discount, and of course I'll be using coupons and such when I shop at JCP with that gift card (usually I use JCPs $10 off $25 coupons to shop off their clearance racks). I've also enjoyed using Swagbucks. I joined about 15 months ago, and in that span I've earned almost $85 worth of gift cards from Amazon just by using Swagbucks as my search engine.

5. I'm looking forward to hosting Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday for Paul's parents, brother, sister-in-law, nephew, and grandmother as well as my parents and brother. It will be great to have 13 people gathered around our table. That's one of my favorite aspects of holidays - time spent with our extended family!

6. I picked up our turkey this afternoon. I got it for free (coupons!). I'm glad I didn't wait any later to get one as there were hardly any left!

7. I love my new camera.  I'm looking forward to improving my skills in the weeks and months and years to come!

8. I got a good report on Ian today from both Sarah (Sunday School) and the ladies who were in the nursery during the worship service! All of them talked about how nicely he played and how many words he said. Way to go, Ian!

9. This morning at breakfast he looked down at my skirt and said "square" and "diamond." He correctly identified the geometric shapes on my skirt! He's doing really well with learning colors, shapes, and identifying about 5 letters of the alphabet. In terms of counting, he counts by odd numbers 1, 3, 5. Now to work on filling in the ones he's skipping. :-)

10. We set a record this morning in that BOTH kids slept until 7:45am!! I was able to get up after 7am and still get dressed and such before they woke up. Considering it's been 2 weeks since Nadia slept past 6:30am, it felt like a miracle! Ian woke up first, and it was his crying while I got him dressed that woke Nadia up. I don't expect that to become the norm, but it was a really nice treat this morning.

11. Nadia didn't sleep at all during the 2 hours she spent in her bed this afternoon. I didn't take any efforts to encourage her to get to sleep during that time span. If she doesn't nap tomorrow, it will be the first time ever that she missed a nap three days in a row. I do think the lack of a nap is the reason that she slept in this morning and the reason that she went to bed very easily tonight. Frankly, if it means she'll fall asleep quickly, I'd prefer a quiet time over an afternoon nap. We shall see. It was really nice though to have bedtime be very easy for both kids tonight for Paul while I was at a community Thanksgiving service.

12. Quite a few people have been asking me lately how Ian is doing with eating. This means a lot to me. What touches me even more is when people tell me they're praying about it. What really blew me away was when a husband and wife that sing in our church choir told me that they include Ian in their prayers at every meal every day. Wow. They said that since they're about to eat it reminds them of his struggles with eating. That was so touching. I stopped to think whom could I pray for that fervently, and I picked my friend, Jo. I've been praying a lot about our upcoming ivf cycle. I decided that every time I pray for our cycle (many times a day), I am also going to pray for my friend, Jo. Jo has a 4 year old son (from ivf). Jo tried ivf #2 at the same time we were trying ivf #2 (about 2.5 years ago). Unfortunately her cycle got cancelled before she reached the egg retrieval. Right now they are praying for the Lord to provide the $$ they need to pay for another cycle. I'm mentioning it here in case any of you feel led to pray for them also. It would be really, really amazing if Jo and I could both be pregnant in 2012. I'm praying to that end!