Thankful Thursday

1. Last Thursday night I drove down to Maryland. I had originally planned to drive down with all three kids on Friday morning, but Nadia and Ian needed to stay in PA because their dress rehearsal was Friday night. I am grateful that Paul's parents were able to watch the kids on Friday while Paul was at work, that Paul could watch them on Saturday while I was in MD/DC, and that my parents could watch Oliver while I was at the conference on Friday night and Saturday morning. I left on Thursday night in the hopes that Oliver would sleep for most of the trip, and that did prove to be true. He cried for about 20 minutes of the 3.5 hour trip. He slept for about 2.5 hours of the trip.

2. My parents treated Oliver and I to lunch at Olive Garden on Friday. That is one of my most favorite restaurants, and I believe it had been three years since I had eaten in one. I had soup, salad, and breadsticks. Yummy! Oliver loved the breadsticks. My dad went and picked up a strawberry poppyseed salad from Panera for my dinner. How sweet was that! I hadn't had one of their salads in more than one year. It's my MOST favorite salad. I ate about 2/3 of the salad for dinner on Friday night and finished it for lunch on Saturday at the conference. On the drive home on Saturday night I went through a Rita's drive-thru for a chocolate twist custard. What a treat! I hadn't had one of those in more than a year. On Monday I tried to get back on track with my attempts to lose weight.

3. Oliver slept until 7:15am on Friday morning and 7:30am on Saturday morning! I was sharing a bedroom with him, and I was stunned when I saw the time on Saturday as my goal had been to leave by 7:45am. I got myself dressed, changed his diaper, ate breakfast, and packed my lunch in 20 minutes. It felt heavenly to be in bed for 8.5 hours straight on Friday night. Overall his naps haven't been that great lately (many are less than 30 minutes long), but aside for yesterday morning when he got up at 6:00am, he's sleeping until at least 6:45am in the morning for a couple of weeks, which is a big improvement.

4. For many years I had thought about attending a Women of Faith conference. I am glad I did, but just like MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) I can say I have little desire to ever return. I guess it's one of those things you have to experience it to find out it isn't really your cup of tea. I had to leave early on Saturday so I had to skip the Third Day concert and Angie Smith's session. The speakers I enjoyed the most were Priscilla Shirer and Liz Curtis Higgs. Mark Lowry was very funny.

5. On Sunday night the photographer sent me the link to our 74 pictures. The pictures that turned out the best were the ones of Paul and I as a couple as well as some individual ones of each of the kids. I wasn't really keen on any of the ones that included all three kids, which was a bummer because I was wanting to get a new necklace made (I have one with a picture of Nadia and Ian that my sister took in Florida in 2010), and I was also wanting to get a canvas of all three. I'll just have to keep working until I get one of the three kids myself! There were three decent ones of our whole family. I can't say I fell in love with any of them, but I will use one of them for our Christmas card. Oliver just wasn't in a smiling mood that morning, unfortunately. It's hard to get a good pic with five people when 3 of them are age 5 and under. I also need to remember to ask Paul to take off his glasses if we do another outdoor photo shoot since his turn into sunglasses. I probably will want to do another professional photo shoot next summer, but I might try a different photographer. It does motivate me to keep honing my skills as a photographer! I look forward to sharing some of the photos she took here on the blog. She took MANY great pictures of Nadia, and also a few really great ones of Oliver and Ian (separately). I ordered prints of 14 of the 74 poses. The package we bought includes a CD with all the 74 photos, which means I can use them in photo books, calendars, etc.

6. The weather turned warmer on Tuesday! We went swimming on Tuesday and Wednesday. Oliver and I stayed in the wading pool because the water temperature was much warmer there.

7. Paul's mom saw the radiologist this week. Presuming the treatments work, she will only have two appointments (both in September). At the first she'll have chemo and at the second one she'll have chemo and a different kind of radiation than what she had five years ago. We're praying that these two treatments will be all she needs to have done to get good results at her next PET scan.

8. I really deviated from my diet for three days (Friday-Sunday) between my trip to Maryland, eating cookies after the musical on Saturday and Sunday nights, and eating breakfast and lunch at church on Sunday. I was very relieved when I weighed myself on Tuesday morning and discovered I hadn't gained any weight. Whew.

9. Nadia finds great delight in buckling Ian and Oliver in their car seats. I'm not complaining!

10. Paul was able to get home at 5:45 on Monday and Wednesday, which meant he could stay home with the boys while I took Nadia to soccer. This meant some time reading via the Kindle while sitting on the sideline of the field. He'll have class starting next Wednesday night so this won't be the norm, but I did enjoy it this week as generally I don't have any down time between 6am and 8pm.

11. Grapes have been on sale for $1/pound for several weeks! Nadia and I both love grapes. We've been going through several pounds of grapes a week! We also are in the middle of a science experiment with 4 grapes to see how many days it takes them to turn into raisins.