Thankful Thursday

1. Nadia, Ian, and I are very thankful for the iPad! Ian absolutely adores "Endless Alphabet." He laughs hysterically, and it's a good app for reviewing letters and the sounds the letters make plus teaches some vocabulary. I am impressed with "Reading Raven" that Nadia is working on, and "Blob Chorus" is great for ear training. I am enjoying using youversion for my daily Bible reading. I picked a read through the Bible in a year chronologically option. Once our iTunes gift card arrives in the mail (courtesy of credit card points), I'm going to purchase Chore Pad for the kids and Motivated Moms for me. For the last few years I've been bringing my laptop into the kitchen whenever I've needed to look at a recipe while cooking. It's much easier to use the iPad for that purpose!

2. I'm so thankful Paul isn't teaching any night classes or labs in the spring semester. Although he's technically at home on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings, he stays in our bedroom with the door closed. The kids saw him about 15 minutes total over the past 2 days. This means that aside from the 45 minute break I get around 1pm due to naps/quiet time, I am with the kids non-stop from about 6:30am to 8:30pm. I love them dearly, but that is exhausting. Also, it means I can rejoin my church's choir in January. YAY!

3. We had a great time at Lake Tobias on Monday. I am thankful for Labor Day as we got to see more of Paul that day due to the holiday.

4. Nadia has gotten into drinking water! It just shows that being a good role model does help. Water is the only thing I drink. She told me recently she wanted to drink water like Mommy. Now if only all my habits were ones that I'd like to see the kids imitate. Ian had a really bad vomiting episode on Tuesday morning, which might have had nothing to do with drinking milk, but it made me nervous. Because of that I've been having him drink juice (grape, orange, or apple) or water instead of milk. Ian and Nadia never drank juice from a sippy cup, but I already have Oliver drinking apple juice as I don't want him to be so obsessive with milk like his siblings have been.

5. The weather this week has been heavenly. It's perfect weather now that we're done with swimming for the year. Yesterday Ian complained a little that it was too cold as we were going to the playground in the morning, so today we went in the afternoon instead, and we'll probably make that our norm for as long as the weather is warm enough that we still enjoy that walk.

6. I'm thankful that banana bread is yummy even without eggs. I went through a lot of eggs the last few days making butterscotch cookies, brownies, and French toast. I had been planning to make banana bread today, and then I discovered we didn't have any eggs. The recipe I like calls for 2 eggs. I decided to just try it without the eggs. I already use applesauce instead of butter when I make that recipe. It turned out just fine. I honestly can't tell that it's missing anything so I don't think I'll ever use eggs or butter in banana bread again!

7. I love listening to the kids play and finding out they're acting out a story I've been reading to them. I heard Ian acting out James and the Giant Peach in the swimming pool on several occasions. This morning they were acting out parts of  The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, which is what I am reading them right now. These books aren't exactly geared for a three year old. I picked them with Nadia in mind, but Ian is definitely listening as well!

8. Paul will be home this evening!!! He can be in charge of getting Ian to eat the chicken and dumplings, and I can get caught up on cleaning around the house while he plays with the kids after dinner. Yahoo!