Thankful Thursday

1. Oliver's morning nap almost never lasts more than 30 minutes, but yesterday his morning nap was 1 hour and 50 minutes long!!! I. Could. Not. Believe. It. It was so much easier to do Nadia's schoolwork with her, and I also got a lot more cleaning done than I usually get done in the morning. I was thinking he might take a shorter than usual afternoon nap. His afternoon nap rarely exceeds 60 minutes, but yesterday his afternoon nap was 90 minutes long. WOOHOO! I don't think he's had two good naps on the same day in five months. Even if he did this once a week, it would be a big help to me.

2. I am starting to feel better. Hopefully next Thursday I'll be able to say that we are ALL healthy.

3. Ian's puzzle skills have improved so much that I have taken all the 24 piece jigsaw puzzles to the basement. I'll bring them back up when Oliver is ready for that size, but Ian is now doing ones that have at least 48 pieces all by himself. Nadia does puzzles that have at least 100 pieces.

4. The kids are really enjoying the iPad, and they are learning a lot at the same time. Bestappsforkids.com and Smartappsforkids.com are two great websites for learning about free apps.

5. Ian and Nadia like meatloaf. Unfortunately Paul won't eat meatloaf, but I'm happy to find something that the kids will eat with me. Nadia likes it without ketchup, and Ian likes it with massive amounts of ketchup. They are also making great progress with eating the following vegetables: green beans, peas, carrots, and corn. Nadia has really been into apples lately.

6. I came up with a solution for the gymnastics situation. It was a waste of money to pay for Ian to be in the class, and I couldn't envision trying to keep both boys entertained for a full hour during Nadia's class. I was going to have her take a break until early January, but I signed her up for a class on Thursdays from 4:15-5:15, and I'm going to take the boys to the library during her class (the library is very close to the gym). I won't be able to watch her, but I really wouldn't have been able to watch her if I was entertaining her brothers. The co-ops are ending, her last soccer game is on Saturday, and basketball won't start until early January. I wanted her to still have at least one "athletic" activity a week.

7. I read a really great book (Beloved Daughter) recently on the Kindle (Amazon had it for free recently). It was heartbreaking as it was about the mistreatment of Christians in North Korea, but it was a very gripping story. I look forward to reading other books in the series. We also saw a good movie lately (42) about Jackie Robinson.