Thankful Thursday

1. Last Friday Paul received an invitation for a phone interview with Indiana State University for a three year visiting position. He interviewed there in person last July for a one year position. He had his phone interview on Tuesday afternoon (two days ago). Today he is driving to Indiana for an interview tomorrow for a three year visiting position at Earlham College. We're praying for God to open the door wherever would be best for our whole family. I'm hoping that he might receive an offer for a permanent position elsewhere, but Paul said he'd much rather have a three-year job than another one-year one. We shall see what God has in store!

2. The Leopards did a great job on Saturday! Paul did a nice job coaching them during the game. I am glad Nadia has the opportunity to learn some new skills. I am grateful the assistant coach can lead the practice tomorrow night, and Paul should be back in time to coach the game on Saturday.

3. We all enjoyed seeing The Wizard of Oz on Sunday afternoon.

4. Paul bought Nadia a dresser (I found it on Craigslist) on Friday. Ironically her old dresser was in better cosmetic shape, but the new one is a definite improvement because it has a mirror (she loves that!), is wider but not as tall (she could only reach 3 of the 5 drawers in her old one), and most importantly all the drawers work. The main reason we wanted a new dresser for her was because one of the drawers fell out almost every time you opened it. Also, the handle broke off another one of the drawers. We could have bought a new handle and solved that problem, but we didn't since we couldn't repair the other drawer. The new dresser doesn't hold as much as the old one. Everything fits now, but it's going to be tricky when we reach that time of the year when the weather is fickle and we're doing back and forth between wearing spring/summer clothes and fall/winter clothes. It won't be a problem once the weather turns and I put the winter clothes away. We'll figure something out! The old dresser was too heavy for me to help Paul carry it down the stairs so I made room for it in Oliver's closet, and that's where it will stay for the time being.

5. I have been very thankful that Oliver is a great eater, but I was taken aback when he fed himself a lot of my salad on Monday night. Nadia and Ian haven't eaten any salad yet, but my 17 month old has. He has been eating raw baby carrots for several weeks. Way to go, Oliver!

6. Nadia loves to read! Sometimes when I'm reading to Ian or Oliver she asks if she can read to them instead. This week she's reading Frog and Toad Together to me.

7. CHOP called me on Tuesday to move Oliver's surgery from February 12th to February 7th. Paul can either go with me or stay home with Nadia and Ian on the 7th whereas he has to work on the 12th. Praying that he'll be healthy enough on February 7th to really have the surgery this time around.

8. Ian continues to talk about the fact that he's a Christian now. I found one of his prayers amusing because at lunch one day he was thanking Jesus for dying on the cross and for coming into his heart and the next sentence was and thank you for the Scooby Doo matching game (a Christmas gift).

9. I thought I was going to have to miss Bible study on Tuesday morning because Ian had a high fever, but it turned out the study was cancelled because the school district was on a 2 hour delay due to the frigid temps. I'm glad I didn't miss the study! Hopefully the weather will be warmer and my kids will all be healthy next Tuesday morning.

10. The kids and I had a nice dinner at Friendly's last night. Everyone fed themselves their own meals! Nadia and Oliver tried mandarin oranges for the first time, and they both loved them. YAY!

11. Nadia and Ian slept in past 7am this morning. It's been a LONG time since Ian did that. WOOHOO! Oliver slept past 6am. I feel much more rested this morning than I have lately.

12. Ian is doing a GREAT job learning to write his upper case letters! He can now write L, I, H, E, F, T, O, P, and R. We've been working on "U,", but he hasn't quite gotten that one yet.