Thankful Tuesday

1. The fall semester began on Wednesday at Bucknell. We are so thankful that he has the opportunity to teach there this year. This week is his first full week of teaching. On Mondays he'll be on campus more than 12 hours as his first class starts at 8am and his recitation ends at 8pm. He teaches for five hours on Mondays. He teaches for 4 hours on Tuesdays, one hour on Wednesdays, and one hour on Fridays. He has faculty meeting on Thursdays.

2. On Saturday morning we took the kids to a program on animal tracks at a state park.

3. The kids and I really enjoyed reading Mr. Popper's Penguins. I'm also grateful that I'm able to check out many books to use with homeschooling. Last week we read at least one book a day on Leif Ericsson, and this week we've been reading books about Columbus.

4. Paul's mom was admitted to the ICU last week with low blood pressure and pneumonia. We are grateful that she was transferred to a regular room on Saturday and hope she will be

well enough to go home soon.

5. The shelf and rod in Ian's closet fell out of the wall three months ago (while we were all downstairs eating dinner). I bought a new system ten days ago, and Paul was able to install it this past weekend. Ian now has by far the nicest closet of the three kids. It felt wonderful for him to have an organized closet again. I greatly appreciate Paul's help with projects like these around the house.

6. Friday afternoon I was able to pick up our prints and the CD from the photographer. It was so much fun this weekend putting up the new pictures all around the house. I have FAR more picture frames in the house that we did during the first seven year of our marriage.

7. We were able to go swimming yesterday and enjoy the pool one last time!

8. I finally found a fruit that Oliver will eat. In general he's a great eater, but with fruit he puts it in his mouth but then usually spits it back out. We were at the playground a few days ago and Nadia and I were eating some grapes I had brought, and Oliver asked for some and started eating quite a few of them. Way to go, Oliver!

9. I want Ian and Nadia to drink more water. Oliver already drinks a lot of water. Recently I implemented the rule that they must drink water at one meal a day (instead of milk). Ian has been opting to have water at lunch, and he's doing really well with it! Nadia has just been stretching one glass of milk over two meals to avoid drinking water.

10. I love it that Nadia takes the initiative to read books to Oliver and/or Ian. Priceless memories for this mom! How I hope and pray that the three of them will always love each other dearly.