Thankful Thursday

 1. Oliver has gotten back on track with potty training and is making forward progress again. Last night I brought the froggy potty with us in the van, but I didn't take it into church. Oliver stayed dry during Puggles and then immediately peed on the froggy potty in the van before we drove home. Way to go, Oliver!! It was very nice not to lug that thing into church last night. I look forward to the day when we say farewell to the froggy potty. I even was brave enough to skip the diaper during his nap today, and he stayed dry!

2. Nadia and Ian enjoyed the Woolly Worm Festival on Saturday afternoon.

3. Nadia is making great progress with her handstand in gymnastics!

4. I enjoyed spending time with my new friend, Nikki, and her boys on Monday afternoon during Nadia's gymnastics class. I usually take the boys to a playground during her class, but it had rained a lot and the equipment would have been very wet so we were at the library for over an hour. It made conversation challenging while keeping 4 boys ages 15 months to 4 years out of trouble in the
library (mostly trying to keep their voices down). I was very thankful though that she agreed to meet us there. :)

5. I still like my haircut. As long as we live around here, I am going to try to get appointments with this particular hairstylist. It feels great to finally find a hairstylist, and they salon has a special where you can buy a card which means that you pay $50 for 4 haircuts. I think $12.50 is a good price for a shampoo, cut, and style (not including the tip).

6. Nadia really enjoyed her date with Daddy to see the Princess and the Pea on Sunday afternoon.

7. Although many of his naps are still only 60 minutes long, there have been times lately when his nap has been at least 2 hours long. He did this twice in a row on Sunday and Monday (of course then I was disappointed when his nap was back to one hour long on Tuesday).

8. The choir rehearses at 8;25 on Sunday mornings, but the kids' Sunday School classrooms aren't
open until 8:50. I have been SO pleased with how well behaved my three kids have been sitting in a pew all by themselves while the choir rehearses. Considering they are 2, 4, and 6 years old I am very thankful. My mom used to mention that she'd get goosebumps when she'd hear a song that she really liked. At choir last night there was one song in particular that I kept thinking - this would give my mom goosebumps. That's a good thing. :)

9. Oliver has been demonstrating outstanding manners lately. He is so quick to say "thank you, Ian" or "thank you, Mommy" even for things like when he's given a compliment.

10. Paul had off of school on Monday and Tuesday. It was nice to see him a little bit more than usual those days although he was very busy - mostly working on his application for Muhlenberg, which we submitted on Tuesday. In the coming months I plan to submit applications to WVU and IUP for him. He put a LOT of time into revising his teaching (philosophy) statement, and I
think it's MUCH better than the one he wrote two years ago. We also updated his cover letter and CV so we're ready to start applying for jobs again. I'm REALLY hoping that he starts in a permanent job next August. We shall see what happens.

11. One downside of buying most of the kids' clothes at yard sales or from clearance racks is that it's hard to end up with matching outfits. It was purely accidental that the boys were able to wear matching pjs last winter. I purposefully bought Ian and Oliver matching Larry boy t-shirts for Christmas last year. When I see siblings wearing matching outfits, I think it's so cute, and I finally decided to start "splurging" and buying them a few things (brand new, not on clearance) that match. My first purchase was to get the kids each a long sleeved orange pumpkin t-shirt. I got Nadia's at a yard sale (for less than a dollar) and then got the boys their shirts for a very reasonable price (on sale with free shipping) from Children's Place. I liked them so much that I decided to place another order and this time got the boys two more sets of matching t-shirts
(snowman one for the winter and a Christmas one for December). In the past I had wanted to get matching pjs, but I was scared away by the prices in catalogs like the Company Store. Again it was the Children's Place which had the most reasonable prices. I was able to get pjs for Oliver, Nadia, Ian, and myself for about $40 total. Nadia is SO excited that she will be matching me for the very first time ever. I could have gotten snowman pjs for Paul also, but I was 100% sure he'd never wear them. He can take the pictures. :) They came in the mail yesterday,
and I liked them so much that I then ordered a 3T pair of the same pjs for Oliver to wear next year because the ones that I got for Ian and Nadia should fit them this year and next year since I got size 5T for Ian and 7/8 for Nadia. Hopefully we'll get some cute photos over the next two years in our matching snowman pjs! I purposefully got snowman pjs rather than "Christmas" pjs so that we can wear them for more months of the year. The last thing Oliver needed was one more pair of size 2T pajamas, but I splurged so he would match his siblings and mom. :)

12. Ian has been VERY motivated this week to work on his reading skills, and I've been trying to take more time to work with him. I've been focusing on words with "ch", "sh", and "th" this week.

13. Nadia has been doing MUCH better for several weeks (at least two months) with keeping her room much more orderly.

14. We had a great time (as you can see from the pics) at the Chipmunk program at RB Winter State Park last Thursday.