Thankful Thursday

Since I didn't write a post yesterday, I'm going to write a list of ten things I'm thankful for today.

1. Oliver woke up dry two mornings in a row for the first time ever! He stayed dry all night on Monday and Tuesday night. He also stayed dry during his naps three days in a row (Sunday- Tuesday). He didn't stay dry last night or during his nap today so I'm not ready to have him sleep in underwear yet, but he's making progress in that direction!

2. On Tuesday and Wednesday he didn't have any #1 type accidents! He's done this many times before, but in the past he was using the froggy potty. I was pleased he accomplished this feat after making the transition to using a regular toilet (I have him seated backwards facing the tank). He had one #1 accident today, but in general he's doing great. I was particularly pleased that he didn't have an accident at church. He went before dinner (about 4pm) and then didn't go again until we got home from church at 8:30pm. Another hurdle he needs to get over is being able to pee on public toilets (such as at church), One step at a time!

3. We've enjoyed some new recipes for our weekly breakfast for dinner meal. The last few weeks we had pumpkin waffles and pumpkin pancakes. Tonight we had apple cinnamon French toast. YUM! I will definitely use that recipe again in the future. These recipes involve more effort (both cooking and cleaning) than just ordinary pancakes, waffles, or french toast do, but they are tastier (although I think Ian would vote for just plain chocolate chip pancakes every day of the week). Oliver and Paul aren't a big fan of breakfast for dinner so they usually have leftovers, but Nadia, Ian, and I enjoy the breakfast foods, especially if I make scrambled eggs to go with the meal for Nadia.

4. Last night we rehearsed some Christmas music because it won't be long before we'll be singing Christmas music on Sunday mornings. I particularly am enjoying an acapella arrangement of "O Come, O Come Emmanuel" that we're going to sing.

5. Ian slept through the night last night! Ever since the time changed, he has been wandering into our bedroom at least once a night at some random time during the night. He didn't get up until 6:00 this morning. Progress. Unfortunately, Oliver (who usually sleeps through the night) decided to wake up at 2:30, and he took a long time to go back to sleep. Hopefully they'll both sleep through the night tonight.

6. Oliver has continued to take longer naps! Twice this month his nap has been "only" 90 minutes long, but every other day it's been between 2-3 hours long. WOOHOO! This has made it easier to do schoolwork with Ian, do art projects with Nadia and Ian, clean the house, etc. He was a good napper the first nine months of his life, but over the past 18 months he hadn't taken many long naps until the last couple of weeks.

7. I'm thankful for resources that enable me to teach art since that is not my strength in life. Nadia and Ian did a bluebird project with pastels today. We made one mistake (used the wrong blue for the sky), and we were missing the dark pink pastel that we were supposed to use for some of the flowers, but for a first attempt with pastels, I think they both did a great job!

8. I've discovered a place in our house that gets good light for pictures at certain times in the day! I love it when I get a picture that really shows the sparkle in their eyes. Yay!

9. I forgot to mention that a couple of weeks ago Paul and I had our dentist appointment with the new dentist. The downside was that they have a policy that adults have to make a separate appointment (just the very first time) for the cleaning so we will be returning there next week, but the upside was that this dentist did NOT agree with me having any more gum grafting procedures. WOW was that welcome news to my ears!

10. I was starting to get concerned that there wouldn't be any good deals for Christmas cards this year, but within the past week I've ordered 30 cards from Shutterfly (with three separate coupons). I've also finally gotten started on some Christmas and birthday shopping although I need to keep the momentum going with that because there really isn't a lot of time left!