Thankful Thursday

1. Nadia and Oliver loved playing in the snow last Thursday.

2. I appreciated that my parents planned to come to be with us for a few hours on Ian's birthday. The snow interrupted those plans, but it was very sweet of them to be willing to make the 7 hour round trip drive on his behalf!

3. I am VERY thankful for Ian Alexander! What a delight he has been the past five years!

4. We enjoyed the Christkindl Market on Friday evening as well as meeting Santa at our local grocery store.

5. Nadia and Ian enjoyed going with Paul to Lowe's to build train engines on Saturday morning (it was the nicest project they had ever done there), to our church to see the 3 hour long musical Narnia on Saturday afternoon (Paul's parents met them there), and to the Frozen singalong on Saturday night. That was a jam packed day! Over 4,000 people came to see Narnia at our church last week!

6. It was so nice to have Paul's brother, sister-in-law, and parents come up to celebrate Ian's birthday on Sunday afternoon. He loves all the presents they gave him, and the cake Millie made was delicious as usual!

7. We all enjoyed the Polar Express train ride on Sunday night.

8. The kids are generally healthy, which means the only time we usually take them to the doctor is for their annual physicals. PTL!

9. Although he has more accidents than I wish he would at this stage (like one at church last night), Oliver continues to make progress with his potty training. He now is telling me more often when he has to go potty, he went potty for one of his teachers at church, and he can take off his pants and underwear and climb onto the toilet himself now! His diaper stays dry overnight about once a week, and it stays dry during his nap about four times a week on average. He goes through 5-6 diapers a week these days.

He was SO proud that he finished the puzzle! YAY!

10. Both of our teams won their games the last two Sundays. It would be awesome if that trend continued for the last two games of the season! The Giants don't have a chance to make it to the playoffs, but the Steelers could still win the division or be a wild card, if they keep playing well. Neither of our teams made it to the playoffs the last two years. We need that drought to end!

11. The soloist did a beautiful job singing "O Holy Night" on Sunday morning. Gorgeous!!!

12. The kids had a great time at the Children's Museum on Tuesday. The pictures of the kids holding crafts in this post were crafts they made at the museum.

13. Oliver and I went to CVS on Saturday night. I paid a total of $2.05 for 8 boxes of cereal, five 2 liters of Pepsi, and two bags of Hershey's candy (the Kisses were used in baking cookies that night). Before coupons and sale prices my total would have been $55.06!

14. Oliver slept past 7:00 on Monday and Tuesday morning. Ian was up bright and early on Monday morning (before 6am), but he went back to sleep in our bed. On Tuesday morning Ian slept until 7:00. Yahoo!

15. Paul gave his final exam yesterday. The end of the semester is definitely in sight now!

16. The homeschooling group has a "Mom's Night Out" once a month. I've never gone before, but I'm going tonight because they'e meeting at a restaurant a lot closer to our home. I'm looking forward to it!

17. After a lull in submitting job applications, I did three this morning and plan to do three more today (one in PA, one in GA, and four in FL). That will bring the total to 25 submitted for the 2015 job search. Hopefully in January he'll start getting invitations for phone interviews!