Thankful Tuesday

1. The boys enjoyed a program on flying (building airplanes) at the library on Thursday night after gymnastics while Nadia was at soccer practice.

2. My mom had the excellent idea to post about FREE apples on the FB yardsale pages I have been selling things on lately, and some people did come and take some apples. Progress.

3. Ian had it in his mind that he could only read his textbook, but last week he discovered he really enjoys reading Frog and Toad books. I am very pleased with his progress! We got more Frog and Toad books from the library last night for him to read along with Boxcar Children and American Girl books for Nadia. I need to take a video of Ian reading this week. He's also cruising through the first grade math book and first grade spelling book. I'm proud of my five-year-old! School work takes on average 90 minutes for him each day and includes math, science, reading, handwriting, spelling, and drawing (now that he's finished the cutting book we have switched to drawing).

4. Oliver really has turned a corner with potty training. I rarely have to remind him to go these days. Usually he is the one saying he has to go, and many times he wipes himself after he goes #2. I can even let him have a TINY drink before bed because he's been staying dry for 11-11.5 hours even when he takes a little drink. Whew. What a relief! Now to work on not using an absurd amount of toilet paper....

5. Nadia was able to Skype with Uncle Maurice last week when she was studying Brazil since he had recently lived there for three years. She asked him a lot of questions. We told him we were making brigadeiros and he suggested we also make pao de queijo (cheese puffs) but first I need to buy some tapioca flour. Nadia absolutely LOVED the brigadeiros (chocolate fudge truffles). She has asked that I make those again in the future.

6. I picked up pizza on the way home from church on Sunday. We hadn't bought pizza in more than six weeks, as we are trying to only eat out or get take-out once a month. It was very tasty!

7. Nadia sang a duet in both services on Sunday morning with the kids' choir. She needs to work on smiling more when singing (like she used to when she was four years old), but I was proud of her because there are many seven year olds who would be too nervous to sing in front of 1,500 people.

8. Oliver didn't take a nap on Saturday, but this was the first time in a few weeks that I put him in his room and he didn't fall asleep. I am grateful that almost every day he sleeps from 1-3pm.

9. On Sunday I asked Paul to bring up the Wii from the basement. We had never let the kids use it, and I thought it was time to introduce it to them and let them choose each day either to have an iPad turn or to use the Wii. We only have three Wii games right now, but I thought it might be a good idea to put Wii games and two more remotes on their Christmas wish lists. Can you believe it's only two months until Christmas? If you have any suggestions for Wii games that are good for 6-8 year olds, I am all ears!

10. The Steelers won on Sunday even though we were down to our third string quarterback who had never played one minute in the NFL before. He did a great job! We also are on our fourth kicker for the season, and our new kicker is MUCH better than the one we had the first few weeks. Our starting QB will hopefully be back soon. Yay!

11. On Thursday one of the springs on my garage door broke. The van was trapped in the garage. Paul was able to come home earlier than usual from work so I could get the boys to their make-up

gymnastics class (Nadia and Ian had make-up soccer games last Monday and Tuesday which meant we had to make-up their gymnastics classes). I am thankful that Paul was able to get the door open once to get the van out (took him about an hour to accomplish that). I am thankful for his mechanical skills. He is hoping to order the part this week from a dealer. Since the weather was really cold the last few days there has even been ice on the windshield in the morning. This has made me really appreciate that normally the van is in the garage and never gets that cold. I am also thankful that it's supposed to get up to the 70's this week. Hopefully the garage door will be fixed before the next cold snap.

12. I'm thankful that for 3 months (plus 2 weeks) I was able to run 3-4 times a week. I haven't run since Wednesday, and that day I only had 30 minutes to run so I couldn't do my usual 4-6 miles. I miss it, but this week and next week the only days I can run are on Saturday or Sunday. I know I will be taking off a few months during the winter, but I'm

hoping to still run some through November. I'd like to run seven miles once before I take a break until the weather starts to warm back up again.

13. Nadia has been doing really well with her math lately - rounding to the nearest ten and regrouping with two digit addition. She also has made a lot of progress with learning to identify 17 of the North American countries on a map and all of the countries of South America (fewer number to learn for that continent). I took a little video today of her working on North America.

14. This morning we are going on a field trip put on cooperatively by three fire departments that will include showing water rescue equipment (we live near the Susquehanna River). We have three field trips planned for this week, which pleases Nadia immensely.

15. The leaves are starting to turn and are looking so beautiful! I always love to get my camera out and take pics of the kids when the leaves are turning.

16. Paul's dad started driving to Georgia last Tuesday, and he made it back safely on Sunday.

17. Nadia finished her third Sparks AWANA book last week. She has started the extra credit book. I am not sure what they are going to have her do after she finishes that as AWANA goes through May and this is only October! Ian said five verses last Wednesday night which was a record for him. He now is trying to do five sections a week (Nadia's speed is motivating him to step it up a notch). I'm grateful that three-year-olds only need to learn one verse a week to finish their book because that is enough of a challenge for Oliver.

18. Oliver has really developed with his prayers lately. He used to say the same thing almost every time. Now he says different things each time and is praying longer prayers. Sometimes the other two kids take issue with what he thanks God for (ex. "my feet"), but then I am quick to defend Oliver because I am very thankful we each have two feet!