Thankful Thursday

1. Although Ian enjoys reading, he enjoys playing with Legos, drawing, and such even more so he rarely chooses to read "just for fun." Well he finally found a series he likes SO much, he will actually read them for leisure - Nathan Hale's Hazardous Tales. They are graphic novels. Paul was impressed with the knowledge Ian gleaned from reading the one about the ironclads used in the Civil War.

2. Last Friday Uncle Joe plus six of their children spent about 7 hours at our house. Jenna, Nadia, Andrew, Uncle Joe, and I played Rummikub, Monopoly, Racko, Cranium, and Quirkle together. The kids always love to spend time with their cousins!

3. Ian had his first basketball practice last Saturday. Our music pastor's son is on Ian's team again. They were on the same basketball team when Ian was in Kindergarten. Nadia had her second basketball practice on Saturday. I'm thankful for all the volunteers who make the Upward program possible. Paul went in to work a bit later than usual that Saturday morning, which meant he was able to drop Ian and Nadia off at the church at 9 am on his way to work. Oliver was sick, and so this meant he and I only had to make one trip at 11 am to pick them up. I took down the tree and other Christmas decorations while they were at basketball practice on Saturday morning.

4. My dad failed a stress test last week. He needs to have quadruple or quintuple bypass open heart surgery. I am thankful the problem was discovered before he had a heart attack or any other type of significant cardiac event. We're praying that the surgery on January 14 and his recovery will go as smoothly as possible.

5. Paul isn't generally around when we're enjoying a chapter book together, but sometimes he is and he's not really fond of the particular book. Recently we listened to A Long Way from Chicago, and Paul laughed his head off quite a bit during the chapters that he listened to with us.

6. Ian has begun to play the piano by ear a little bit! He was trying to play some Christmas carols by ear.

7. The kids enjoyed decorating their gingerbread house, train, and castle on Monday.

8. Aside from Oliver throwing up around 8:00pm while we were there, the kids and I had had a nice time ice skating on Tuesday night. It was VERY crowded so I didn't bring my camera in, but the upside of that was I wasn't nervous about falling while ice skating (pics are from my cell phone). The free party included a hot dog, bag of chips, bottle of water, cookies, donuts, and cupcakes. Nadia had a dolphin painted on her face.

9. The kids and I enjoyed seeing a movie yesterday. Nadia and I loved "Little Women" albeit I cried a little, and the boys enjoyed "Spies in Disguise." I think I'm going to reread Little Women, Little Men, etc. I used a $5 gift card from Kellogg's, a $10 gift card from Microsoft, the last $5 from a gift card Grandpa and Margie gave Oliver in August, and $18 concession cash from Kellogg's toward our snacks. Because we didn't go to a matinee I had to pay $1.91 toward my ticket, and I paid $11 for 2 large popcorns, 1 slushie, and 1 large drink. We saw three movies from November 23 to January 1 and had popcorn and drinks at each movie. Altogether I spent less than $13 for the four of us to see three movies thanks to coupons and gift cards. Since we were watching movies that started at 4:10/4:30, we stopped at a DD on the way there and used a gift card Oliver received for Christmas to buy four breakfast sandwiches as our dinner. We also got 6 donuts for breakfast this morning in honor of Paul's 50th birthday (tomorrow).

10. I received an email from Audible saying if we finish three books before March 3 we will receive a $20 credit to Amazon. Nice! We had been listening to books on Overdrive and Hoopla, but we started Strawberry Girl today, which was in my library on Audible.

11. I got a haircut today. I have switched to getting it done once every four months. It's shorter, which I like better even though Nadia always objects every time I get it cut.

12. I used Christmas money I was given by Paul's parents and my Aunt to buy a table pad for the kitchen table and for the second leaf for the dining room table. Hopefully these will help keep the tables in good shape and enable us to seat more people at the dining room table when we have company.

13. Paul took Nadia to the roller skating rink this evening.

14. We got 2 large pizzas today. We usually get one, but because Paul's birthday is tomorrow I got two so that we would be able to enjoy pizza two nights in a row as pizza is one of Paul's most favorite foods. I also made him Heath bar cookies today, which is one of his favorite desserts.

15. Oliver's appetite is finally returning. Today was the first day I didn't give him any medicine. I wanted to be sure he was healthy before we got together again with Grandma. I'm very thankful that none of the rest of us caught his bug.

16. I contacted the company that manufactures the swing I bought for Nadia in June (which ripped after only being used for 3 months), and there is a 1 year warranty so they are shipping us a replacement! Hopefully the new one will last longer than 3 months.