Happy Thanksgiving!

Tonight I'm thankful...

1. That nine kids (everyone except for the 2 month old, Micah) had a lot of fun playing in the 6 inches of snow we got. Nadia and Jenna spent the most time in the snow as they spent several hours building a fort yesterday.

2. While we were out in the snow this morning, my parents arrived at our house! They left their house a little after 5am to join in the fun, and since we already had 14 people sleeping in our house, they are spending the night at a hotel tonight.

3. Although not every new recipe I tried was a success (the baked pumpkin pudding went down the garbage disposal because no one liked it), the caramel apple pie recipe from Pioneer Woman, the pineapple sweet potato casserole, and the rolls from Money Saving Mom were all tasty.

4. Nadia and Jenna had such a sweet time together. They did crafts together, and one of those crafts involved making little pictures that they hung by strings to tell the story of the first Thanksgiving. I love to see
their cooperation and creativity! It was 100% their idea, and everyone enjoyed watching their "show" shortly before the younger ones started to go to bed this evening.

5. I was able to trade a couple of Shutterfly promo codes for 8x8 books I couldn't use for two that I could use on a Facebook page yesterday!

6. Julianna hasn't been pulling Oliver's hair! He has tattled on her some, but the "offenses" (taking something from him, pushing him, etc.) have been much less painful than the last time we were together!

7. That we have a dishwasher. I have put it to work far more than we usually do this week!

8. That Ian (eventually) ate some of everything that was served at dinner. This was a BIG improvement over last Thanksgiving. Oliver loved the stuffing and turkey. Nadia's favorite part, as always, was the cranberry sauce.

Thankful Tuesday

1. Paul picked up a free Schwan's pie today from our State Farm agent. She was giving them away to anyone who stopped in today. I plan to make another pie tomorrow so we'll have enough for Thursday.

2. We had dinner at Cracker Barrel tonight using a gift card we were given almost a year ago. It's always nice to have a night off from cooking!

3. Nadia was inspired to write a list of things she is thankful for today, and aside from asking me how to spell a few words, she did it all on her own. Her list included 30 different things or people!

4. Shutterfly posted a coupon code today for a free 8x11 calendar!

5. My sister and her husband and seven kids arrived at our house this evening! They had planned to come tomorrow night, but in light of the snow we're supposed to get tomorrow, they came a day earlier than expected, which is fine with us! They hadn't been to our house in almost five years. They would have come up here in the summer of 2012 but didn't because I was in the hospital most of the time they were in the US. Joel is sleeping in Ian's room, Julianna and Jenna are sleeping in Nadia's room, and the other six members of their family are sleeping on the main floor of our house (we have two queen size sofa beds down there plus Nathan is on an air mattress and Micah is in his car seat). We are looking forward to spending the next three days with them (two days at our house and one day at Hersheypark).

6. Oliver woke up at 5:50am, which I deemed too early so I didn't get him right away. Lately he has not been going back to sleep when this happens, but he DID go back to sleep pretty quickly this morning, and he slept until 7:20! WOOHOO! Ian came into our room at 6am, but he fell back asleep in bed with us. I am up by 6:15 almost every day so it was nice to stay in bed until 7:00 this morning.

7. I found out today that our church is going to offer a gym class for homeschoolers on Fridays from 10:00-11:30 during the months of January and February! I signed Ian and Nadia up for the class. They'll have three weeks of basketball (taught by a coach from Bucknell), three weeks of volleyball, one week of dodgeball, one week of pickleball (I have NO idea what that is), and one week of self defense taught by a jujitsu teacher. It only costs $25 for nine weeks of a ninety minute class!

Play Date!

A month ago I invited a couple of ladies from the Bible study over to our house for lunch. We were scheduled to get together two weeks ago, but it had to be rescheduled due to illness. Today Nikki and Melanie came over with their three boys (two four year olds and a 16 month old). Melanie's son, Ben, is exactly two days younger than Ian. The six kids had fun playing together, and we three moms enjoyed chatting and getting to know each other a little better. They spent about 2 1/2 hours with us. Nadia and the moms sat at the kitchen table, and the boys sat at our little white child sized table.

1. I am very thankful for the adult conversation I was able to have today, and I am hopeful that Nikki, Melanie, and I will get together again in the future. Nikki plans to homeschool her children, and her husband teaches at Bucknell. Melanie and her husband (who is a doctor) are currently pursuing domestic infant adoption. Melanie is also a die hard Steeler fan. Melanie was a social worker and Nikki was a physical therapist. All of us are currently stay-at-home moms.

2. Today Paul was invited to participate in a phone interview tomorrow! It's the first invitation for a tenure track position for August 2015. Paul is none too thrilled that the university is in Kansas, but I think it can't hurt to do the phone interview. Hopefully he'll start getting invitations for more phone interviews!

3. The weather was GORGEOUS today. It was in the 70's, which is very warm for late November in PA. We took advantage of the balmy weather and walked to the playground this afternoon. Ironically, it's supposed to snow in 2 days!

4. A few months ago we ordered some Auntie Anne pretzel bites from a neighbor doing a fundraiser. The kit included a packet of cinnamon sugar. It was more than we needed for the pretzels, but it reminded me of a treat I hadn't had in decades - cinnamon sugar toast. It was fun to share that simple delicacy with Nadia for the first time.

5. This evening Nadia came up to me while I was getting Oliver ready for bed and she said, "Mommy I want to start doing the gramercy thing. I want to start writing down five things I am thankful for every day." This was music to my ears, especially because it means she's been listening during the worship service at church because I didn't talk with her about it. She's not too young to start counting her blessings!

Wrapping skills

Nadia has been helping me with wrapping birthday and Christmas presents for her cousins. As with most things with young children, her "help" actually means it takes longer to accomplish the task, but she is getting practice with cutting wrapping paper and using tape to seal it up. Wrapping presents is actually not one of my favorite things to do, and that is the main perk of doing it with her. She thinks it's a BLAST, and her joy is contagious. Today our pastor wrapped up his three sermon series on gratitude. In that he showed a funny little video about a "complaint zapper." (It doesn't cost anything to watch the video on that page.) Probably all of us would get zapped more often than we think we would if we worse such a device.  This evening in the Thanksgiving service one sentence really jumped out at me. "If you become accustomed to your blessings, you will not be satisfied." He said if the stars only shone one night a year, we would stay up all night to enjoy them, but often we pay no attention to them because we're used to seeing them all the time. May I never take my blessings for granted!

1. I really enjoyed the Thanksgiving service this evening with Nadia and Ian. Nadia was the first child to go up to the microphone to share something she is thankful for. She said she is thankful for her Mommy, Daddy, and her brothers. AMEN! Almost everyone shared at least one thing, wrote it down on a small piece of paper, and attached it to one of many nails on a cross at the front of the room. We also sang songs and many scriptures on the topic of "giving thanks" were read by many individuals.

2. Oliver didn't have any accidents today, and he also stayed dry overnight last night!

3. We've been studying the states in the order they joined the union. The fourth was Georgia, and in honor of that state I made some peach crisp this evening. Yum! Three cheers for the "peach state."

4. Oliver has amazing manners. We've all been taken aback how lately he always says "no thanks" or "no, thank you" rather than just saying "no." Way to go, Oliver!

5. Although they do a lot of whining and complaining (we're working on that!), they also show excitement over little things in life. Nadia was very excited that she lost her fourth tooth this evening! It was the first tooth she lost from her top jaw. She still has two wiggly teeth, so the tooth fairy isn't done visiting our house! She lost her first two teeth in Maryland last December at Grandma's house, and now this fall she's lost her next two teeth at church. Maybe she'll lose her fifth tooth at our house? Ian has been trying to wiggle his teeth. He definitely wants to join in on the excitement of losing teeth, but none of his teeth are actually wiggly yet.

Ten Thanks

1. Although I still have a cough and need a lot of tissues, my energy level has returned to normal, my fever is gone, and my throat isn't sore. YAHOO! I was particularly appreciative that my energy has returned because Oliver decided to wake up at 5:22 this morning (and he didn't go back to sleep).

2. Nadia, Ian and Paul had fun playing "whacky golf" in our church's gym last night.

3. Nadia and Ian enjoyed a program at the public library this afternoon. They each received a free book and made two crafts. Ian cannot wait until the corn husk doll dries so he can glue "hair" (corn silk) on it.

4. Ian ate his dinner tonight! He didn't eat the chicken corn soup last night (finally ate it around 10:00 this morning), but he learned his lesson and ate it within 45 minutes this evening. Oliver of course loved it. One of these days Ian and Nadia will start liking SOME sort of stew or soup. I hope anyhow!

5. We had a fun lunch trying some colonial recipes. Nadia made popovers (the American Girl cookbook called them "Breakfast Puffs"), and she also helped me make hasty pudding. I made the "dressed eggs". Oliver and I were the only ones who ate our hasty pudding. Nadia and Ian each took a few bites and decided they weren't fans of it. Nadia, Paul, and I all enjoyed our dressed eggs. Paul didn't think he'd like them because he doesn't like cinnamon, but he learned that he likes nutmeg (which was the spice used, not cinnamon). Everyone except Paul enjoyed the popovers with some apple butter. I don't cook every recipe that is suggested in our curriculum, but we do some of them!

6. I got some GREAT deals at CVS today. Almost everything was free (about $30 worth of stuff - just based on the sale prices not the original prices) because they are giving you extra bucks that equal the cost of the items plus I had a couple of coupons. If you have a CVS near you, I recommend going there this week!

7. Paul was able to fix the vacuum cleaner (that has been broken for a couple of weeks). He got it running again, but he says it's on its last legs. One part that needs replaced costs over $100 so it seems wiser to just buy a new vacuum cleaner. We've had this one for 13 years. I was thankful though to be able to vacuum all the carpets today! I've heard good things about Dyson vacuums. I would appreciate any feedback anyone has on those!

8. My parents made it back safely to MD today.

9. My brother took the GRE this morning, and he earned a perfect score on the verbal section!!!

10. I found out today that we were given an extra "exchange" through our time share! It has to be used in the next couple of months so we are thinking of going somewhere within driving distance in early January. An exchange means you pay $200 (or less) for seven nights at a resort. Of course my first instinct was to say let's go to the Caribbean, but the airfare wouldn't be a bargain. An unexpected vacation will be wonderful, especially if we can work it out so a couple of those days are a getaway for JUST Paul and I. :) Maybe we'll go snow skiing for a day!

Ice Skating!

Oliver wore ice skates for the first time in his life today. Unfortunately the smallest size skates the rink had was toddler size 8, and he currently wears toddler size 6 so they were definitely too big for him. That coupled with the fact that I was trying to help all three kids skate, led to me taking Oliver off the ice skating rink and passing him to some moms who weren't skating. He colored most of the time. I lasted for about 90 minutes. My back was hurting from bending over pushing the kids around the ice rink, and my ankles were hurting in part because I made the wrong choice of skates. Next time I'll pick the ice hockey kind rather than the figure skating ones, and next time I won't pay for Oliver to skate. There were about twenty homeschooling parents and kids there, but only three adults were skating (another mom and one dad). The other moms stayed in the warm room where the fire was blazing. Ian lasted 15 minutes longer than I did, and Nadia skated for two hours. She probably would have kept skating (the session lasted for 2.5 hours), but I thought we should leave at 1:30 in light of Oliver's nap and my dentist appointment. The rink is 30 minutes from our house. I think in January I'll have Nadia and Ian take a session of ice skating lessons so that they can both skate without holding on to a "walker" (or whatever those things are called). This would mean breaking my "rule" that Nadia can't be involved in more than two "sports" at the same time (the reason I told her she couldn't do ballet/tap this year) because she's already scheduled to be in gymnastics and Upward basketball in the winter.

I am thankful that (#1) we could go ice skating (the cost was $4 per person and that included the cost of the skate rental), (#2) other parents helped watch Oliver since he didn't last long on the ice, (#3) hopefully today was Paul's mom's last chemo treatment (she'll have a scan next month and a bone marrow biopsy in January which will determine whether her treatments are really over or not), (#4) I am starting to feel a little better (on Tuesday night Paul tried to talk me into going to a doctor), and (#5) I've enjoyed learning more about Milton Hershey this week. I had no idea that he had built the amusement park for the workers in his factory! Reading about chocolate inspired us to make some chocolate chip cookies this evening. YUM!

Gramercy

Our pastor titled his three week series on gratitude with the archaic word "gramercy." Today I am thankful for #1 Paul bringing home pizza for dinner. Out of the blue this morning while I was doing school work with Nadia, Oliver came up to me and said "Daddy get pizza." to which Nadia and Ian immediately chimed in with similar requests. It is the first time I ever remember Oliver putting in a request as to what we were going to eat for dinner, and I was impressed that he realized the way we would have it would be if Daddy brought it home. So later I called Paul and asked him if he could bring home pizza, and he was happy to do so. All five of us love pizza!

#2 My parents made it safely to Chicago yesterday.

#3 Ian is REALLY taking off with his reading. I need to take a new video. He absolutely knocked my socks off this week as I had him start reading the second volume of the Level 1 reader (All About Reading), and he is doing a fabulous job. He read some for Paul this evening, and Paul was also thrilled. Way to go, Ian!!!

#4 I am so thankful for the many miracles that Oliver represents - overcoming placenta previa, fetal anemia, and being born 9 weeks early. Today I finally got around to looking up the IVF data for 2012 for the clinic we used. That year they did 142 IVF cycles, and 20 of those cycles were with fresh embryos from non-donor eggs of women who were between 38-40 years old. I was in that group, as I was 39 when the egg retrieval was done. Of those 20 cycles, 2 were cancelled prior to egg retrieval, 4 retrievals didn't make it to embryo transfer, and 12 embryo transfers did not result in a pregnancy. I was one of two women (out of 20) in that age range who did IVF at that clinic that year and ended up with a baby in her arms. 90% of the women didn't end up with a baby. Wow. Thank you, Lord!

#5 For the first 2+ months of the semester, Paul was getting up very early on MWF (sometimes before 5am and usually by 5:15). He has been staying in bed until at least 6am the last couple of weeks, and I greatly appreciate this. Now if we could just get Ian to sleep through the night again!

$2 Tuesday

Today we headed back to the Children's Museum. If we end up staying in the area, I am going to buy an annual membership because they do many special activities each month including neat activities every other week for homeschoolers, but for now we'll stick with going once a month, as it only costs $6 for the four of us to go on $2 Tuesdays. Although the museum doesn't plan for this to be a day for homeschoolers, many of the moms and kids who come are in fact homeschoolers so the kids had fun playing with the other children, especially in the little old fashioned school room. Different ones took turns playing the role of the teacher. Ian liked putting wood in the stove, and he wore a dinosaur costume for about two hours. Nadia enjoyed an art activity at the end that involved painting with marbles. The kids wanted to stay longer, but I only let them stay for three hours because Oliver needed a nap (his nap was much later and much shorter than usual due to our field trip, but I figured some nap was better than none at all).

Today I am thankful (#1) for our time at the Children's Museum, (#2) that the Steelers won last night, (#3) that I was able to get a good start on wrapping presents as I wrapped for two hours during the game last night, and (#4) that Oliver isn't having any peeing accidents any more (while he's awake) and it's no big deal for him to go on any toilet now. It was SUCH a relief not to need to bring the froggy potty to the Children's Museum like I did last month! Now I need to get him to stop pooping in his underwear! (#5)Yesterday I bought a pecan pie that had been marked down to $3 at the grocery store. Nadia, Oliver, and I devoured the pie over the past two days, and we three loved it. I rarely have pecan pie, and it's one of my most favorite desserts. Yum!

Are you ready?

About 25 years ago they started playing the "Are you ready for some football" song at the start of Monday night football games. I don't think they'll be playing that song tonight, but I will be watching at least part of the game tonight. I am still sick. If you don't count visits to REs or pregnancy related appointments, I've hardly gone to the doctor at all over the last 18 years. If I am sick, I usually just tough it out, in part because I assume most of the time it's viral and going to a doctor really isn't going to help anyhow. I was on antibiotics SO much during the first 20 years of my life that I have really tried to avoid them the past 20 years, but I have now been sick for 16 days, and I am starting to wonder if I should call for a doctor appointment. I'm definitely tired of having a sore throat, fever, cough, and runny nose. All I've used so far are LOTS of tissues and LOTS of cough drops and a few times I've taken some Tylenol. It's hard to have a sore throat considering how much I read to the kids, and it also has made singing in choir rather painful (and my voice doesn't sound the same as it usually does when I sing). Anyhow my way of preparing

for tonight's game was to go to bed at 8pm last night right after I tucked the kids into their beds. I was hoping that staying in bed for 10 hours last night would help me have enough energy to watch at least the first half of tonight's game. My other way of preparing for the game was to dress the kids and myself in Steelers attire. Ian didn't want to wear a Steelers shirt today (boo hoo), but Nadia and Oliver cooperated. Hopefully they will win tonight! I plan to start wrapping some Christmas and birthday gifts during the game as my way of doing inventory so I know whom I still need to buy gifts for (I know I still have a long way to go).

(1) On a cold rainy day I am thankful to be in a dry, warm house. (2) While watching the two bigger kids struggling to eat chicken and dumplings on Friday and Saturday, I was again reminded of how thankful I am that Oliver is such a great eater, as he shoveled what the others deemed offensive into his mouth and asked for seconds. (3) Even though I don't feel terrific at the moment, my illness is very minor. I am thankful that all five of us have been enjoying good health. (4) I've gone eleven years without being in car accident. Now that I usually have three precious little ones in the van with me, I am especially grateful for safety on the roads. (5) I'm ever so grateful for the privilege to be a stay-at-home homeschooling mom. There are times I miss being a professor, but my heart's desire is to invest my life in Nadia, Ian, and Oliver!

Indescribable

The kid's choir sang "Indescribable" this morning, and Grandma and Pop Pop came up to the second service to hear them! Ian has made SO much progress this year with singing in a choir. At our previous church he wouldn't even go up on the platform at first, but today he was singing, smiling, and doing some of the motions! In two years Oliver will get to join the choir if we still live in this area. It was great to see Paul's parents one more time before she goes in "hibernation" following her chemo treatment this Thursday.

Today I'm thankful (#1) that they can sing in a choir, (#2) for all who fought (thinking of Veteran's Day) for our freedoms, including the freedom of religion, (#3) for how much Paul's parents love our kids, (#4) that Oliver didn't have any accidents yesterday or today (and he used a public toilet for the first time today at church), and (#5) for a husband who helps me out such as running to the grocery store for ricotta cheese at 7am so that we could eat stuffed shells at 1pm when we got home from church.

I recorded them in both services. I'm embedding the second service below. Here's a link to the first service.