Thankful Thursday

1. As of yesterday, we all seemed to be healthy again after at least some of us being sick for six days. Yahoo!

2. Sears reimbursed us over $100 on Monday for the expenses we incurred last month due to the oil change they botched in November.

3. Even though the outcome didn't change our seeding in the playoffs, both the Giants and the Steelers won on Sunday. Now to see how our teams will fare in the Playoffs on Sunday.

4. In light of the fact we are still waiting to get together with Paul's family to exchange Christmas presents (many tears were shed yesterday by Nadia and Ian over the plans being delayed yet again), I am very thankful they were willing to send the cage they bought home with Paul on the 28th. Yesterday I let the kids hold the cavies for the first time. We were trying to give the skittish creatures time to acclimate to their new environment a little. Jenna (Nadia's) did much better than Patches (Ian's). Patches looked like she would escape from his arms if given the chance.

Letting them hold their pets helped cheer them up over the news that they needed to wait a few more days. They both have come to the conclusion they aren't actually getting any gifts from Paul's side of the family. Well they are being given an opportunity to learn patience. They had counted down the days until Christmas for so long it's been very hard for them to wait two more weeks, but this too shall pass. Oliver is oblivious. The child truly is not materialistic At All thus far. He got his potato soup and some peanut butter cups. He's satisfied. While they held their pets, I cleaned out the cage and replaced the bedding. Once we have used all the bedding I purchased at the pet store, I am going to switch to using quilts on the bottom of the cage instead - think cloth vs. disposable dipaer, ha ha! I would rather launder than create all that extra garbage once a week, and it will also save a lot of $$ over the next 5+ years if I don't need to buy bedding for

their cage. They actually like the little home I made out of a shoe box better than the tunnel I bought at the pet store. I am going to let the kids hold them every day, and hopefully in time they will stop running away from us when we go to get them out of the cage.

5. Nadia's basketball coach asked each player on Tuesday to share what their favorite Christmas gift was. Nadia said her guinea pig. She said all the other kids mentioned an electronic gadget of some sort (the kids on her team are either in 2nd or 3rd grade). I didn't get them any Wii games or any DVDs or anything related to electronics this year, and that doesn't bother me one iota. I'm happy they love their pets. When they opened their gifts from us on December 24, the gifts that got the biggest reaction were the Lego sets (one for Ian and one for Nadia). I have a love/hate relationship with Ian and his Legos. They love to build their sets and can do that in a very short amount of time. Ian plays with the thing he built for a day or two, and then it's put off to the side never to be played with

again aside from the mini-figures. Nadia only has a few sets, and she keeps hers built and does play with them for months. I wish there weren't so many specialized pieces for the different sets. We own thousands and thousands of legos. And 99% of the Legos we own are never used. And yet we keep buying them more sets. I think in the future I'll just stick with buying Ian only mini-figures unless he starts actually using the Legos to build more things. On the other hand, they didn't seem happy *at all* when they opened the packages that contained wooden blocks. I bought them on the day Amazon had it's annual Melissa and Doug sale (which was really awesome this year because it was 50% off PLUS on top of that buy 2 get 1 free...I bought 6 different toys for about $40 total). I bought the blocks because the past several months they have been building All The Time with the two bigger sets of Melissa and Doug wooden blocks. I thought they might enjoy having some different shape, color, and size blocks to add to their collection. Seeing their facial reaction when they opened the gifts, I thought I was

wrong, but truth be told, over the past week they have spent a lot more time playing with these wooden blocks than the new Legos.  I am thankful they like them even though our family room carpet is hard to walk on.

6. At the mall on Monday we passed by a toy store that had everything 50% off. Ian picked out another Mario stuffed animal. He had enough money to buy it between money he got from the dentist in exchange for Halloween candy and money he got from his grandparents. Let me tell you that boy loves his Mario stuffed animals (as seen in the photo above). He carries them throughout the house all day long and sleeps on top of them in his bed at night. The newest one (the bomb) also sits in a highchair at the kitchen table next to him at every meal. Nadia selected a figurine set from Moana. It was more expensive than what Ian picked, and she didn't have enough money. However she is industrious and willing to do whatever extra chores possible to earn the money. Yesterday I gave her $2 for doing some vacuuming, organizing the Tupperware cabinet, and helping me clean the shelves of the refrigerator. Now I need to come up with a way for her to earn the last $4. She definitely is my most helpful child.

7. I really enjoyed choir rehearsal last night because it had been more than a month since I had been in one between us having some weeks off due to holidays, me missing one to take the kids to a concert, and me missing one due to attending the membership class at church. I had trouble coming home because Paul's car wasn't working properly. I tried calling him for 15 minutes, and he never answered his phone. I called a neighbor who came over and rang the doorbell and told Paul I was trying to call him. Paul almost always leaves his phone in silent mode so it's generally very hard to reach him on the phone. Just as Paul was bundling the kids up to drive to the church and come get me, I got the car started (25 minutes after I started trying to leave). I was very thankful it finally

started working properly, and I am hoping this doesn't mean there's something seriously wrong with the car. It has over 120,000 miles on it, and usually we have traded in vehicles before the mileage got that high, but we don't have the money right now to trade in his car so hopefully it will keep working. I know Toyotas are supposed to last a lot longer than 120K. I'm thankful Paul didn't have to come get me, and I'm thankful I have the phone number of a neighbor and that they are willing to come over and ring the

doorbell when I can't reach Paul on the phone.

8. Yesterday I received the newsletter from the state park where we attend programs. It was fun to select which programs I'd take the kids to over the next few months. The naturalist who has worked there for 20 years is retiring in June, and because it's a government job (red tape galore) it will be at least 18 months until she is replaced (insert sad face here). So I want to seize the moment while we

can because it will be awhile until we're up there again for a field trip after she retires. She does many programs for homeschoolers - programs for different ages (4-18). When I was selecting programs, I noticed on several occasions I already had another field trip scheduled for that day/time. It's a nice problem to have choices in which field trip to pick for a certain day! Hopefully I made good choices. I didn't have any field trips planned for this week, but I did have two outings planned for the kids -

roller skating yesterday and skiing today. Neither one actually happened. The roller skating rink closest to us is free to skate on Wednesday nights (just pay for skate rental), but usually the kids are at church on Wednesday night. Since they didn't have AWANA this week I thought it was the perfect time to go roller skating. I had taken the three kids by myself last summer, and it was a challenge to have 3 kids who can't roller skate with one adult (and no things to hold on to like they have at the ice skating rink). I thought with two adults it would work out much better, but the skating started at 5:00, and Paul couldn't come home that early from work. The upside is that their ice skating lessons are starting today. I thought they'd be missing their first ice skating lesson because a couple of months ago we made plans to go skiing (Paul, myself, Nadia, and Ian) today as we got 4 free lift tickets and rentals through a membership I purchased with a local PBS station. Once the kids are older I'll be able to take them myself, but since they've never skied I didn't feel comfortable taking 2 or 3 kids skiing by myself (not to mention it's been more than 15 years since I skied). Paul couldn't take the day off because they are going on a business trip in Baltimore next week. They always go to Baltimore in early January so this will always be a problem for this ski trip (until the kids are good enough skiers that I feel safe taking all of them by myself). Thankfully we have plans to go skiing with my dad next month (with free passes again). I have been looking forward to taking the kids skiing (have had plans that fell through in years past), and maybe 2017 will still be the year it happens.