Thankfuls

Note: I have been basically recording our thankfuls, day-by-day, for almost a week now. Why hasn't there been a blog? Because I had no pictures, and the grandparents like pictures. Today I went out and took tons. In fact, this bunch will probably provide pictures for the next few blogs. Please, don't think my children only have 1 outfit... The pictures for today are part of a sequence of the twins playing in a pile of leaves. Enjoy!

November 3rd, We are Thankful For:

Allie: Big Kid Beds & Daddy

Ryan: Big Kid Beds & Daddy

So the twins are playing their new favorite game..."naptime"...they sit in their beds and make me turn out the lights and shut the door (while I'm in the room), and they pretend to nap. They start talking about their beds, and Allie says, "Daddy made this for me." Ryan says, "Yes. He is a good Daddy." and then they start saying, "Thank you, daddy! Thank you for my bed! Thank you for your are a good daddy!" I start to tell them that Daddy is at work, and can't hear them when we hear the door open! He surprised us by coming home early, and got to hear their thanks & praise in person!

Lucas: Good conversations.

Kim: Story time with the twins. We snuggled on the couch, under a homemade quilt, on a cloudy, gloomy day, and read book after book. Could life get any better?

November 4th, We are Thankful For:

Allie: Daddy's Races

Ryan: Chuggington Book (a $1 activity book from the Dollar Store that has been his constant companion since)

Lucas: A game we can play together. He bought us some new games. 1 of them being a cooperative game (Forbidden Island) that he found. If you don't know us well, there are 2 things that you need to know. 1) We LOVE to play games. Board games. Card Games. Word Games. Any game. 2) As my younger brother once said after spending an afternoon playing Settlers with us, "They need marriage counseling to play games together." We are both super competitive, and this makes for intense game playing...and intense winning and losing reactions. Basically, we haven't had a game yet where we didn't eventually need others for a buffer (thus our monthly game nights with friends). Lucas was convinced a cooperative game would solve this problem. I was convinced that we would hate a cooperative game (A game where everyone wins and no one loses? Is there a sense of victory without a loser?). We played. We had a lot of fun and didn't fight at all. We won, and it was a blast!

Kim: Time to read. The other day, Lucas asked me if I read anymore. "Yes," I replied. But the more I thought about it, the more I wondered if blogs and magazine articles could really be

considered "reading." Sure, they contain great information, and they are short enough to be easily read in whatever time I have during the day. But I was an English major. My heart is in great literary works. I decided to pick up one of the many books on our shelf that I wanted to read, but never have. I selected Dickens' David Copperfield. I love it. I'm in heaven. Now I need to work on not being a book glutton and actually getting some sleep. Because this book is 806

pages long. No matter how late I stay up, I'm not going to finish it in a day...(editors note: 15 minutes before finishing & publishing this post, I finished the book!!)

November 5th, We Are Thankful For:

Ryan & Allie: Truth be told, it was a busy day & I forgot to ask them. I tried asking the next day, but they couldn't remember the day before, and I didn't want to feed them answers & pick their thankfuls for them...so I got nothin'.

Kim: Good friends. Good food. Good conversation. A Good babysitter to make it all happen :)

Lucas: So...yeah...I forgot to ask him to...

November 6th, We Are Thankful For:

Allie & Ryan: Seahorse.

They have these seahorses. I'm sure you've seen them, we see them at almost every house with kids we go to! They love them. Allie's is her baby. She has plenty of actual baby dolls, but she gives them very little attention. But seahorse is fed, read to, cuddled, tucked in, carried around, cared for better than any baby ever. We went to a friend's house this afternoon, and Allie discovered that her friend had a seahorse just like hers! Her friend wasn't as attached, so Allie spent the whole time caring for her friend's seahorse. On the way home, I asked what they were thankful for and Allie said, "My seahorse. Not E's. Hers is not mise (mine). I thankful for mise." Ryan chimed in that he was thankful for his as well :)

Lucas: Spontaneous Adventures.

Kim: The aforementioned friends. Dear friends who, when I stand knock on their door and ask to join us on an adventure (completely spur of the moment & unplanned), invite us in and offer their house as the adventure. We had great conversation, enjoyed watching our kids play together, and thoroughly enjoyed our adventure. Can someone please help me convince these friends not to move?

November 7th, We Are Thankful For:

Ryan: Daddy

Allie: Gigi (with whom we were skyping when I asked. Allie is very "in-the-moment" with her thankfuls.)

Lucas: Study Time

Kim: My computer!!! $30, a new keyboard, and some help from our computer guru friend (mentioned in the previous day's thankfuls...yet another reason they cannot move!), and I have a working computer again. This blog post is the first thing which I am completing on my newly working computer!

November 8th, We Are Thankful For:

Allie: Leaves. We were playing outside in the leaves at the time. Like I said...in the moment!

Ryan: Little Grandma.

Little Grandma had to go to the hospital yesterday. She has been on our conversations and our prayers. Even though she hadn't been mentioned since before naptime, she was clearly in his thoughts.

Lucas: My Friend Josh

Kim: My friend Kim...who is married to Josh. Some of our dearest friends. We separately and unknowingly scheduled conversations with them on the same day! Always good to talk to dear friends.

Funniest Moment of the Last Week-ish:

I will start by saying that we are not potty training. For the first time, I actually think the twins might be ready. But we are going on a 12 hour road trip in a little less than 2 weeks, and I think I would prefer not to have newly potty-trained toddlers on that trip! But Allie has been occasionally having troubles doing the #2 standing up (oh, some day she will kill me for forever immortalizing those words on this blog!). So, after watching her grunt and push for a while to no avail, I suggested she try sitting on the potty. It worked! She sat & read her favorite book & it practically fell out of her! She was thrilled! I was thrilled! Ry-guy was thrilled. Seeing how thrilled everyone was for his sister, Ryan immediately wanted to see what he could produce on the potty. Sadly, he had already done his #2 for the morning, and had nothing left for the potty. But he got his shining moment. We called daddy to tell him Allie's exciting news, and Ryan asked to talk to him too. Keep in mind that my children, having grown up with Skype as a regular form of communication, assume that if it has any sort of a screen the other person can see them. Ryan grabbed the phone and said, "I pooping on the potty too, Daddy, see!" and he proceeded to hold the phone down so Daddy could see...if there had been a camera...which there wasn't...so I alone got the opportunity to enjoy that hilarious moment. Never a dull moment :)