Thankful Thursday Part 2

 You've been warned, I told you I had a lot of Thankful's this week!

I know, I should try to do it more often instead of stocking up, but 

these are actually all from this past week!

Thankful for a wonderful husband and father to our children,

oh, it melts my heart every time I see him with the littles!

And he plays cards every single day with the big kids.

 Thankful we took out our old duplo blocks and he loves them!

Thankful for barefoot almost 2 year olds...

 (you're welcome for the close up)

 Thankful for all the playing these 3 do all day long

 Thankful for pumpkin cheesecake...I make this every year for Thanksgiving

I am not much of a pie person, but this, this is heavenly!

Recipe HERE

(I cannot picture food, it always looks yellow-ish)

 Thankful for forts in the toy room, with the old table...

we put it there til after Christmas...

 Thankful we finally figured out a way to change the living room around to fit our tree

we usually put our tree in the toy room...front window, for all to see,

but we've always wanted in our living room...

so, we came up with this idea, to close off the double doors (to the toy room)

and it's so cozy, we love it!

 Here is where it was, angled and now the tree will go here,

and our old table will go here after Christmas for games and puzzles in the living room!

 Thankful for my little helpers (in zipper jammies)

(I'm getting my Advent stuff ready here)

 Thankful...OH, my gosh, just stay little, OKAY?

 Thankful, I finally bought a plain green advent wreath and got some craft stuff and 

copied the one in the craft store!  

I love it! 

(our old one was a wooden star thingy, but I like the symbolism of the circular wreath,

and the green in it, I also like the colors of Advent, pink and purple)

 Thankful for these chocolate Advent calendars...

we have to tape them up high on the cupboards...

I am asked several times a day by a certain 4 year old if she can have another piece...

 Thankful we are doing our Jesse Tree this year

(see it in full glory HERE)

I have to admit, some days, we skip the Bible reading,

(I know, I"m terrible) like for Noah's Ark, I said, something like,

"You all know the story about Noah, right?"

There's just so much to do...

 Thankful we are doing a new countdown, using my Advent pocket calendar

my mother in law made for us!

 each day is filled with a little something, and I have a corresponding Bible reading

(which we are reading)

All are about Jesus, and it ends with a tiny baby Jesus in the last pocket!

See HERE

 Thankful we are doing our countdown of things to do daily, 

The kids love this, and if I"m doing it, it's easy!

It's just craft paper notecards folded up with numbers on the outside.

You can read what I wrote inside last year HERE

This year I changed a couple things, like, Simeon will be 2--yes 2!!!

this year and he is not having any surgeries (thank God)

(it's not too late--you can do this too!)

 Thankful for what we are NOT doing too...

I know my limits and I just cannot do everything.

I know that seeing what others are doing sometimes makes us WANT TO BE LIKE THEM

but even if we only do the chocolate calendars, or only light the wreath each night

or just do what we have time for,

IT'S OK!!!

I am NOT doing Bartholomew's Passage...although, it's sitting out

making me feel guilty!

 (I have to put that dang book away!)

 I am NOT doing the traveling wise men...I have been seeing it all around blog world

I love the idea, and I would love to do it,

I just don't think it would work, at least not every day.

I have little ones that love to play with these kind of figures...

There's still time, I can add it I suppose.

Thankful there's still time.

Advent is not just a day

or a week.

It is 4 weeks!

And if I don't get to the things I want to, who cares?

 Thankful I made it home last Wednesday

 (before Thanksgiving with a van full of groceries and kids)

My van was acting up all the way home

and it died in the driveway!!  

Thankful for Angels that drove us home, I have no doubt, it was Angels that helped us!

It ended up being the transmission!!!
Oh, my gosh, what next?

Thankful it is covered by our warranty!!

(it's still in the shop though...I'm going a little crazy stuck at home)

Thankful

Tow truck in our driveway=very happy almost 2 year old!

 Thankful our washer broke down

OK, not really, because we are broke now, we paid like 500 bucks 

last month to fix the dang thing and now it started leaking every day 

and was too much to fix, so we bought a new one
(1000 bucks!)

(we are broke)

Thankful the new one has a 10 year warranty

 Our snow blower also is broke down

so

the kids and I will shovel this afternoon, in the below zero wind chill weather

(Don't let that sun fool you--baby it's cold outside!)

Gosh, I hate winter...there.  I said it. 

BUT even though, we've had a few bad things happen,

there are still blessings.

Too many to count!

 Like babies who insist on eating themselves...

 Blessings of rosy cheeked little girls!

 Blessings of barefoot, red headed, smiling, little boys in overalls!

 (You're welcome!)

(can you tell I love toesies?)

(only on littles)
(and especially his little webbed ones)

 Blessings of symmetry lessons and big kids who join in on the fun...

 Blessings of a counter full of kid paintings...

and curly haired 4 year olds...

And piles of laundry to fold...it's calling my name

(this is like 4 loads!--does anyone else do this, lay them flat, 

so there's no wrinkles and fold them when you get a chance?)

I'm going to leave you with 2 funny videos of Simeon

blowing with his tongue...it's a big deal, because, he's never been able to do it!

The way his mouth is, it's been a hard thing, so his baby bubbles are late

and we are EXCITED!!

We start speech therapy in January, I'm excited he can do this, 

Oh, he's going to do soooo good!!!

Happy Thursday everyone!!  

Be Thankful, even when life is hard,

there's always something to be thankful for!

P.S.
Don't forget tomorrow is the feast of St Nicholas!

Go to Catholic Cuisine for a ton of ideas,
like mine HERE
Don't forget to set out your shoes!