Just a sampling of the things I’ve been thankful for in the past week.  Unfortunately I don’t have any good pictures from the Thanksgiving gatherings with both sides of our family, but that was partly due to an ER visit for Ethan after the worst allergy attack we’ve seen for him.  But at least it made the holiday that much more memorable, right?!?  I don’t have a photo of the Centennial Hospital ER, but if I did then it would be at the top of my thankful list for the past week because of how quickly they got us back.  Oh, and I’m thankful for oral steroids because they made a shot-fearful child VERY thankful. 

being able to stay home with these 2

having old friends to picnic with on a beautiful day

a husband who is strong enough to do this so I don’t have to

Little Hearts School

friends who are up for random visits to the park

zoo passes

parents who taught me to always thank God first for His abundant blessings

A few years ago when we were house hunting one of the things at the top of our list was to find a house in an established neighborhood with lots of great trees.  We definitely found what we were looking for and every year I remind myself that a house with 20+ trees in the front yard is a blessing in the summer and a curse in the fall.  Well, it’s a curse in the fall for Clay and me because we have to rake and bag the leaves from 20+ trees, but it’s a fall wonderland for the kids.  Ethan had a friend come over last week and his friend asked if he could take some of our leaves home with him to play in.  It’s all about perspective…

Interview with Ethan William – Nov. 11, 2009

1. Favorite color - red and blue
2. Favorite food – Old McDonald’s
3. Favorite cereal – Frosty Flakes
4. Best friend – Addi & Libby
5. Favorite toy – Astroboy
6. Favorite TV show – Danny Phantom
7. Favorite movie – Mickey Mouse
8. Favorite thing to do outside – play with the frisbee
9. Something you like to do with Rachel – play Sequence
10. Favorite Bible story – Noah
11. Favorite animal – elephant
12. If you could go somewhere right now, where would it be – to the zoo
13. Favorite snack – sugar wafers
14. Favorite superhero – Superman
15. Something you like Mommy to do with you – play Sequence
16. Something you like Daddy to do with you – watch movies

And a few photos to document his life right now:

He likes playing computer games – especially with an “audience”

He graduted from Nana’s class at church to the 5 year old class and it felt like the end of an era

He’s ALL about Star Wars now and was thrilled when Jack invited him to Star Wars Live at Cowboys Stadium

He loves dressing up as a superhero and saving everyone at home, at the grocery store, at school, at church…

His other love is drawing (wonder where he got that from) – he has a few sketch pads that he carries around and he’s starting taping up pictures around the house  (you may have to click on this one to see it)

He played his first season of soccer this fall and can’t wait for the spring season to start.  Through this, one of my dreams came true of coaching his soccer team…and I even conned my dad into helping me coach!  Ethan did really well and enjoyed it much more than baseball so we’ll stick with this for a while.

He’s reading now and wants to know what everything spells.  He’s doing great at sounding things out, and I’m trying to remain extremely patient when he wants to sound out the next thing on the grocery list before you head down the aisle.  I’ve been singing the “Be Patient” song in my head a lot lately.  We are very blessed that he has Mrs. Jenny (Tubbs for you AFCers out there) as his pre-k teacher this year.  She is wonderful and he gets very excited when Tuesdays and Thursdays roll around.

Just a couple of other things I want to record so I don’t forget in 10 years (or 10 days):

• he wears a size 5 shirt, 4 pants and 11 shoes
• he wants to know how things work and why they work
• he goes to sleep every night with his moon light on in his room trying to match up the phase with the real moon
• he still mixes up baseball with football
• he’s a really great big brother
• his favorite treat is gum
• favorite drink is still soy milk – in the red carton NOT the blue carton
• he hates wearing pants and begs to wear shorts and flip flops every.single.day
• our biggest struggle is him not being able to wear shorts to school when it’s 40 degrees outside
• still hasn’t mastered tying his shoes

And one funny story:  Last week Clay took Ethan to a funeral for the mom of one of Clay’s childhood friends.  The night before we were talking to E about how your soul goes to heaven but your body is buried and what it means to go to a funeral.  After a few seconds he asked, ”What do they do with your legs when you die?”  Yep, that was his only question.  Obviously I asked him what he was talking about and he asked, “Why do they take your legs off when you die and where do they put them?”  We finally got to the bottom of that and went back to the summer when I took the kids to my great Aunt’s funeral.  I let Ethan see Aunt Ann in her casket and when he only saw her upper body he thought someone had taken her legs off.  I really love how literal this kid is.

We went on our annual church camping trip last weekend and Rachel was in rare form.  She spends the majority of our time camping covered from head to toe in dirt, grass, syrup, leaves, candy, sticks, juice, etc.  She was filthy Saturday afternoon and fell down in the mud and got a big spot on her pants, to which she replied:  “Oh, no!  I CAN’T go out looking like THIS!” 

A couple of months ago I read an article in a magazine about a mom who hired a photographer to follow her family around for an entire day to capture a true day in the life for their family.  While I’m pretty sure that I don’t want a stranger following me around for an entire day with a camera (especially not into my laundry room or a couple of closets around here), I do think the idea is interesting.  I think it would be fun now to look at pictures of a day in the life when I was five years old.  I really don’t remember anything about being five years old except that I tortured my poor mother by insisting that I ride the bus on the first day of kindergarten (and every day after that) and kept waving at her from the back of the bus while she followed us to school in her car (if either of my children do this I think I will crawl in a hole and stay there for a very, very long time – mom, I really am sorry about that!).  Anyway, I’m thinking I’ll start trying to capture some more day in the life-type moments around here, and unfortunately, you’re going to be subjected to them! 

So, here’s a look into a typical Sunday afternoon around here:

Clay and Ethan spend it doing boy things like watching episodes of the 1965 Batman tv show on the computer after they’ve played a few levels of Lego Batman on the PS3

I spend a chunk of my Sunday afternoon clipping coupons from the paper

And Rachel spends part of her Sunday afternoon recovering from her 5:30 a.m. wakeup that she feels is necessary after the time change

A couple of weekends ago we had our annual trunk-or-treat at church.  I really love this event and Clay and Iwanted to put a little more effort into it this year than we have in years’ past.  We always say we want to do something good, but end up falling back on the soccer trunk year after year.  Well – not this year!  This year I proposed the idea of turning the car into a shark and throwing homemade fish into buckets in the shark’s mouth as the game, and Clay ran with it.  I really wish I had gotten a picture with his eyes that we made out of paper plates, but of course I didn’t.  And obviously Clay and I went as shark attack victims which really didnt’ set well with Rachel, but she got over it once she realized her entire evening would be consumed with trying to sneak candy from her bucket and hide the evidence.