Thankful Thursdays

I have a friend who has started a "Gratitude Groove" and posts something she is grateful for every day. Miss Emily Pearl has inspired me to find more things that I am thankful for. Since a daily update would probably cause me to hyperventilate I've decided I'd try to do a weekly update on things for which I am thankful. For this week, I am thankful for the simple things that keep my kids occupied so that I have a few moments to myself each day. One simple joy includes the oh so many things a child can do with a cardboard box. We've had this beaut around since the summer and it has finally found a permanent residence in our playroom. Not only do the kids enjoy hiding in it they love pretending they are fighting "bad guys" and kick all the walls inside to make it look like quite the brawl to an onlooker from the outside. Violent, I know. (They get it from Perry, ha ha) They are also quite content to use cardboard skateboards to go around the kitchen. Who needs the real thing when you have a piece of cardboard? I guess I'm still satisfied with being an imposter. (Perhaps someday I'll post about my homemade Care Bear and Carmex).




I am also thankful for washable paint. I don't know why I dare to leave them to paint without supervision. But, I do. So far their greatest unsupervised masterpieces have been on their bodies (thankfully not on the walls) so I can't complain.












I am thankful for a little boy who is content to "swim" in the bathtub in November and doesn't insist that I fill up the pool outside. I seriously considered filling up the pool in the laundry room when he said he wanted to swim. Whew...good thing I didn't think out loud!

Today I am thankful for books on tape. We checked out our first one from the library and it was a hit with Lillie. Plus I didn't feel as guilty for letting her "read along" to a book as when I let her watch endless "educational" (yeah right) television.

And finally, I am thankful for the fact that my kids love to color. They can sit for hours. . . honestly. . . and color. It has given me hope that Axel can focus if he really wants to and that perhaps he isn't a child with ADHD.
These past two weeks the kids were having an obsession coloring these bunny pictures. We went through so much toner on our printer so Perry decided to make them about 30 copies at school. That was a week ago and all the bunny pics have since been colored. Crazy kids!
On the picture on the left Lillie wrote (starting from the upper left corner and going around the perimeter clockwise. . . so you don't think she's dyslexic): "From Lillie for mom and dad and Axel from Bunny Hill. You make me smile." It's fun to see her learning how to write. The picture on the right is just a sampling of 20 of the pictures they colored. My environmentalist friends are probably cringing that we just wasted a tree. Don't worry....we do our part to recyle. And I am soooooo thankful that we have curbside recycling!