Thankful Thursday

Welcome back to Thankful Thursday, a feature started by Louise at Talk Nerdy to Me, where we look back over our week to remember our blessings.  It is so good to see the good things that have happened, especially if you have had a particularly tough week. Being grateful is good for the soul. Here are just a few things that I am thankful for...

1. Family dinners

Most of my extended family got together for a Pre-Easter dinner at my parents' house this past weekend. I love family dinners!  I really do love it when we are all able to be together. (my brother and his family miss out by living far away)

It was a "pre-Easter" dinner since it's not Easter and we won't be able to get together that weekend, as my sister is back to work in the NICU and on then.

2. sleepovers

We took advantage of our visit to my parents to put in one last Spring Break fun event and spent the night out in Chilliwack. It meant late nights and pulling out sleeping bags and pancake breakfast by Grandma! The kids didn't get to stay as long as they were hoping for Spring Break, because of all of our apointments and friend play-dates, but this was nice.
I am thankful that my parents let us come stay and that the kids love to spend time with them too. I am thankful for family!

3. kind brothers

Rhys slipped on the stairs and was crying, so his brothers piled pillows and blankets on the chair he was on for comfort and made him laugh! It was such a tender moment. I am proud of my boys!

4. April Fool's Day Sillies

Abi has been having fun finding tons of ideas for April Fool's Day this year. We don't usually do pranks on eachother...I didn't grow up with them. It's my Mom's birthday (Happy Birthday, Mom!!!) and we are a sensitive family and I can sometimes take things too seriously. (I'm not always a buzz kill; I just tend to sometimes think pranks can be meanspririted. And, I do NOT like being embarrassed.)

Abi decided to have fun with her classmates and bring in an old bottle of syrup filled with Pepsi for her drink!

5. Bubble Beards

The first thing she has to do when she gets into the bathtub is put on a bubble beard!

I am thankful for her silliness.

6. Kindness of Friends

I was chatting with a friend about our upcoming shopping excursions: we both needed to head out eventually to buy dresses for our daughters for school events. My friend's girl has a Spring Formal coming up (gr 10), and my girl has her grade eight grad! Eek!  The grade eight grad isn't formal or as huge as our grade twelve Grad (and those aren't as huge here as they are in the USA, although I hear they are starting to become big prom deals. Ugh!), thankfully, but she will be expected to wear a dress! And for some reason, that gets her all nervous! Abi is convinced she "doesn't like dresses", which is silly since she wears some every now and then already. But I guess sundresses are different than a dressy-dress!  Long story short, my friend offered an old dress of her daughter's to try on, Abi fell in love with it and it was given to us for free! yay!  So exciting! Hopefully, my mother-in-law, who has extensive sewing talent, will be able to take it in a bit. All we will need to do is find the proper shoes and we're set! Hooray!  What a blessing!  

Thank-you Lori and Kwynn!

7.  BFF Dinner Date

I got together with my two best friends again to celebrate one of our birthdays and, of course, forgot to take a picture!  I'm not very good at this! We're not really big selfie/photo people, so I never think to mention it.  But we did enjoy our dinner and our talk.  It is our goal to get together once a month. That doesn't sound like a lot, but sometime finding time that works for all of us isn't easy, and we tend to get used to our own lives at home without making an effort to get out with friends, so this is a good step. Maybe we can move up to twice a month eventually! :)

I am thankful for friendships that last through the years and shared lives and for good conversations.

8. New doctors 

We saw our new pediatrician and finally feel that we are making progress! I will post very soon on that visit; I have to process it all and put it into words. I am so thankful that this doctor has some ways that he can help. I am thankful for hope again. 

9. Short week

We just came off of our two-week Spring Break, and we're jumping into a Long Weekend now, so it seems like it may have been poorly planned, but I am so happy to have a shorter week. The kids haven't adjusted to early mornings again yet, so it's been a lot of late nights (to our frustration; we're trying to get the kids to bed on time, but they will not settle!) so some sleeping in will be nice!

10.  Mom

It was my Mom's birthday this week. I am so thankful for her. God has blessed me so much by placing her as my Mom.  She is patient, kind, compassionate, caring, loving, gentle, wise...all of those Fruits of the Spirit that I am trying to grasp! I am so thankful that we still have time to spend with her, that God has granted her this many years; we are praying for many more! I am thankful that I have so much to learn from her still and that she is willing to guide me along with advice. 

This was my week in a nutshell. I have so many things to be thankful for. How about you? What are you thankful for?