30 Days of Thanks-Days 15, 16, and 17

November 15, 2013-Today I am thankful for early Christmas celebrations and surprising those you love.  We celebrated Christmas with Dave's family this weekend.  We had a very nice time and as always, it was great to let the kids play.  We (along with Dave's brother's family) bought his parent's a paddle boat.  We brought it up on a snowmobile trailer and after we went in and got settled, Dave snuck outside to put a bow on it and he and his brother pulled it up to the house.  They came in and said that Santa had come early.  A couple of the kids got pretty nervous at this but we assured them it was just Daddy/Uncle Paul playing Santa with Grandpa & Grandma's present.  I think we surprised them good even though Grace told us a couple weeks ago that she had told Grandma what we got them; luckily sometimes Grace is a little hard to understand and Grandma assured us Grace hadn't spilled the beans to her:) 

November 16, 2013-Today I am thankful for those who see the good and cuteness in kids who are a little naughty in church.  Our kids were less than perfect in church on Saturday afternoon and mommy may have been a little frazzled; Madi was upset about her itchy dress, Grace was exhausted and could not sit still to save herself, and Wyatt was just an unhappy guy that night.  I was having one of those days when it was hard for me to sit in church anyway so my emotions were running high to begin with.  At the end of Mass, the priest commented that it sounded like there were lots of children in church; the funny part was that I think our 3 kids and Dave's brother's 3 kids were close to the only ones in church and my 3 were the ones making the noise:)   On the way out though, two ladies stopped and told me how pretty the girls looked and one kind gentleman who was a row behind us patted my hand and said, "We only raised 8 of them like that."  I told him I wasn't quite sure how he did it because 3 were a handful sometimes and he said, "I know."  So all the while I was afraid my kids were driving everyone in church crazy and in reality, it was just me they were driving crazy:) 

November 17, 2013-Today I am thankful for my kids' belly laughs.  Tonight Madi and Grace were playing and Madi was holding Grace upside down.  I know it wasn't the safest thing for them to be doing and I told them to stop, but I couldn't help but giggle listening to them both just laugh and laugh.  Grace was having so much fun that she was belly laughing so hard.  Wyatt also started belly laughing recently and it is the cutest thing ever.  Sometimes when I'm nursing him he'll look up at me and give a belly laugh and it just melts my heart; hopefully he's not thinking, "boy is that mommy funny looking."