Thankful in 2010

Does anyone else do this?  You are getting ready for an event, say, Thanksgiving, and you think about what you were doing last year at this time?  I do this all the time.  It relaxes me for some reason. 

So last year, I was really sick.  Oh my goodness, I was so sick.  The only thing that kept my head up was that I was furiously reading through the Twilight series and I couldn't be bothered with painful earaches or fevers or whatever because I was wrapped up in a story about a vampire and a werewolf for Pete's sake. 

Anyway, I think about being sick, and the Twilight series, and my cousin and her family coming to visit that weekend.  Even though I wasn't feeling well, it was a fun weekend.  I think my favorite memory was hanging out at the hotel Tara and Pete were staying in, and ordering pizza.  My girls and their boys were running around like crazies outside the hotel room, and the four adults got to sit, eat pizza, and have a beer.  I remember we laughed a lot.

So I think about that, and then I look at this post.  Then I go ahead and think about what I'm thankful for this year. 

I'm thankful that Hadley and Harper spend more and more time playing together.  It is so fun watching them learn how to communicate with each other.  They do a lot of coloring and reading books together.  This is one of their favorite afternoon activities:

They're having a "Booknic."  I put down a blanket and they get a bunch of books to read.  And of course, a snack.  You can't read books without having a snack. While we're on the subject of reading, I'm thankful I get to review Story Time for Me books.  Hadley enjoys playing on the computer when we let her, so I thought she'd like reading these stories from their website.  Turns out, Harper likes them, too.

They are reading a story called Fern Meets Some Animals.  This program is very easy to navigate.  The girls loved listening to the story, and I liked that it focuses on telling the story.  The options at the bottom of the screen make it easy for Hadley to turn pages if she needs to, and while there is a little animation while telling the story, there is an option to turn that off.  I appreicated that.  But what the girls liked was reading a book about animals.  And when an elephant came into the story, they were mesmerized.  Here they are trying to sound like an elephant:

If you want to check these stories out, you can click here and get two free stories.   I'd say it's worth a look especially if you want to see if your kids will try and sound like an elephant. 

I'm pretty thankful that I got this published.  And it made the cover, as a matter of fact.  (No, that's not Hadley on the cover.  Just her name.) 

While I'm bragging about myself, I may as well say that I'm thankful that over the weekend on Twitter, this post got retweeted with the plug, "the most adorable DC mama blogger ever."  Not too shabby, huh?  Thanks Bethany, for the plug!  (Click the link to find some of her writing.  She's all over DC writing about fun stuff.  And she got in Christian Science Monitor).

I'm thankful for a lot this year.  I'm thankful for preschool, and ballet lessons, the library, and all the parks we have around our area.  I'm thankful for our babysitter, who, I believe is probably the best babysitter in the world.  I'm thankful that I have a husband who lets me take his computer to Starbucks so I can pretend to write really important things on it.  All these things are good because they allow me to be a better mom.  Which is good because what I am most thankful for is my children.

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