Grateful Thursday and SHAZAM!

Usually I limit my gratefulness to Wednesdays (not really), but I really wanted to be grateful today, to get my head into that place. Today, I am grateful for the following:
1. Good health (lost two pounds on my chocolate-only diet!)
2. Great kids. Chris made this hilarious slide show with all the outtakes from our disney trip. He showed it last night, and it was really, really funny. I'm blessed to have such goofy children who keep us in stitches.
3. A warm house with food in the fridge.
4. Spiritual sisters who encourage and help me every day.
5. A great writing partner who keeps me on track.
6. A great agent who sincerely likes my work. (I feel like Sally Fields...)
7. Healthy parents even though they're old and crotchety (ha ha just kidding)
8. A husband who keeps coming home to me every night although some days I wouldn't blame him if he didn't. ha

My six-year-old has now affected a Swedish accent. We're not sure where he got it from, but he sounds like the Swedish chef from the Muppet show. It's hilarious. When he reads his books to me every night, he reads it in this accent....I can't even describe it. No one seems to know where he got it, including him who claims to not know what we're talking about.

And my twelve-year-old has been on a practical joke stint. So far she has rubber banded the spray nozzle on the sink, so when anyone turns on the water, they get doused. She glued a quarter to the kitchen floor (we had to discuss the whole, please don't glue things to the kitchen floor deal). She told her brothers all about bedbugs, insisted that I admit that there is such a thing, then she filled their beds with little army men, so when they went to bed, they freaked out. She also tore the corner off a $10 bill, and taped it to the floor, so it stuck out from the edge of the rug, like it was a whole bill. Everyone would come in and grab at it. That was pretty funny. Anyway, as a result, I'm watching my step everywhere I go. And my older son has been studying Irish dance moves online for something to do with his OM skit. I'm afraid to ask. My oldest daughter is her usual drama queen self. I think I told you about picking her up from school, and she had a knee-high pantihose over her head? Isn't this the age they're supposed to be self-conscious about how they look? Not this kid.

Our priest is talking to the kids about sex on Sunday night, and I was telling a friend of mine who is a youth minister at a different church. She said they do this interactive sex talk at her church where the kids come in and, get this, they use toilet paper rolls, newspaper, etc. to MAKE body parts to kind of break the ice. THEN, the kids go home and the parents come and do the SAME THING. Then they all see each others and do this big sex talk together. The making of the parts gets everyone past the whole discomfort thing (I guess you'd have to if you were crafting a penis out of a toilet paper roll with your friends and neighbors). I think that's hilarious and brilliant. I just might incorporate that at home at the dinner table sometime. (okay maybe after dinner) But what better way to just lay it all out there? (no pun intended) I just had to tell you guys that. OH, and they do this question answer thing where the kids put questions in a bowl for the parents to answer, AND (I love this part) parents put questions in a bowl for the kids to answer. Fun stuff.

Have a great day! I hope to see you soon. And thanks for reading. I appreciate it more than you know. djk