Thankful Thursday

1. Jeff. Not many husbands would help with the canning. In fact, he's doing more than helping. He's pretty much DOING the canning, and I'm helping him. We drove up to Willard yesterday and bought 65 pounds of cherries (at $1 a pound for the 60 pounds, and the other 5 pounds were free because we spent $60). The bad part of canning all these cherries is trying to keep the house clean enough to show while we do it. Riiiiiigghht.

2. Cheap fruit. A buck a pound was a great deal on cherries, since they're $1.50 at most other fruit stands in Willard, and at least $2 in any of the stores. And since cherries are one of the foods that Michael will eat (when we puree them with applesauce), we're canning as much as we can this year. In fact, I will shamelessly ask anyone who has ANY extra fruit to send it my way, so we can stock up on foods that Michael will eat. Even though it's MUCH cheaper than baby food in jars, it's still expensive to buy enough of the foods that he'll eat. Peaches, pears, apricots, cherries, raspberries, blackberries, apples, winter squash, and probably some others as well. We'll even pick it!

3. Michael's swimming lessons. He has finished his first session (Level 1 - Water Exploration), and is now halfway through his second session. He LOVES swimming lessons. Even more now that Hunter is taking them with him. I took him swimming last night and we practiced what he has been learning in class. Can I just say, for a timid kid who for a long time refused to let go of me or Jeff while in the water, he has done fabulously. Last night I put his arm floaties on him and let him go, and he just took off. He was cruising all over. Not very quickly, since he hasn't quite figured out coordinated kicking. But he sure loved it. And I am SO proud of him.

4. Hugs from Faith and Michael. They are so sweet. Faith will just come over and lean against me and hug my legs, or whatever she can reach. And Michael will come over and say, "Hey, I need some loves," and give me a hug. I LOVE it.

5. This new baby. In the last couple of days, I have started to feel movements. Little tiny light ones that feel more like bubbles. But since with all of my babies, I've felt those first movements at 17 weeks to the day, I'm pretty sure that's what I'm feeling. It's nice to finally feel the baby. This pregnancy has been pretty good so far. I'm past the really tired stage, and the pain I've had with my other pregnancies hasn't shown up yet in this one, so I'm feeling good. I do have an annoying pain in my right leg just behind my knee, but it's bearable most of the time. Being pregnant has two very big bonuses: 1) no period; and 2) you never have to suck in your stomach.

All in all, life is good. We're going to a Sabin family barbecue tomorrow, and then we'll head to Delta for the 4th of July. I LOVE the 4th of July. I love the parades in the small towns, the demolition derby, the fireworks, being with family, seeing the American flag everywhere, and everything else.