Thankful Thursday And A Happy New Year

"Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; His love endures forever."

1 Chronicles 16:34 (NIV)

Happy New Year and first Thankful Thursday of 2015!  I, for one, entered into this year giving God thanks for all of the blessings He bestowed upon me and my loved ones in 2014.  Sure there were some rocky moments and some hills we had to climb, but as the gospel song goes "I won't complain."  I'm so very grateful to have made it to see 2015 with all of my family and friends.

So, apparently the rules for popping fireworks here have changed and I'm super excited because this New Year's Eve we will be getting some.  Yes, I'm planning way ahead, but it'll be the kids first experience actually popping them.  I can't wait to see how JJ will do.  He'll be four and should enjoy it.  My neighbors must have bought several fireworks stores because they starting popping them at 7 PM yesterday and didn't stop until well after midnight.  I'm grateful though because they put on a great show for the rest of us.

I'm grateful that I'm feeling better.  Beyond glad that this flu is going away.  I saw on the news the CDC said we're having one of the worst flu epidemics in US that they've seen in years.  I will must stock back up on my hand sanitizer for the car and my purse.  Also, thankful the kids are better as well.  I think they had common colds and not the flu though.

2014 ended with great news for my family on my mom's side.  One of my older cousins (she's also a blogger) got married and announced her pregnancy!  I'm so happy for her because she had a year  that was a bit rough.  She deserves this happiness.  I'm hoping we'll have another family reunion soon because we live so far from my mom's family and don't get to see them as often as I would like.

I'm giving thanks that we finally got a small, glass dining room table.  It was a gift from my mom (Thanks Mommy!), and we scored it at one of our local Goodwills.  It was in perfect condition except for one of the chairs missing two screws on the back, but we handled that.  She also reorganized the kids' room and finally made some sense of their jungle of toys.

JJ is working hard to use phrases now when he communicates with us!  That's a huge improvement.  He doesn't do it all the time, but we're getting there.  He's finally able to say almost everyone's name and I'm super excited.  He said my baby sister's name for the first time this week while she was here and it almost moved her to tears.  I'm feeling confident that he'll be speaking a lot clearer by end by his fourth birthday.

Well, I hope that your 2015 got off to a great start.  I pray that this year brings you an abundance of love, happiness and success.

What are you giving thanks for this New Year's?