Bells and Breakfast

Last night I played handbells for the first time in almost five years. Of the 16 other people there last night, 11 of them were in the bell choir five years ago. I knew two of the folks who had joined the choir since I left as one is the Pastor's wife and another was a student of mine at Bloomsburg University. A few others that used to be in the choir are no longer in the choir. It was so wonderful to be reunited with dear friends, many I hadn't seen in a few years. There was always a tight knit bond amongst those in the bell choir. They fervently prayed for us as we tried to adopt and tried to conceive. I remember how Nadia used to kick within my womb when I was playing certain songs with the handbells. Paul met me at the gym where the kids were in the middle of their gymnastics classes at 6pm, and I drove from there straight to the handbell rehearsal (30 minute drive). I was very exhausted when I got home around 9pm last night, but I am very grateful I'll be able to play the handbells for four months.

This morning I played my flute at the Country Cupboard (a restaurant with an amazing buffet) for the Christian Women's Club. About 100 women attend their breakfast each month. The food was delicious. I only ate half a banana for lunch to try to compensate for the extra calories I consumed this morning, although I did show restraint at the buffet.

I will not be feeding Oliver oatmeal for breakfast any longer. A couple of weeks ago he had the runs, and at first I thought it was from oatmeal because Ian has the same reaction to it, but with Ian it would clear up pretty quickly after I stopped giving him any oatmeal. Since Oliver's took much longer to clear up, I thought maybe he had a bug instead. It turns out it's definitely the oatmeal. I can't wait until he stops having the runs, especially because it's been giving him a bad case of diaper rash, which up until a couple of weeks ago he hadn't had since he was in the NICU. He's not been a huge fan of cream of wheat lately so hopefully I can find other things that he'll enjoy for breakfast. This morning Paul got him to eat half of a bagel.

This evening I took the kids to a small circus about 10 minutes from our house. It only cost $15 for all four of us to attend this 90 minute program. Ian said his favorite act was the jugglers. Oliver did really well! There were dogs, horses, camels, llamas, a clown, a woman who spun many hula hoops at the same time, jugglers, a trapeze artist, etc. The weather turned really hot today (it hadn't been this hot since early in July) so I splurged and bought us a large fresh squeezed lemonade as we were all sweating profusely. The kids also wanted popcorn, but we waited until we got home. I popped a bag in the microwave and the four of us shared it.