Yesterday morning Nadia had her first soccer game for the fall season. Her team had five practices prior to the first game, and she participated in four of those. I am not sure if it was those practices or the fact that it was her second season playing soccer, but wow had she improved a lot since the spring season that ended 3 months ago! They don't keep score in U6 games, but Nadia's team definitely scored far more goals. If both kids want to play next fall, Ian would be on a U6 team and Nadia would be on a U8 team. I worked in the concession stand from 8:30-9:00 before her game. She didn't score any goals, but she actually did help her team score a few of them. Her foot came in contact with the ball far more than it did last season. Unfortunately unless something changes, she won't be attending any more soccer practices because they'll be in AWANA on Wednesday nights starting this week.
On Friday I started the process of picking apples from our two apple trees. The last time we had a big apple harvest was in August 2010. I gave a friend from church a couple of bags of apples on Friday, and she used some of them to make two apple crumb pies, and she gave us one of the pies. Yummy! We finished picking the tree with the red apples yesterday. A lot of the apples weren't in great shape so Paul disposed of several large boxes of apples this morning. We finished picking the tree with green apples today. The animals definitely prefer the red apples as far more of them had chunks taken out (bites). Some of the red apples were absolutely gorgeous - just as big and pretty as ones you see at the grocery store. Yesterday I made one big batch of applesauce, and this afternoon I made another big batch of applesauce. All three kids and I had some today. I also plan to make some apple crisp later this week. I took three large boxes of apples to church today to share with others. Those that weren't claimed were taken to a low income area of town where they were claimed.
I am not sure how women who do lots of canning find the time and energy for such a task. I just don't have it in me. I am not sure I'll make it through the apples I did keep, which is a tiny percentage of the total crop. I have to say I don't mind if we don't ever have another apple tree. Apples aren't very expensive so I'd rather just buy some at the store than be deluged with an insane amount of them once a year. I definitely want to plant blueberry bushes and strawberry plants in the future though because those fruits are far more expensive, and they don't grow to be 20+ feet tall. My back is so sore! Our next door neighbor has three fruit trees - one apple, one pear, and one peach. I was at one time jealous. I'm not any longer.
The kids helped a little while we were picking apples, but what Nadia really wanted to do was climb the tree. It was the first time she had any interest. When I tried to help her up in a tree in the past, she was completely terrified. She was very proud of herself. We also worked on their biking skills this afternoon. Paul took the training wheels off of Nadia's bike, and Paul and I took turns helping her ride the bike without training wheels. She is definitely not ready to ride without our help yet, but we'll keep working on it. I was thrilled that she finally had the desire to give it a try. I also worked with Ian with pedaling his tricycle, and he came a long way. He's been wanting a big boy bike (with training wheels), and I told him he couldn't have one until he could use the pedals on the tricycle. That was just the motivation he needed it seems! As I type this, Paul is sitting on the couch beside me grading papers. I am still adjusting to this role reversal! Since Nadia is only five years old, I'm not grading any of her work yet. I am very pleased with the progress she's made lately with sounding words out!
No comments:
Post a Comment