She scored a GOAL!!!

Nadia has been playing soccer for over a year. This is her third season, as she started in spring 2013. She has improved dramatically, particularly in making excellent defensive plays. She has come very close to scoring a goal on multiple occasions, but this afternoon she actually scored her very first goal. Paul and I immediately started screaming. She turned around and had a look of shock on her face, and then when it sunk it what had just happened, she ran over to her coach and announced, "I scored a goal!" Earlier in the game she came close twice to scoring a goal, and those times I had my camera ready. When she actually scored the goal, the camera was hanging around my neck. Oops! At least Paul and I both saw it, which was a little miracle because we were often distracted by making sure Oliver wasn't running on to the field. Next week is her last game of the season, and in August she'll start her first season on a U8 team, and Ian will start his first on a U6 team!

Chores

One of the sessions I attended at Teach Them Diligently was about the value of children having chores. Sometimes I have thought to myself that I needed to work on this area, thinking that because my kids weren't doing things like vacuuming or emptying the dishwasher that they weren't doing chores, but in thinking about it, things like taking their dirty dishes to the kitchen sink at the end of a meal really counts as a "chore" for a preschooler. Crystal Paine's policy with her three kids is that they each have as many chores as how old they are. Some people include things like brushing teeth and getting dressed as chores, but I think of those as personal care skills rather than chores.

Ian's four chores:
1. Clean up his room and make his bed each day
2. Put away his clean clothes after I do the laundry and put dirty clothes in the hamper every day
3. Help clean up toys each day
4. Take dirty dishes to the sink and cup to the refrigerator

Nadia's chores:
1. Clean up her room and make her bed each day
2. Put away her clean clothes after I do the laundry and put dirty clothes in the hamper every day
3. Help clean up toys each day
4. Take dirty dishes to the sink and cup to the refrigerator after every meal; she also helps with setting the table from time to time
5. Bring the trash from the upstairs trash cans to the kitchen on Monday nights (she used to do this but hasn't done it lately...we need to get back into this routine)
6. Next month she'll be adding a sixth chore, and I've decided to make it vacuuming. When I told Nadia that she would get a new chore when she turned six, she suggested mowing the lawn. That's very sweet, but there's no way I'd approve that!

Oliver definitely likes to help out, albeit his "help" is actually a hindrance. I applaud his kindness though! For example, he comes running with the dustpan when he sees me sweeping and puts the dustpan by my pile (and usually spreads it around the floor - oops!) or when I go to take clothes out of
the dryer to fold them, he "helps" me by pulling things out of the dryer faster than I can fold them and drops them on the kitchen floor. At one year old my one "chore" for him is that I am trying to teach him to clean up toys. He is actually getting better at this with a lot of praise if I do it right along side him.

I had previously decided to give them an allowance each week. I almost never remembered to do this. My new plan is that if they want to earn some extra money, that they can do extra chores (ex. dusting) to help me out with something that usually is on my chore list and not theirs. Previously I have given Nadia a little money (ex. 50 cents) from time to time for watching Oliver while I take a shower.

Thankful Thursday

1. We had a very nice time on the last two days of our vacation on Friday and Saturday, which included swimming, shuffleboard, seeing a production of Pinocchio, and spending a few hours at Quiet Valley Farm. It was also fun seeing that we had been on tv!

2. On Sunday a woman at church told me that when she is having trouble falling asleep at night she prays through the alphabet, and she said she always prays for Ian when she gets to "I" and for Oliver when she gets to "O." That really touched me to know she is praying for my boys!

3. Nadia and Ian thoroughly enjoyed riding Clyde at their first horse back riding lesson on Tuesday morning. Nadia can't wait until she is doing a good enough job steering the pony that she will be promoted to a horse. I am hoping over these 5 weeks Oliver will stop calling every horse "cow."

4. Thus far Paul, Nadia, and I have escaped the cold that the boys have had for a week. I was very grateful I brought the nebulizer and both medications to Maryland and the Poconos, as I had to start Oliver on both medications last Thursday. I'm grateful we have the nebulizer so we can hopefully avoid another hospitalization.

5. Oliver's nap has been getting a lit bit longer. Some days it is still only one hour long, but most of the time it is closer to two hours long these days. On Monday he shocked me and slept for 2 hours and 45 minutes. He hasn't had that long of a nap in more than a year! The first three nights we were back at home, Ian kept coming in to our room at random times throughout the night (midnight, 1am, 3am, etc.). Thankfully on Tuesday night he slept through the night. Whew.

6. I haven't mentioned it lately, but I still love our public library! One book we got recently that I love is Press Here. What a hilarious book!!

7. Nadia and Ian absolutely LOVED their horse back riding

lesson on Tuesday morning. They already learned a lot in just one lesson!

8. I was scheduled to have another gum grafting procedure done yesterday, but I cancelled my appointment because my dad talked to his periodontist earlier this month and found out there is a new pinhole surgical procedure that is much less painful and involves a much quicker recovery. The periodontist who did my first gum grafting procedure doesn't do this technique so I am going to put it off until I can have it done by someone who can do it this way. I am very thankful my dad asked his periodontist about it and that he knew of a better way!

9. We went to Knoebels today! We had planned to go on Tuesday, but the weather forecast said it was a 60% chance of thunderstorms that day, so Cheri suggested we go today instead. In hindsight, we should have gone on Tuesday because it didn't rain and it was about 25 degrees warmer outside that day. We didn't let the kids do either of the wet rides today since it was only in the high 50's. BRRR Aside from one new roller coaster where Paul and Nadia had to wait 30 minutes, we pretty much walked right on to every single ride we did. The kids rode many rides 3-5 times (sometimes right in a row). Nadia rode four roller coasters a total of six times. We had bought 4 hour hand stamps. After they expired we let the kids do the free 40 minute theater program (they put on costumes and an employee narrates the play). The kids love doing that every year. All three kids fell asleep on the way home. We will have to return to Knoebels at least one more time this season on a WARM day. It had been in the 80's the past four days so it made it feel even colder today. The things parents do out of love for their kids!

So long, sippy cups!

We have had sippy cup issues lately. First, Oliver was biting through part of the spout in the sippy cups he had used for the last few months (they had a harder spout than the ones he used the first few months that he used a sippy cup). This meant they were more likely to leak (extra holes), and we were worried that he might be ingesting some plastic. So I bought two new ones and threw those away. It was hard transitioning him to a different cup, but eventually he figured it out. Even though these were guaranteed not to spill, they were the worst sippy cups we've owned over the past 5 years. Yesterday I put away the sippy cups and only let him drink out of an open cup. I started him on the small plastic shot glasses that we bought in April 2012 for Ian (at the recommendation of the feeding clinic in Hershey). He got better over the course of the day as far as drinking from it, but he has no concept of being careful with it when he's holding it so we had a LOT of water spilled over the floor yesterday.

I only let him have water if he was out of his booster seat, and if he was drinking milk I insisted that he wear a bib. I was thinking I'd need to buy one more sippy cup (not that same brand!) to use when traveling in the van or stroller (or in the church nursery), but today at the horse farm for Nadia and Ian's first horseback riding lesson he had no trouble drinking water from a sports bottle. Problem solved! These new sippy cups are going in the garbage, and when it isn't practical for Oliver to drink from an open cup, I will give him water in a sports bottle. Hopefully he'll figure out that he needs to keep an open cup level in the very near future because when he spills water  in the kitchen he then usually slips and falls on his bottom. Thankfully his bottom is still padded as I'm not going to start potty training him until the middle of July. 

Farm Animal Frolic

A friend from ladies Bible study found the clip online from WBRE on Saturday (click on the link to see it)! They didn't include the part of the mama goat nibbling on her hair. I wish I could see a clip of Nadia saying part of Psalm 23 on the American Bible Challenge on GSN last year. Here are fifteen more photos from our day at the farm, and I still have more pictures to share! We had the traditional patriotic picnic yesterday (grilled hamburgers and hotdogs, macaroni and cheese, baked beans, corn on the cob, and brownies), and I made enough so we can have it again tonight. Nadia skipped the baked beans, but she enjoyed a cheeseburger, macaroni, and an entire ear of corn. The only thing Ian wanted was a hot dog. I made him eat a few bites of baked beans. He refused to eat the corn so he didn't get any dessert last night, and he didn't get any breakfast today because he still wouldn't eat it. By lunch time he was hungry enough to agree to eat it, and after he tasted it he said it was so sweet and that he loved the butter on it. When will this boy learn to at least taste something before assuming he won't like it? Oliver ate his first corn on the cob last night, and I will post those pictures as well later this week. We are very thankful to the men and women who gave their lives in the defense of our country. What a sacrifice!!

Carding wool from the sheep that was sheared the previous week

Making a sheep

Making cornmeal

Baby goat nibbling on Nadia's jacket

This show included a wide variety of animals - 2 different owls, 2 snakes, 2 turtles, a porcupine, a possum, etc.