Thankful Thursday

Oliver ready to cheer Ian on in his new Mickey chair ($3 at CVS).

1. Nadia and Ian resumed participating in the homeschool gym class at our church on Friday morning. The first three weeks of this eleven week session they'll be doing basketball with the women's basketball coach at Bucknell. I was impressed to see that Ian is dribbling the ball. Both kids will be playing Upward basketball in the winter. I think they will attend nine of the eleven sessions this fall. They will miss tomorrow due to a field trip to two museums in Baltimore. Oliver also enjoyed his 90 minutes in the playland at the church during their class.

2. Nadia and I enjoyed a concert by the Kiev Symphony Orchestra and Chorus at church on Friday night. We stayed for 2 hours. I imagine the concert didn't go on TOO much longer, but it was already well past Nadia's bed time. Her favorite song was "Joshua fit the battle." Mine was probably either "My tribute" or "And the glory of the Lord" from the Messiah. They sang a few songs in English, but most of the songs were either sung in Russian or Ukranian, which I thought was good as we're studying many different countries and cultures this year in school.

3. Saturday morning they both had their first soccer game of the season. Most of the week last week it was in the 90's and sunny, but it cooled off (yay!) and was rainy (boo because it meant we scrapped some of our plans for the day). Their soccer games went on despite the rain (yay for umbrellas for the spectators at least). Paul's parents came up, which was appreciated. Ian scored a goal! He scored his first goal in early May, but I didn't see it as I wasn't at that game. I saw this one!!! He kicked the ball more in this one game than I think he did in all the games put together last spring. Last night he had his second game of the season, and he scored another goal! Paul said that he and Jack are the two strongest players on his team. Nadia only scored one goal in her three seasons playing U6 soccer, but I think Ian will be scoring many goals. He has come a long way! He needs to work on keeping the ball in bounds as many times he kicks it out of bounds. He could have easily scored three goals last night, but two times he kicked it just a little bit wide right so it went out of bounds instead of in the goal. I am proud of his progress!

Warming up with his team before the game began

4. On Sunday afternoon I got two new tires put on the van, and while they were doing that I shopped in Sears. Thanks to clearance racks and coupons, I paid $11.27 total for 5 items (bathing suit for Nadia, suit coat jacket for Ian, pants for myself, etc.) that the original prices came to $150.

5. I also used a coupon code on Amazon ($10 off) to get a Lego set for free for Ian.

6. I have been selling some clothes and shoes via yard sale pages on FB (collected $50 over the past two days). I have very mixed feelings about this. I would much rather teach a class at a university, but unfortunately that is not an option right now because enrollments are down and they aren't hiring adjuncts. I had no idea when I resigned that it would be hard to reenter the profession. I like shopping at yard sales, but I don't enjoy selling things. I'd rather just donate everything, but earning a little bit of money is better than earning none, right? Homeschooling is the MOST expensive type of education there is when you consider the loss of my income. It costs about 10 times more than it would to send our three kids to a Christian school, but they are worth it!

You can't see Ian very well, but this was when he scored a goal last week!

7. The last two nights I played my flute in the dress rehearsals for the Harvest Festival Pops concert in Milton. The concert will be taking place tonight. I enjoy being able to play my flute! The praise band's rehearsals at church were also moved up a little earlier starting this month so I told the music pastor last night that I would like to be in the rotation for playing the flute. There is one flautist, but she doesn't play every week. I haven't played the flute at this church yet so I didn't play it much this past year.

8. I found out last night that our church isn't doing AWANA any more. They are doing something else on Wednesday nights now. I am very grateful that they did have AWANA last year, and I'm very thankful Paul isn't teaching on Wednesday nights this year so the kids can go back to the AWANA program they were in from September 2011- May 2014.

9. Nadia and Ian had their first Soul Patrol (kids' choir) rehearsal on Sunday for the new year. The practices have been moved from Sunday night (when they were last year) to the second service on Sunday mornings. This unfortunately meant I had to pick between either having them in the worship service with us OR going to their Sunday School class during the first service. I wish I didn't have to pick, but I am grateful they can be in a choir at church since they are homeschooled. I chose for them to be in the worship service with us. During the months Soul Patrol doesn't have a rehearsal, they will go to Sunday School during the second service. Oliver is in Sunday School for both services.

10. Oliver had carrots for breakfast this morning. I almost said "no" to his request because that isn't a traditional breakfast food, but then I thought, if the kid wants to eat vegetables, who am I to say "no" no matter what meal it is. I am VERY thankful this kid loves vegetables and just about every other food I have ever given him to eat. This is a BIG blessing.

11. Oliver took a nap today. Unfortunately he has been hit or miss lately. He didn't take a  nap yesterday, for example. I appreciate every nap he does take. I know he probably only has about 11 months left of taking naps, but I am trying to make the most of the nap times while he's still taking one.

12. I am thankful that our school day is usually over by 11:00 am. The kids get a lot more time to play, and it gives me time to do things like clean and make dinner.

13. The kids generally don't find the biographies I have read to them to be *quite* as engrossing as fiction, so usually we alternate chapters. However, they are SO engrossed in Bruchko right now, that they just want me to keep reading it and not switch back to the fiction book we are also in the middle of. That puts a smile on my face! I am also thankful the library was able to get the book for me through interlibrary loan and save me the cost of purchasing it.