Pictures not practice

Today and tomorrow the soccer teams are having their pictures taken. Nadia's coach cancelled their practice tonight so the only reason we are going to the field today is for her team picture. I am not complaining because the three nights they have soccer practices it is a challenge to get all three kids to eat their dinner and have their soccer gear on by 5:00 so we can be at the field at 5:15. Nadia always eats quickly, but Ian almost never eats quickly, and Oliver can go either way. I often have to start feeding them at 3:45 to have any chance of being ready at 5:00. Only  having pictures today meant we didn't need to leave the house until 6:00. That was wonderful. In the past I have purchased one thing when the kids have had team pictures for basketball or soccer (an 8x10 that included both a team photo and an individual photo). Considering buying one for each child would have come to $45 total, I opted not to buy any soccer photos this fall. Since Paul is making less money we need to trim our budget by thousands of dollars, and little things like this add up over the course of a year.

Last Monday I met with a woman from church who is a part of the Stephen Ministry. Earlier in the year I had a few counseling sessions via Skype. I was looking for help with processing the changes for our family in light of Paul's decisions. I didn't want to have to pay for a babysitter plus pay for the appointment so I opted for counseling via Skype, but it was challenging to keep the kids occupied and out of my room while I was talking with the counselor, and in light of the serious tightening of our finances due to the career change, I also felt like we couldn't afford too many sessions. So a few weeks ago I asked to be assigned a Stephen minister at church. They are not counselors, but still I thought it might be helpful in working through these changes plus also the grief of losing my mom. Last week one of her suggestions was to make a journal to record my memories of my mom plus the kids' memories of her. I really liked this idea because I am assuming in time Oliver won't have any memories of her, and I am afraid even Nadia and Ian might not have many memories because of how young they are. So I want to record their memories now before they are forgotten and hopefully in the decades to come this journal will be a way to keep the memories alive. I ordered one from Shutterfly last Monday with 3 pictures on the front cover and it also says "We love Grandma Harton" on it. It came in the mail on Saturday, but I forgot to get the mail that day so we got it this morning, and I already started writing in it. We are meeting at the Well at church on Monday afternoons, which means the kids get to play in the playland for an hour, and I get the chance to have an hour to talk with a compassionate, godly woman, and it doesn't cost any money.

The weather really changed a few days ago, and now it feels like fall instead of summer, which actually means the weather changed right when it officially became Autumn. On Friday I started the process of bringing out some fall/winter clothes for Nadia and also taking away some of the summer clothes, which also means figuring out what to save for next summer and what to give away because they will be too small next year. Today I did the same with Oliver and Ian, which in Ian's case meant trying on a lot of things because he's harder to predict sizes than the other two. At this time of year I always wish their dressers were a little bigger because it's hard to make room for both seasons of clothing. It will get easier once I completely remove all the shorts and short sleeve shirts, but it's too soon to do that. It always cracks me up how the same temperature (ex. 60 degrees) feels *freezing* when you've just been experiencing summer weather but then in the spring that same temperature feels downright balmy when you've just been experiencing winter weather. All that to say, even though I was wearing a light jacket this evening at the soccer field, I felt like I was freezing. One nice thing about when the temperatures are this range is that we don't need to use the air conditioning or the furnace which is nice financially. Expect a mishmash of continued mishmash of pictures this week as I am trying to get caught up from pics I hadn't yet edited over the past two weeks. In this post five pictures are from our field trip to Hershey last week, one is from miniature golfing in MA, and one is of Nadia's soccer team.

Yesterday morning we wanted Oliver to see Nadia's baptism. He normally is in Sunday School during the first service and the kids' choir during the second service. He's never sat in a worship service before. When it was about time for the sermon to start I asked him if he wanted to go to his classroom or stay for the sermon. He opted for the sermon (although he of course didn't really know what that was but I think he was influenced by the fact he was sitting in between his Pop Pop and Grandpa). Very soon into the sermon he changed his mind and told me he wanted his class not the sermon, but "where's my cake?". He had been listening earlier in the service when they mentioned there was cake for everyone in the foyer to celebrate one of the pastors being ordained that evening. Grandpa and I got the kids each a piece of cake to eat after our Sunday school class was over (and their kids' choir rehearsal was over). The kids' choir came down to watch the baptisms during the second service so my three kids saw all eleven baptisms on Sunday morning. Hopefully some day Ian and Oliver will also be baptized. I never mentioned it with Nadia. I waited until she brought it up totally on her own initiative. The first and far more important step for Oliver will be to become a Christian. He's pretty clueless right now so I don't expect it to happen in the near future, but hopefully some day he will also have a spiritual birthday.