Oliver's debut

Oliver joined the kids' choir at church last month. The kids' choir usually sings the third Sunday of every month from October through May. They usually do a musical in December and May and sing one song the other months. They are not doing a musical this year in December unfortunately. This morning they sang the song "Alive" in both services. I videotaped both services and uploaded both so Paul's mom could see them since they weren't able to come to see them in person today. I embedded the video from the first service and a link to the second service is included below as well.

 I think considering he is four years old Oliver did pretty well for his first time on the platform at our church (which has an average attendance of 1,600 between the two services). Comparing the three four-year-olds, Nadia did the best singing in a choir when she was that age in terms of singing out really well, smiling, and doing the motions. Ian was terrified at first and wouldn't even actually go on the platform (even though when he had turned four we were going to a church with an average attendance of about 180). Then when Ian joined this choir (a couple of months before he turned 5) he had the courage to be up there but definitely was clueless about the motions. As you can see below, Oliver did sing some and do some of the motions. I think it was a good start for him, with of course room for improvement. Ian and Nadia both were definitely singing and doing the motions. Nadia did a better job of smiling during the second service. Oliver added some marching, which amused some people sitting near us. I am always amazed how small the kids' choir is given the size of the church, but I am very thankful the kids have this opportunity to sing in a choir each week since they don't get that chance at school.

My day got off to a great start as I weighed myself and discovered I had lost 3 pounds in 2 days! I know the weight comes off the fastest in the beginning and will be much slower most of the time, but still it was very encouraging. I knew I had been good at the birthday party (only had fresh fruit), but I had some treats at the fall festival yesterday afternoon. I was very relieved to know those sweets hadn't meant I deviated from my diet overall. After watching the yucky football game, I ran 3.5 miles. The day had a strange ending because at 6:45 pm Paul asked the kids to hug him good night. He crawled into bed at 7:25, even earlier than Oliver! This is a new record. I don't think he's ever gone to bed that early in our 15 years of marriage. Last night he went to bed at 8:00 and left for work at 2:00 am. He only worked for four hours (plus the two hour commute round trip) so that he would be at church to see Oliver's debut.