Thankful Thursday

1. All three kids got a good report at the dentist on May 11.

2. Paul's parents have been married for 50 years as of May 13!

3. The choir sang a beautiful anthem (It is well) on May 14. The choir director has decided to continue the choir for another year (whew), although he said he's not going to purchase any new music.

4. I have been blessed with three beautiful children!

5. We were able to spend several hours with Paul's parents, brother, and sister-in-law on Sunday.

6. The kids and I enjoyed our time at Daniel Boone's Homestead on Tuesday and also our visit with my friend, Kay on our way back.

7. Oliver has been going out on the soccer field without crying or cajoling. Hopefully that will also be true at the Alliance Church on Wednesday nights in future weeks.

I'm thankful a woman helped to make him to stay in the room when I left.

8. Ian played better at his soccer game on Saturday. He still isn't as aggressive  in going for the ball as he was last year, but he *almost* got a goal several times, which was encouraging.

9. We shopped at a discount grocery store after the game on Saturday and got some good bargains.

10. The pastor was really encouraged by my story of what Ian told me regarding the sermon. He posted what I shared (without revealing any names) and 193 people clicked like (and several posted comments).

11. We own a weed whacker that I can start on my own! I have never really wanted to use a weed whacker. I always felt intimidated by them, but my desire to have the weeds trimmed became greater than my aversion to using that device. Maybe someday I'll become brave enough to use the gas powered clippers. Thus far I still just use the simple kind.

12. Ian had lost the wire that held the water bottle onto the guinea pig cage. Last week Pop Pop used a wire coat hanger to create a better holder. Unfortunately Ian messed with it this week so it's not quite as good as how Pop Pop had it, but it's still much better than what I had come up with. I never professed to be an engineer!

13. Whenever I ask Ian to help teach Oliver something, he does a great job at giving encouragement and celebrating correct answers.

14. We enjoyed seeing a production of Little Red Riding Hood at the Millbrook Playhouse today. It's been more than a year since we saw a production at the Community Theatre League. We used to go there several times a year, but I stopped in attempt to save some money. Ironically they were also doing Little Red Riding Hood this month, but I picked the Millbrook Playhouse even though it's a longer drive because #1 the tickets were cheaper ($15 for the four of us compared to $32 at CTL) and #2 this production was put on by

adults (kids at the other one). Everyone else that was there was from a public school. The woman in charge of seating people told me to wait at the end, and she gave us a private tour of the place - the costume room, dressing room, passageways in the backstage, etc. It's been more than a year since we went to a show at BTE or PSU, again because we can't afford to see as many shows as we used to attend. I had wanted to take the kids to see BFG at PSU in the 2016 but skipped it due to our shrinking budget. They are doing BFG at BTE this summer. I hope the tickets are reasonably priced because I'd really like to take them.

15. I noticed that the Kmart near the theatre had a "store closing" sign on it; I decided to make a quick stop. I was looking for sandals for Nadia. We struck out on that, but I got myself a pair of snow boots! I don't have any. Ideally I would have preferred a taller pair, but the taller ones they had left didn't come in any sizes bigger than 8 (and I need 8.5 or 9). Typically though when we get snow we don't get a massive amount, so the ones I

got will work most of the time. They only cost me $9.50! Yay!

16. I planted two blueberry bushes today and a bunch of strawberry plants earlier this week. Hopefully we will get fruit from these in future years! Since I bought these plants and mulch, I only bought two hosta plants this spring. I usually buy at least one flat of annuals, but I'm going to skip those this year to save some money in light of what I spent on strawberry plants and blueberry bushes and the fertilizer, peat moss, and top soil necessary to plant those properly.

17. Yesterday I received the first item from the Shutterfly order I placed on Sunday. It was my first time ordering a blanket for myself from Shutterfly. I had ordered two woven blankets in 2015 for my mom and mother-in-law. I had never bought a fleece blanket, but I had a coupon for a free one and got it for myself. It has 8 pictures on it. I love it, and the kids do also. They keep wanting to use it even though it's stinking hot and no blankets are really needed today. I love Shutterfly!!

18. Today we attended an Emergency Preparedness Day on the grounds of a prison about 5 minutes from our home. They had different demos throughout the day. We attended a K-9 Drug Unit demo, and a breaching demo by a PA State Police Disturbance Control Team. We watched them chainsaw through a metal door and use guns with rubber balls in them and such to show how they would handle a prison riot. We also watched a Puppet Show about safety tips for kids. Other demos we didn't see included a bear trap demo by the

game commission, self-defense demo, class about identity theft, mounted unit demo, etc. This was the 11th year this event was held, and I had never heard about it until a few days ago. I think we will return if they continue to hold this event.

19. Ian's soccer practice was cancelled for today. I can't tell you how nice it was not to feel so rushed at dinner and be able to stay home after dinner. I truly am thinking of skipping soccer and softball for all three kids next year. It's just been TOO much this spring. If I did it for

only one child, I would pick Ian because he seems to have the most talent. If it wasn't so expensive, I'd sign them all up for gymnastics because that would be a once a week commitment rather than 5 days a week, which is what it ends up being with two or more children in soccer and/or Little League. Basketball is definitely less hectic. We've already paid for the three kids to do that next year, and I'm planning to sign all three up for ice skating lessons  and homeschool gym class.  If the kids were interested in flag football, that would be less hectic in the fall as it's also an Upward program that only entails one practice a week and one game a week for eight weeks. We're on target with the "kids" section of the budget at this point, and I've already

paid for all their camps and such with the exception of swimming and diving lessons. Whew.

20. Paul has been working shorter hours on Saturdays! He napped for several hours last Saturday, but that didn't stop the kids from climbing on his lap while he was sleeping. He was so tired that didn't even wake him up! He also helped me out recently by making some changes to our router to make it more secure. We had been having trouble using our ($65/month!) internet. Hopefully what he did will cause those issues

to go away, if the problem was because someone was stealing our bandwidth.

21. I'm thankful for gift cards to restaurants. We still have a few on hand (mostly for Friendly's), and I'm going to get some more through credit card points. I scratched our trip to Knoebels in June from our calendar (we were going to go on a buy one get one free day) because we will be maxing out our entertainment budget for the year soon and it's only May. We need to go back to only buying food from a

restaurant if we have a gift card. Recently we had been getting takeout pizza once a week, but we just can't afford to keep doing that because we don't have gift cards to the places where we usually get pizza. I'll have to experiment again with homemade pizza recipes. I would like to buy tickets to see the Titanic musical at our church, BFG (depending on the ticket prices), and have enough money to go to DelGrosso's once as we didn't go there last year. I already paid for our tickets to Dutch Wonderland and Idlewild. We weren't planning on going to Sight and Sound this year, and trips to things like Disney on Ice and the circus had already been scratched out ever since I ceased to be our primary breadwinner. I'm thankful for the many events that are free, which we can do even on a more limited budget. I also want to take the kids to Ephrata Cloister in October. I'll have to increase the entertainment budget a bit, but I can't do that too much because I already had to increase the medical expenses and the car repair categories. Thankfully we have barely spent any money on clothes this year, and we're also a little under budget in the gasoline category thus far. We're right on track with the food budget. It's nice to have some categories on track or under budget. Usually the activities at the children's museum are free, which is wonderful. I had a shock when I signed them up for the eye dissection and bakers in training programs there. The eye dissection program will be free (as usual), but when I found out it was $26 per child for a one hour baking program put on by Panera at the museum, I quickly cancelled our reservations! There is no way I'm going to pay $78 for three kids to make a baguette and decorate a cookie!!! We can do that at home for less than $5.

22. Paul and his dad got back safely from Canada today. They ended up going up and back in one day!