Three videos

I know some day the kids and I will really appreciate the videos of my children. I wish we had some of my siblings and I when we were growing up. Over the last few days I recorded several videos. I made two of Oliver - one of him reading his very first story and another of him saying John 3:16. Ian has really been enjoying one of his piano songs. He plays it multiple times without me asking him to do so. I took a video of that. I need to take one of Nadia playing the piano. Taking those videos is a bit bittersweet for me, as I always think of my mom, since she taught me how to play the piano and since she loved to hear Nadia play. She never heard Ian play because he started after she passed away. I also took two videos of Ian and Nadia reading, but I did that primarily for my students in the reading class because they'll be learning how to do a running record next week, and I'm going to have them practice doing that assessment with my videos of Ian and Nadia reading. I usually do my gratitude lists on Tuesdays or Thursdays, but here's one on a Saturday.

1. Oliver said two verses at AWANA on Wednesday night. He is off to a good start. Memorizing verses was very difficult for him the past two years, but it seems like it's coming more easily this year. It was crazy hair night. I just messed up Ian's hair (sort of a bad case of bed head), Oliver wore a clown wig, and I put four pigtails in Nadia's hair  (one on each side and two in the back). Oliver is in his first year of Sparks, Ian is in his third (and final) year of Sparks, and Nadia is in her second year of T and T. I have a video below of him reciting John 3:16. I cut Ian's hair today, and the bad hair day look would be much harder to achieve right now.

2. The man who was the janitor on the floor where my office was the first few years I worked at the university (he was later moved to a different building) put a space heater in my office Wednesday night. What a blessing to be in a warm office on Thursday, as my office has been FREEZING cold the past four weeks!

3. Oliver is making progress with reading. The lightbulb hasn't totally clicked on yet, but as seen from the video above (where he was reading a story called Jam), he's starting to read some short "a" words. He's depending too much on the illustrations right now. I remember needing to cover those up with Ian, and I'll likely need to do the same with Oliver.

4. All three kids have been doing jigsaw puzzles lately! Nadia has been doing one almost every day.

5. I've really been enjoying my new dresses that I bought this summer. The first five weeks of the semester I wore a dress to work every day (which amounted to 9 days of work since I missed the first day due to my contract not being issued yet). I have sometimes gone an entire  year without wearing a dress even once so this is a big change. I've worn skirts far more often the last ten years. I bought one for myself at a yard sale today. I haven't tried it on yet so we shall see if I actually keep it or not, but for $1 it seemed

worth the gamble.

6. Yesterday and today our town had their annual community yard sale. Due to homeschool gym class yesterday morning and flag football games today, I didn't spend as much time shopping at the yard sales as I usually do each September, but we did shop for at least one hour both mornings. I had a list of things I was looking for, and I got almost everything on the list including black Sunday shoes for Nadia, leotards for Nadia for gymnastics, cleats for Nadia, pants for Oliver, plastic containers for their sandwiches so we don't use as many sandwich bags each week, light coat for Nadia, etc. Of course we picked up a few things that were not on the list. Oliver spent his $5 that he got for his birthday on a Wii game. Nadia and I also stopped at Sears on the way home from flag football today, and I got two bathing suits, one swim shirt, one dress + necklace, and a pair of shorts for a grand total of $7.34 which was in some cases cheaper than yard sale prices! I don't think I've ever made so many trips to Sears in one year before let alone in one month before, but they keep sending me great coupons, and we pass the Sears on Tuesdays and Saturdays due to flag football. I'm sure I won't head up there very often once flag football is over.

7. I got to talk to my sister, Yvonne, on Thursday morning. I'm thankful for technology that makes it possible to keep in touch even though she lives in Turkey.

8. Paul's parents were able to join us for the flag football games today. What a difference one week can make! The temperature was 30 degrees cooler today than last Saturday.

9. The kids had their third trip to the new Children's Museum in nine days on Friday after gym class and a trip to the library. I was able to get work done on my laptop while they played.