Gingerbread and Pellets

The Bloomsburg Children's Museum hosts a homeschool hangout event every other week. We've attended three of the four programs they've held this fall - crazy chemistry, microbiology, and the science of gingerbread. This week's was focused on gingerbread. The kids were able to make and decorate one gingerbread cookie, decorate one gingerbread house (from a kit), play with gingerbread Play-doh (it smelled lovely), build a boat and use the boat to help the gingerbread boy escape from the fox, do an activity related to genetics, etc. Usually we arrive around 12:00 and stay for a couple of hours. The homeschool hangout lasts from 11-1. This week we arrived closer to 10:00 because I knew we had to leave by 11:50 to get to the dentist for the kids' appointments. Usually they schedule them all to happen at the same time, and we're usually in and out of the office in 20-30 minutes. This time we were there for over an hour. Nadia and Oliver were taken back right away, and they were both done in 20 minutes, but then we had to wait 30 minutes until Ian was called back. I had brought a

 book to read (a textbook for one of the classes next semester), and the kids watched Disney Jr. on the television in the waiting room. The boys got good reports. Nadia has one cavity, but it's in a baby tooth (molar) that will be falling out soon (given how short the roots are) so the dentist didn't think we needed to do anything about it. They also said that one of her baby teeth is loose; it happens to be the one that doesn't have an adult tooth to replace it. They told her not to wiggle it, but it might come out anyhow. We shall see. Nadia and Ian both had

orthodontist appointments coming up. I had been planning to only get braces for Ian, but now that I am employed again I'm willing to hear what they say about Nadia because my dental plan will pay up to $3,100 for each child's braces.

Tabatha did several science experiments with the kids on Tuesday related to eggs, and I joined in on the fun on Thursday afternoon. The kids have been studying flying creatures (insects and birds thus far with bats and flying dinosaurs coming up next). I had purchased five large owl pellets for the five kids to take apart. Nadia didn't really  want to touch the things. She thought it was gross. We were digging bones out of the pellets and trying to determine if the owls had eaten moles, mice, birds, or voles. Tabatha's husband would have been a big help to us with his expertise in radiology.

Here are some things I'm thankful for today...

1. Nadia made several baskets in her Upward evaluation on Tuesday night. She's improving! All three kids will be playing basketball this year. Oliver will have his first year on a K/1st team, Ian will be moving up to a 2nd/3rd grade team, and Nadia will be moving up to a 4th-6th grade girl's team. 

2. The kids enjoyed the Gingerbread themed hangout at the Children's Museum on Wednesday.

3. All three kids were well behaved at the dentist office on Wednesday.

4. The Steelers won last night! I only watched the first quarter because I was too tired to stay up. I went to bed at 9pm, and the only reason I stayed up until 9:00 was because that's Nadia's bedtime. Paul and Oliver had gone to bed at 8:00. Our record is 8-2!!

5. The kids enjoyed glow-in-the dark dodgeball today. It was their last gym class until January 12. Ian and Nadia enjoyed their first art class today at the Christian school.

6. The children's museum sent out an email today offering one family four free tickets to a children's Christmas show at Bucknell on December 2, and I was the first one to call so we are getting the tickets (which would have cost us $50 if we had purchased them)!

7. Today is the first day of my 11 day Thanksgiving break from the university! Today was my kids' last day of school before their Thanksgiving break. They'll start back up on November 27. Next week I plan to have Nadia and Ian practice the piano and do some writing. Plus they usually read every day from a chapter book. Since Oliver is too young for creative writing or the piano, I plan to just work on reading with him. This week he showed a big improvement with reading 3 letter short vowel words.

8. Yesterday and today I have been working on grading. Aside from a few students who hadn't submitted an assignment due today, I am totally caught up with grading. That means I won't need to do any grading next week. My first order of business is to write the final exams. 

9. Paul installed my new can opener this week! Mine wasn't working properly for a few months (it was over 20 years old), and so I bought a new one 2 1/2 months ago. Paul had removed the old one shortly after I purchased the new one, so this meant for the past 2.5 months I needed to use the old fashioned manual can opener. I am thankful to have an electric can opener again! The reason it needed to be installed is because I prefer the kind that hang down from a cabinet so as to save space on my countertop. 

10. Paul came home much earlier than usual yesterday! I don't know exactly when he got home as he was home before we were, but it meant we were able to have dinner together, and that almost never happens Monday through Friday. Oliver got some much needed one-on-one time with Paul (doing puzzles), which was also a blessing.

11. I have received some more good coupons for Shutterfly. That is also on my to do list for the next week - to start making some projects and placing orders for ornaments, calendars, etc.

12. Since Coke changed their reward program, I haven't been using Coke caps, but today I entered 20 of them in exchange for a $10 gift card at Amazon. That was nice!