Papa John Playground

This morning we began reading a new book. We hadn't read a missionary biography in awhile so I started reading them one on William Carey this morning. The kids played for a little bit, and then we headed to Home Depot for a workshop - something else we hadn't done in quite awhile. They built helicopters in honor of Veteran's Day. Nadia and Ian have done more than 15 projects at Home Depot over the years, but today was Oliver's 10th project so he received the special 10 project pin in addition to today's helicopter pin. Nadia didn't need any help. I think she'd prefer to never do any of these projects again because she thinks she's too old for them. She has definitely entered the stage of life where she frequently thinks she's too old to enjoy things that just a short while ago she enjoyed. I think she even thinks she's getting too old for Children's Museums. I remember when I taught sixth grade how the girls would be going back and forth between enjoying childhood pastimes (ex playing with dolls) and being more "grown-up." She doesn't think she's too old to play with

boxes thankfully. She also enjoys the event because she gets to meet some of my students. Oliver declared that Josh (a student in my 8:00 class) was his friend.

In November I try to write a gratitude list every day that I write a post. Here are some things I'm thankful for today:

1. The leaves are turning beautiful colors. I love this time of  year! I took some pictures of the kids yesterday when it wasn't raining and wasn't too cold for them to take a picture without a coat on. I'm hoping to get some pics of them in front of beautiful leaves with some nice fall outfits (or Sunday clothes) the next time we have a day like that!

2. The kids enjoyed gym and art classes yesterday. Nadia hadn't had art class in several weeks because the school had half-days on quite a few Fridays. The kids love Mrs. Pizzuto (the art teacher). I'm very thankful our church makes these classes available for homeschoolers.

3. This week and for the next couple of weeks I only need to visit student teachers on Tuesdays and Thursdays, which means I am with my kids the other five days of the week. I also had very little grading to do this week, which was also a big relief after having a fair amount of grading to do for several weeks in a row.

4. I have a tentative plan for observing and conferencing with my student teachers from November 6 through December 11. I will probably have to make some changes along the way, but it means I get a break from working on schedules for awhile. Creating the schedules should be easier as I'm only supposed to have 5 student teachers. I had 15 last semester and have 10 now. One of my students told Nadia today that she hopes I'm her supervisor next semester. How sweet! Actually I'd be thrilled to have her as one my student teachers as she's been a fabulous student in my classes over the past 14 months. Some of my students have had me in as many as four different classes over the past 3 semesters.

5. Ian and Oliver's new eyeglasses have already come in. They only ordered them on Tuesday! Oliver's came in on Thursday, and Ian's came in yesterday. Paul plans to pick them up on Tuesday. Expect to see some pics next week of the boys with their new glasses!

6. I'm thankful that Home Depot has free workshops where kids can learn the skills of using a screwdriver, using a hammer, etc.

7. The kids really enjoyed the Pop-Up Playground. Oliver misheard me, and he kept asking when we were going to the Papa John Playground, ha ha! The kids could have received free t-shirts, but we still had the ones from last year (although this year's were yellow which was prettier than the grey ones I thought). We all had free pizza, chips, and water. In fact they had SO much pizza (way too much) that the professor in charge told me to take two large pizzas home. The kids also brought home a few boxes.

8. Our Echo Dot hasn't been working for several days. Paul

called today and we're shipping it back and Amazon is sending us a new one. I'm thankful for warranties!

9. When Paul took Nadia to the urgent care center in July to get the earring back out of her ear, we had no idea how much it would cost us. The bill finally arrived in the mail this week, and we owe $50. I'm thankful it wasn't more than that. I'm also that since then Nadia hasn't had any traumatic experiences with her piercings. Pretty soon she can start wearing earrings that aren't the post kind. She's looking forward to that as she doesn't like sleeping with that kind of earring in her ear.

10. I've gotten a lot of books through interlibrary loan through my university lately for my kids. We still check out many books, cds, and videos from the public library also. I'm very thankful for libraries!

11. On Friday I got some work done and also chatted with another mom while the kids were in gym class. I can go months without having a face-to-face conversation with a friend so those moments aren't taken for granted!