Cut a rug

The last several years the kids have gone to a free breakfast with Santa event. Most of the time it was one given by our local fire department. Last year we went to one at a nursing home; we couldn't go to that one this year because it was the held the morning we were standing in line in Baltimore. This weekend was the time that the fire company usually held their breakfast, but it seems to me they didn't have one this year. Nadia has reached the age where she thinks she's outgrown many things she used to enjoy such as many Disney princess movies. I think visiting Santa is in the same category, but considering Oliver is only five-years-old I at least wanted to visit the one they always have outside the grocery store in our town. Originally I thought that Saturday we would go to the breakfast with Santa with the fire department, a Christmas party at the library, and candy cane making demonstration. The first two were deleted from our calendar. but we did make it to the candy cane demo at Purity Candy (about five minutes from our house). Last year was the first year we attended one of those.

They do three demonstrations each Saturday three weeks in a row in December. They show the whole process from start to finish of making a batch of candy canes. At the end each child (and adult if they are interested) can form a candy cane into whatever shape they want, and they get to keep (and eat) that candy cane. I was amazed to learn that the couple standing next to me had driven ten hours (they live in Michigan) to attend the demonstration! I thought it was interesting, but I never would drive anywhere near ten hours for a 30 minute demonstration!

The kids' choir sang in church this morning. Oliver brought a lot of laughter in the first service. So many people were commenting to me saying things like "Oliver sure knows how to cut a rug" and such. To be honest I was feeling embarrassed when it was happening, but I'm glad others enjoyed it. Ian and Nadia never have done anything like that. Each child is certainly unique! I asked him to not do that in the second service, and he didn't. I brought the video camera, but I

hadn't charged the battery so I couldn't use it. I used Paul's phone in the first service, and my phone in the second service. The video camera's videos are much higher quality than the phone's, but something is better than nothing. I brought my camera to church so that I could take photos of the kids in the sleigh in the foyer, but I forgot about that plan and sent my camera home with Paul when he left after the first service. I have been making mistakes left and right lately. So I took photos at home in front of the Christmas tree instead. Paul's parents came to the second service and then came home and spent several hours at our house. They gave Ian his birthday present - Legos! Usually he receives multiple Lego sets at his birthday and at Christmas, but this was the only set he got for his birthday this year. It's a big one (900+ pieces). We are finally done with celebrating Ian's 8th birthday. Pop Pop will be turning 76 on Wednesday!

Grades, Names, and Percentiles

Our ornaments from Corning Glass arrived by UPS on Tuesday!

This week has been a bit zany for me. Yesterday I found myself rather overwhelmed as I was trying to homeschool my three kids, grade umpteen exams, do the house work, etc. I looked at the sink overflowing with dirty dishes from Wednesday and wanted to scream because I felt like I had so many things to do and didn't know which order to do them in. I've been grading every spare minute of the day from the moment I got up in the morning until I went to bed. Plus some students were not happy with me. Two students actually threatened me they were so angry that I had taken away points (according to the policy in my syllabus) because they had been texting in class or shopping online on a laptop. Most of the students calmed down and said something to the effect that they would learn from their mistake. I got a nice email from another student which helped to compensate for the unhappy ones I got. She said, "you can really tell that you care about your students. It was a pleasure having you as a

professor." That made my day! The wonderful news is that at 12:30pm today I finished grading the exams, and later this afternoon I submitted the course grades for the Registrar. I also got caught up on emailing students.

Although the semester is over it doesn't mean I am done doing work for the university. I have two conference proposals to write (hoping to speak at the NAEYC conference in DC or the NCSS conference in Chicago in November 2018), and I also want to write my syllabi and lesson plans for the spring semester, but I have two months to accomplish those tasks so I don't need to work at such a feverish pace. Although I love teaching at the university, there have certainly been many moments this semester when I thought I had bitten off far more than I could chew to try to homeschool three kids, work a FT job, and keep up with the laundry, Christmas shopping, cooking, cleaning, etc. But we have made it through. I am exhausted, but I have survived. Oliver has been gipped with his schoolwork. I want to give my Kindergartener a lot more

attention in the coming weeks. I don't think he minds that he had more time to play, ha ha!

I also need to put some time into cleaning the house - those types of cleaning jobs you don't do every week like cleaning the shelves of the refrigerator, dusting the tops of the kitchen cabinets, etc. I had planned to do a major cleaning in August when I thought my three kids would be at Good News Camp all day, but plans changed and that didn't happen, and I certainly haven't been doing anything extra as far as cleaning the past four months. On Thursday I got around to paying a few bills (time share, dentist, etc.), but I found out today when I called the library to register my kids for the Christmas party that I missed the deadline. Oops. Sometimes with all I have been juggling I have dropped a few balls along the way.

Over the years as an educator I would have classes where there were multiple students with the same name. For example, in my 8:00 class this semester I have three students with the name

Abby. One of those three has the last name that starts with the letters Ng. I found out last week that BOTH of those letters are silent in her name. Her father is Vietnamese. I never say their last names out loud, but I had always assumed another student's last name was pronounced Smith even though it's spelled Smyth. Turns out the "y" makes a long I sound in her name, which actually is very phonetic. In my 12:30 class this semester I had two students named Emily and three named Hailey. In my 9:30 class I had two students named Ashley and

two named Victoria. One of my goals when picking kids' names was to pick ones that were NOT too popular. I have been hearing the name Oliver a lot more often the last couple of years and so I looked online and sure enough that name has been skyrocketing in popularity. It went from being the 305th most popular boy name in 2000 and has been climbing up ever since. When we picked it in 2012 we knew it was the 78th most popular name in 2011. That didn't seem overly popular to me, but in 2013 it was 52nd, in 2014 it was 32nd, in 2015 it was 19th, and

last year it was the 12th most popular name, and my guess is that it might be in the top ten in 2017. Oops! Well when you're picking a name it's difficult to predict which names will be popular in the future.

The funny thing is that although I hear the name Oliver far more often when we're out and about, I don't think Oliver has had another Oliver in any of his classes or teams thus far, whereas Ian has had that happen multiple times. It happened the first week of his life as he was one of multiple Ians in the NICU. However, Ian actually has stayed more steady in terms of popularity. From 2006-2016 it was somewhere between 72nd and 80th place each year. I am confident we succeeded with Nadia in not picking an overly popular name as only one time was there another Nadia in her class (it was gymnastics), and we've only met a handful of other Nadias over the past nine years. From 2000-2016 the highest her name reached was #178 (in 2005) to a low of #358 (in 2016). One of my students is married, and his wife is due to have a baby in May. He showed

us the ultrasound picture after they found out they are having a boy. I remember how exciting that time was for me with each of our three children even though we had difficulty in finding names we both liked.

This week the 2017-18  basketball season began for our kids. Ian and Oliver had their first practices last night, and Nadia had her first practice this evening. The boys and I went to a Christmas service at church this evening while she was playing basketball. Next Friday she'll miss part of her practice as the kids' choir is singing in a program next Friday night at church.

In addition to homeschooling and grading for the university today, I also took Nadia and Ian to their art class at Meadowbrook and then the four of us went to the library and Pediatrician. Nadia had her 9 year old well visit (albeit she'll turn 9 1/2 in 9 days), and Ian had his 8 year old well visit. At Nadia's three year check-up, she weighed 34lbs (80th percentile) and was 36 inches tall (26th percentile). On October 12,

2012, she was 40lbs (75th percentile) and 40 inches tall (39th percentile), on November 8, 2013 she was 47 lbs (80th percentile) and 42.5 inches tall (30th percentile). Those three years they said something to me each time about Nadia's BMI, but in 2014 she didn't say anything because Nadia weighed 50 lbs (55th percentile) and her height at 46 inches was at the 45th percentile.  In 2015 Nadia weighed in at 58 lbs (70th percentile) and was 1/4 inch shy of 4 ft tall (30th percentile). The doctor said she was just shy of being labeled overweight in terms of her BMI. Last year she weighed 68 pounds (75th percentile) and her height was 51 inches (45th percentile). Today she weighed 74 pounds (65th percentile) and her height was 52 inches (30th percentile). Last year and this year her BMI was at the 82nd percentile, and this particular pediatrician is fine with anything up to 85 percentile for BMI so he didn't say anything about her weight. 

Ian weighed 32 pounds in December 2012, 35 pounds in 2013, 39 pounds in 2014 (45th percentile), 41 pounds in 2015 (20th percentile), 48 pounds last year (25th percentile) and 51 pounds today (25th percentile). He was 36 inches tall in 2012, 39 inches in 2013, 41 inches in 2014 (12th percentile), 44.5 inches in 2015 (30th percentile), 46.5 inches last year (25th percentile), and 48.5 inches today (24th percentile). For a few years I was told Ian needed to gain weight because his BMI was too low, but last year and this year his height and weight have been almost identical in terms of percentile so they are very happy with his BMI (which was at the 34th percentile today and 50th percentile last year). I'm very thankful that the kids are healthy and the only time we usually visit the Pediatrician is for their annual well visits!

Christmas around the world at the Children's Museum on Wednesday morning

Eight years old!

Monster ice cream cake in Maryland on December 8

Today is Ian's eighth birthday! He was due on January 20, but he decided to come on December 12, although the doctors were convinced he could wait at least a few more days even after my water broke. They were wrong. His delivery was the only one that I was not under general anesthesia. The first 3 years of his life were rather stressful due to physical issues, but since that time he's been a healthy child, for which I am very grateful. Normally we have celebrated his birthday with his grandparents at our house, but we're doing things

differently this year. First, we celebrated Grandpa and Ian's birthdays on Friday in Maryland. Today we had donuts for breakfast, he had chicken nuggets for lunch (his request), and we're all having pizza and birthday cake for dinner (his request). He opened his present from Grandpa and Gubba on Friday. He opened his presents from Paul and I this morning, and he'll be opening his present from Grandma and Pop Pop next week.

On December 19 we'll be celebrating Pop Pop and Ian's

birthdays in Lancaster by attending the Miracle of Christmas at Sight and Sound. My Dad's birthday is December 10, Ian's is December 12, and Pop Pop's is December 20. Next year I'll try to have a more traditional "party" for him and invite some of his friends. I started inviting friends to Nadia's birthday party when she turned eight. Ironically, Nadia had a Minion birthday party when she turned eight in 2016. Ian picked that theme because today we're going to watch Despicable Me 3 for the first time. It came out in the theaters this past summer and came

out on DVD last week. One of his birthday gifts was a DVD that contained all three Despicable Me movies. One of the perks of homeschooling is that we can take a day off of school for birthdays. I'm taking advantage of the day off of homeschooling to work on grading for the university.

1. He loves to snuggle.

2. He always wants to have honey mustard with his chicken tenders or nuggets. That is what he usually orders when we are at a sit down or fast food restaurant.

3. He always wants to have ketchup and mustard on his hot dogs. He often has a hot dog for lunch.

4. Pizza is one of his favorite things to have for dinner, and he's especially happy if it's pepperoni pizza.

5. He has a peanut butter and orange marmalade sandwich almost every day at lunch. I don't buy lunch meat very often, but if I bought turkey he'd pick that instead.

6. He still loves Legos although he plays with them far fewer hours per week than he used to.

7. He also still loves playing with stuffed animals. He carries them all over the house and even into the van. His favorites at the moment are his Minions. He loves the purple Minion I got him for his birthday. He was surprised when he opened it!

8. For many months almost every chapter book he read was from the Magic Tree House series (library books). Now he's reading through

the Imagination Station series. We own every book that has been published thus far in that series because Nadia also read all of them. Ian likes to read, but thus far he's not a bookworm like his sister has been (and still is).

9. He loves his guinea pig, Patches. He doesn't hold her as much as he did the first few months, but he does give her love every day. Grandpa and Gubba gave him a small stuffed animal for his birthday that looks like Nadia's guinea pig, Jenna.

10. He really loves bacon. If he requests breakfast for dinner, it's most likely because he wants to eat bacon. He doesn't care for eggs. He enjoys pancakes, especially if they have chocolate chips in them.

11. His favorite things to eat for breakfast include Cocoa Puffs, Cookie Crisp, donuts, pop tarts, Frosted mini wheat, and Reese's Puffs. He chose a Peanut Butter Cup donut for his birthday breakfast. I buy six donuts and the birthday boy or girl gets two and everyone else has one donut. Ian, who can be very

generous at times, gave Oliver the extra donut today.

12. His favorite fruit to have at lunch is watermelon. When that isn't in season, his next favorite is a golden delicious apple cut into slices. He usually dips his apple slices in peanut butter. On their birthdays the kids are allowed to take a reprieve from eating fruits and vegetables if they want. Ian made sure I didn't forget about this family tradition!

13. His favorite vegetable to have at dinner is green beans.

14. He loves to drink apple juice or chocolate milk, but we don't usually have either of those in our refrigerator. The vast majority of the time he only drinks water.

15. He likes to sleep on top of a host of stuffed animals with his special blue blanket, sheet, and comforter on top of him.

16. He gets the least sleep of my three kids, in part because he usually wakes up between 6:15-6:30.

17. He sometimes falls asleep in the van, but not nearly as often as Oliver does.

18. He plays the piano more than his siblings do. Last week he was promoted from Level 1A to Level 1B (orange books to green books). I'm pleased with his progress especially as he is finally reading the music. For the first several months he was prone to memorizing it rather than reading the notes.

19. Last week he also was promoted to the third grade math textbook. It should go smoothly for him because he already knows his multiplication and division facts. Math comes more easily to Ian than it does to Nadia.

20. He doesn't play the Wii much, but when he does, he loves to play Mario. One of his birthday gifts that I got him was Mario Cart for the Wii.

21. When he plays a board game, he loves to use something else for his "men" than whatever typically comes with the game. He might use a Lego mini-figure for example. In Maryland a few days ago he used a Smurf when playing Sorry. I got him the game Mastermind for his birthday. This definitely wasn't his favorite gift, but hopefully he will enjoy playing it. It was a game I really enjoyed when I was a child. Oliver had fun playing with the colored pegs this morning.

22. He loves to draw people on little bits of paper and put them into the plastic holders for the people in Chutes and Ladders.

23. He prefers to play with Nadia, but lately she has been spending more time in her room by herself and so Ian has been either playing by himself more or playing with Oliver more than usual. He and Oliver don't get along as well as he and Nadia do, but hopefully over time that will improve.

24. I've given him a break from doing a handwriting textbook this year. Nadia started learning cursive in January of 2nd grade, but I'm going to wait until the third grade for Ian to start cursive.

25. Ian has started doing Rosetta Stone Spanish this year.

26. He is making a lot of progress in gymnastics, especially with his cartwheels.

27. He made a lot of progress in basketball; I'm looking forward to seeing how he'll do this season as he'll be playing on a 2nd/3rd grade team. His first practice is this Thursday night.

28. He loves to draw. Lately he has been into drawing arctic animals such as arctic loons, walruses, penguins, etc. He was very excited to see the puffins at the aquarium on Saturday.

29. He is a homebody.

30. He prefers baths, but because he and Oliver were making a mess in the bathroom, he has begun to take showers instead.

31. He prefers to sit with us in the worship service than to attend the Kids' program.

32. He sings quite a bit throughout the day. I love to hear him sing!

33. His glasses strap does a great job of keeping his glasses on his face. Now if we could find a way to keep his two nose pads on his eyeglasses. They've been replaced many times. At the moment he's missing one of them.

34. He eats his breakfast efficiently and feeds the guinea pigs and gives them water each morning.

35. He is very bossy and critical when he interacts with Oliver.

36. He has begun to ask for me to invite his friends over to our house. Next year I'll be sure to invite some boys to his birthday party.

37. He is almost half-way through the third grade spelling book.

38. This year he played on a basketball team, soccer team, and flag football team.

39. He really enjoyed his second week at Camp Good News this summer (day camp). He went by himself in 2016. This year he went with Nadia and Addylade (neighbor). He didn't want to go to an overnight camp this year, but next June he will be going to Camp Susque for 3 nights.

40. He enjoyed horseback riding lessons, swimming lessons, and tennis lessons this past summer.

41. He loves babies - both infants and baby animals. One of his birthday gifts today were two small purple dragon hatchlings (figurines).

42. He doesn't like to wear socks. He takes them off as soon as we come in the house. He wears them only when he has shoes on his feet (when we're not at home).

43. He mostly wears size 7 or 7/8 shirts or tops. I tried a size 8 dress shirt on him, and it was far too big. He wears size 6 or 6/7 pants. There are a few size 7 pants that fit him, but most of the pants I have in that size are in his closet until he grows a bit taller. Ian can also fit into some 5/6 pants, but I have given those to Oliver because Oliver wears 5 or 5/6 pants now. Ian's favorite clothes to wear lately have been sweatshirts (Monday through Saturday) and a sweater or a sweater vest with a turtleneck on Sundays. Dress shirts and ties aren't his favorite any longer. I think he will get a lot of use out of the custom t-shirt over the next year that I got him for his birthday announcing that he has turned 8! It has a BB8 on it from Star Wars, which I thought was perfect given he's now 8 years old.

44. He lost three teeth in the past few months - all on his top jaw. His front two teeth have come back in at weird angles. He's returning to the orthodontist next month, and then we'll find out if he's ready to start braces yet or not.

45. He loves to use the iPad. Because he got a new game he's playing the Wii instead of the iPad today. Normally he has to earn a turn (20 minutes), but since it's his birthday he can play a total of 40 minutes today without needing to earn those turns. 

46. He has really been enjoying listening to the Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place (a book series we've been listening to in the van that we have been checking out from the library).

47. Ian has a hard time saving money. He wants to spend it as soon as he gets any. He is generous with his money though and often buys Nadia something that she wants with his money.

48. He and Oliver both love to listen to music on the CD player.

49. He has seen all of the Star Wars movies except for The Force Awakens. Mario, Minions, and Star Wars are some of his favorite things to talk about.

50. He's now old enough that he doesn't need to use a booster seat in the car any longer! His new chore is going to be to help clean the bathrooms with me once a week. Nadia will be relieved of that chore, and instead she is going to start helping me with sweeping the kitchen. He can't wait until he can stay up until 9 pm (when he turns 9).

Bumps and Bruises

Life is full of ups, downs, twists, and turns. Many of these effect us emotionally whereas others might have more of an impact financially, physically, or in some other way. There were several instances last week when one of us experienced a bump or bruise of some sort.

Nadia was very, very disappointed when she found out last week that can't take ice skating lessons this winter. Oliver's basketball practice is from 5-6 on Thursdays and Ian's practices are from 6-7 on Thursdays. Oliver's ice skating lessons would have been from 4:30-5:15, and Nadia and Ian's would have been from 5:15-6:00. When you sign up for Upward you're allowed to mark one night that you can't make the practices. I always mark Wednesday night because of AWANA. Once they did have ice skating and basketball on Thursday nights, but the basketball practice started at a time that it didn't conflict. I felt badly for her as I know she really loves ice skating lessons, but there is nothing I can do about it. Her basketball practices are on Friday nights. I had

already printed out the ice skating registration forms. I am very thankful I hadn't actually mailed them in yet because they don't give any refunds, and we would have been out $180.

Last Tuesday I found out that my schedule for the spring has changed. This is all unofficial as I haven't officially been offered the job yet. Hopefully that will happen in the near future. I was going to teach from 3:30-8:00 pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays plus have five student teachers, but two professors requested to teach "my" classes on overload. My current schedule is to teach a math methods class from 3:30-4:45 plus fifteen student teachers. On the Thursdays when the basketball season and my spring semester overlap, Tab will be taking my kids to the church at 5:00. I will meet her there around 5:15 (I think it will take about 30 minutes for me to drive to the church from the university). Every other week Paul will need to meet us there around 6:50 so that I can drive to my Bible study (I'll be studying Ezra/ Haggai starting the end of January).

Some emotional bumps for me included PDE saying they don't consider any of my 20+ years of experience to have been certified even though I had multiple valid certificates at the time. Their bone of contention is that I had a certificate from the state of Ohio but didn't teach in Ohio. The three requirements for the certificate I was pursuing were #1 have at least a master's degree in Curriculum and Instruction (I have a doctorate), #2 pass the required PRAXIS test (my score was far above the minimum needed to pass), and #3 have at least five years of teaching experience (I have more than 20). It was very hard to accept this news because I spent $400 in taking the test and submitting the application (that's a lot of money to waste!) and I invested a lot of time and energy as well in studying for the test, taking the test, getting all five employers to fill out paperwork verifying my employment, etc. I will be filling out forms for PDE for each of my student teachers next semester so they can get their certification from PDE. Ironic!

The reasons I applied for this certificate were so that I could review other homeschoolers (earn some $$) and so that I could file with our local school district as a private tutor instead of homeschooling my children. Reviewers are allowed to have a certificate from another state if they are employed by an educational institution. So now that I am employed I am eligible to review other homeschoolers with my Ohio certificate. However now that I am working FT I have zero desire to earn extra money by doing this. You must have a PA certificate to be a private tutor, which means I need to maintain records and a portfolio, submit these for review every year (costs about $30 per child), and have them take the standardized tests in certain grades (3, 5, 8, and 11). That's the bitter pill to swallow. I need to go back and fill in some of my records for the past 3 1/2 months. I could apply for a different certificate, but right now I have no desire to do so. The thought of giving more of my money to PDE right now is totally repulsive. So for now I'll just continue as a homeschooler. None of my kids need to take a standardized test this year.

Helping to decorate the house in Maryland for Christmas on Friday was also very challenging emotionally. The last time I saw those decorations was when I was taking them down when my mom was in the hospital having just been diagnosed with stage IV cancer. Originally we had planned to celebrate Christmas elsewhere the first several years (I hosted it last year) because my siblings and I weren't ready to celebrate it in Maryland without my mom, but since my dad got remarried and has moved to Virginia and is planning to sell the house in Maryland in 2018, he wanted to have one last Christmas in that house that he's owned since 1981. I have had a very hard time decorating my own house for Christmas last year and this year due to missing my Mom so much. Naturally it was even harder to think about decorating in Maryland. I broke down and cried about it many times before hand, but thankfully I didn't cry at all when I was there. I did however almost pass out from hyperventilating.

Physically I experienced some bumps and bruises in Baltimore on Saturday morning. The aquarium was selling tickets for $1 each. Normally it would cost $114.80 to buy three children's tickets plus one adult ticket.  So we saved $110.80, but if I had to do it over again I would have skipped it. First of all we had to stand in the freezing cold weather (it was snowing) for 2 hours and 20 minutes until we got our tickets. The security guard said that people started lining up at 5:00 AM. Those folks stood in line for FIVE hours! I stood in line for a long time in July to get deeply discounted pirate adventure tickets, but it wasn't cold out and the kids weren't in line with me. If Paul or my Dad had been with me, the kids could have enjoyed the science museum during the 2+ hours I was in line. We did spend about 45 minutes in the science museum as when we bought our aquarium tickets at 12:19 they were selling 1:30 entrance tickets. We were on our feet nonstop from 9:50 AM to 3:45 PM when we got back to our car in the parking garage. Oliver fell asleep almost immediately. As we walked to the aquarium on Saturday morning the sidewalk had a spot where one section was higher. My heel got caught and I fell down. My pants were torn at the knees, my knees were skinned and bleeding, the umbrella I was holding was broken, and the palm of my left hand was also bleeding. My hand feels much better today, but my knees are still very bruised and sore. This too shall pass.

I might possibly return to Baltimore for their annual Dollar Days event, but I doubt we'll go to the Aquarium those days. I noticed other venues which were also $1 had no lines (such as the historic ships). Hopefully I'll remember to check the weather. I *thought* I had learned that lesson last December when we got caught with snow on our drive home from Pittsburgh, but evidently I am a slow learner. We didn't have any snow here where we live, but my drive home on Saturday wasn't easy. I was gripping the steering wheel for all it was worth (does that really help?). I am so grateful we weren't in an accident. Hopefully in the future I will remember to carefully check the weather forecast, as we should have cancelled our plans to drive down there this past weekend.

Since tomorrow is Ian's birthday, I will do my gratitude list a day early.

1. The kids were able to go Christmas caroling at the Warrior Run Manor last Wednesday night with their AWANA group.

2. Thursday was my last day of teaching until January 23 (not counting final exams this week). I'm also thankful that exams can be given online. I am giving one face-to-face and the other three online. That meant that while my students were taking their exam today (from 3:30-5:30pm), I was cooking dinner, eating with my kids, driving them to gymnastics, visiting the library with Nadia, etc. Plus it saved us money as I didn't need to pay for a babysitter.

3. We had a very smooth trip down to Maryland on Friday (no delays due to traffic or bad weather). Although the kids were asking "are we almost there yet" after we had only been traveling for 40 minutes, they were pretty well behaved on the way down there. We listened to books on CD, use the iPad, and watched on Veggie Tales Christmas movie on DVD to pass the 3.5 hours. I had recently purchased a new cord for the DVD player as the other one was broken.

4. We ate pizza for lunch on Friday and went to Texas Roadhouse on Friday night for dinner to celebrate Ian's 8th birthday (Dec 12) and my Dad's 74th birthday (December 10). Margie bought an ice cream cake for Ian and a pecan pie for my Dad (I love pecan pie!). I made Dad a cherry pie (I need to remember next time that he now prefers peach over cherry). Oliver had helped me roll out the dough for one of the crusts. We gave Grandpa his gifts, and Ian received a stuffed animal and a restaurant gift card from Grandpa and Gubba.

5. We were able to spend 2 hours in the aquarium on Saturday, which was a good introduction as we will be studying ocean life in science starting in January.

6. Nadia and I enjoyed a Christmas concert in Lewisburg on Saturday evening. She doesn't often sleep in the car, but she slept as we rode home around 9:00 pm.

7. The Steelers won last night! I went to bed during the second quarter because I was too tired to stay up, but I was thrilled to find out this morning that we are now 11-2! Next week's game will be a bit of a preview of the playoffs as we'll be playing the Patriots.

8. When we came home from church yesterday we ate lunch and then Paul watched his team lose (again) on tv while the kids and I were baking. I made a batch of sugar cookies and brownies. They decorated the cookies. Then the kids and I went to one of the pastor's houses. Some of our cookies were used for the trays of cookies that we then delivered. We loaded two small church buses and went caroling for 2 1/2 hours at various locations (homes of those who are shut-in, a nursing home, a pizza place, etc.). After that we ate some yummy food at the pastor's home before we came home. I'm grateful for opportunities to bring joy to others.

9. Phil Vischer has released some Bible studies for children on Right Now Media. We started one today on I John. It's nice to have a wide variety of resources for teaching the kids about the Bible! We finished the gospel of John today, and I thought we'd study I, II, and III John before moving on to Acts.

10. I so enjoy music this time of year. A men's choir (about 30-40 men) sang yesterday morning in church. Gorgeous! I also loved the choir our (co-ed) choir sang - an a Capella arrangement of "O Come O Come Emmanuel". Our next anthem is also a Capella. A husband and wife played flute/acoustic guitar solos in the foyer before both services on Sunday. Beautiful! I wish I could play a flute duet with her sometime. I miss playing my flute. The kids' choir is singing next Sunday.

11. The kids suggest that we pray at various times. When I was reading to Nadia and Ian about the Black Plague, Oliver became very concerned and said we needed to pray for them. So Oliver prayed for the doctors to stay healthy and be able to help the people, etc. Nadia wanted to protest that this took place hundreds of years ago, but I talked to her later that I wanted to encourage Oliver's desire to pray for those in need. Today when I told the kids that the Steelers won last night and that it was more challenging to win with our best defensive player in the hospital recovering from spine stabilization surgery, Ian said we should pray for Shazier's recovery (that he wouldn't be paralyzed, etc.).

Thankful Tuesday

1. My mammogram on November 27 was normal.

2. Nadia and Ian are enjoying their art class at the Christian school on Fridays. Oliver enjoys playing in the indoor playground while they are in their art class.

3. We really enjoyed the Very Electric Christmas show at Bucknell on Saturday. I'm so thankful we got four free tickets through our membership at the Children's Museum in Bloomsburg!

4. We had a great time at the glass museum in Corning on Sunday afternoon. The kids did their very first make your own glass activities. I won a beautiful hand blown glass vase! Admission was free for all five of us, and the cost of the make your own glass projects was reduced by more than 50%.

5. Paul's grandma turned 95 years old yesterday! None of my grandparents lived that long. She had a small surgery recently as a result of an injury she sustained from a fall. Thankful that procedure went well.

6. The Steelers won last night! I was too tired to stay up for the whole game. These night games are killing me now that I am getting up earlier. When I went to bed at half-time the score was 17-3 (we were losing). I was so happy to see when I got up at 5:15 this morning that we won (23-20). I am thrilled that we are 10-2 with four games left in the regular season! I'm also very relieved that one of our defensive players isn't paralyzed. He left the game early on with what later was described as a spinal contusion. Based on how he acted on the field the commentators weren't sure if he could move his legs at all. That was a scary moment! I think Paul is happy that the Giants Coach and GM were fired because Paul was very upset that they benched their QB - Eli Manning, who up until Sunday hadn't missed a single game in fourteen years. I think it's also the first time he wanted his team to lose as he didn't want people to think benching Eli was a good idea.

7. I have been doing a lot of multitasking lately. More than I actually prefer to do, but last night while watching the first half of the football game I was wrapping birthday and Christmas presents. Wrapping gifts isn't my favorite activity so doing it during a football game worked out well although it would have been more pleasurable if the team had played better in the first half, ha ha! I did give myself permission last night to read a NOVEL during Ian and Oliver's one hour gymnastics class. It was by one of my favorite authors - Karen Kingsbury. I had checked the book out of the library even though I haven't had time for leisure reading the past four months. It felt so nice to relax for an hour as usually I am trying to grade or something like that during their gymnastics class. I wasn't even totally caught up with my grading, but I gave myself permission to relax even though I still had work I could have been doing.

8. Although I shop online all year long, this time of year I am especially grateful for online shopping. The thought of needing to do all my shopping in person at stores is completely overwhelming. I'm also thankful that our budget isn't as tight as it was the last couple of years.

9. I barely did any Black Friday or Cyber Monday type shopping, but I did place an order on Yankee Candle just as I did last year as they have everything on sale 50% off plus free shipping if you spend over a certain amount (and that amount is lower than what it is most of the year). I placed an order for the fragrance spheres that I have grown to love having in the bathrooms, and with this sale they are only $3 each. Yay!

10. The kids are staying one extra hour at Tab's house today, and Paul is coming home earlier than usual to pick them up at her house at 4:45 so that I can attend a Christmas party at a restaurant with my colleagues. My social life is almost nonexistent so I am grateful for this opportunity to have an adult conversation over a meal.

11. The gymnastics program moved to a new location recently. The parking situation is much better now, but I hope they are going to turn on the lights in the parking lot as it's rather dangerous right now. After the boys' class was done last night, I took them to Bucknell for a Gizmos and Gadgets science event hosted for children. Ian is making great progress with his cartwheels!

12. I was able to use more Coke caps recently. They were giving away two free movie tickets (to see any movie) for just one Coke cap! We don't usually go to the movie theater, but with two free tickets I'm planning to take the kids some time this month. We looked at what movies are coming out the next couple of months. At first they were leaning toward Paddington 2, but then they ended up picking "Ferdinand" (the bull who doesn't want to fight matadors). Then for 10 Coke caps you could get a coupon for a large popcorn at the movie theater. I entered 20 caps so we have coupons for two large popcorns. I found another $10 off movie tickets deal elsewhere so it will cost about $5 total for the four of us to see a movie and eat popcorn during the movie.

13. The department chair sent me an email early on Friday morning asking me to stop by her office on Tuesday morning. Let me say that type of a message stresses me out. I had to work not to think about it as my mind can go in all different directions. I stopped by this morning and found out that the other two professors did request "my" classes as overloads, which means my schedule for the spring semester will be 15 student teachers plus the Math methods course from 3:30-4:45pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Ironically, the class was to be offered at a different time, and she moved it so that it would be before my 5-8pm classes. In the beginning I had asked for 15 student teachers plus one 5-8pm class or 10 student teachers and two 5-8pm classes. The math methods class was the last course added to my schedule, and now it's actually the only on campus class I'll be teaching.

Part of me thinks I should have just requested 20 student teachers because I'll be driving to campus to only teach for 75 minutes, but the math methods course is one I really like to teach, and the professor who has taught it since 2005 might be retiring in the near future so it could possibly become "my" regular class to teach every semester. Usually they offer 2 sections of it each semester - one online and one face-to-face. He's still teaching the online version of it in the spring, but maybe next fall I could possibly teach the online and face-to-face sections. The positives are that supervising student teachers is a very flexible schedule and there aren't any lectures to prepare. The assessment is also not very time consuming because it's done while you are in the classroom observing them teach.  One potential downside is the driving time depending on where the schools are located. I was told today where my student teachers will be located. I think they'll all be within 40 minutes of my house. Some are within 15 minutes of my house. The other downside is that I had put time into preparing these courses - primarily because the deadline for picking textbooks was in October. I had read books, made notes, started to work on writing my syllabi, etc. Maybe I'll teach these other two courses in the future some time. The one I had taught before. The other would have been a new preparation, and maybe it's better not to have a new preparation right now. I know how much work that added to my plate this semester. Maybe my efforts were in vain, or maybe I'll put them to use in the future. Who knows. For now I am thankful for a job that I enjoy (haven't officially been offered the contract for the spring semester yet), and I do really enjoy supervising student teachers in particular. Maybe this is actually the idea schedule for our family even though Paul and I had selected a different one. If my schedule was going to change, I am VERY grateful it happened now rather than next month as by then I would have invested far more time and energy into my preparations.

When I first started the blog, I didn't post many pictures. Then it eventually got to the point where just about every post contained a picture. Since I don't use my camera as often these days, I have to remind myself that I am allowed to write a post that doesn't include any pictures.

Fun with glass!

We took our kids to Corning Museum of Glass for the first time last October. On that trip we purchased combination tickets that included our entrance into the Rockwell (art) Museum that is also in Corning. It's a 90 minute drive from our house to Corning, NY. Last year the kids wanted to do a make your own glass project, but we didn't because of the cost. Earlier this fall I found out that the projects were a lot cheaper during their Open House on December 2-3. I didn't find out soon enough to sign the kids up for a glass blowing project (ex. making an ornament or a snowman), but I was able to sign each of them up for a fused glass project. I found out today that you can usually start signing up after Labor Day. I have put it in my calendar to do that next September, and hopefully the kids will be able to do a glass blowing project in December 2018. When I didn't know was that museum admission was also free this weekend! It's always free for kids (up to age 17), but this weekend it was also free for adults. They had a brass quintet playing lovely Christmas music

in the museum. This is the time of year when you hear hymns (Christmas carols) played in secular settings. In fact the brass quintet played a few hymns that weren't Christmas related such as "Crown Him with Many Crowns." Also, they were giving out free lemonade, free hot apple cider, and free cookies (with icing and sprinkles for the kids to use to decorate their cookies). I think we'll make this an annual tradition to go up to Corning on their Open House. We could have spent more time if we had gone on a Saturday, but we maximized our time by packing lunches and driving up there right after church.

Part of the museum is like being in an art museum as you see glass on display from Egyptians, Romans, up to the modern era. Part of the museum is like having a factory tour as they do different demonstrations. We attended a flame working demo where a woman made a small glass bear, a demo about fiber optics, a glass breaking demo, and a glass blowing demo where we watched them make a glass pitcher from start to finish. At the end of some of the demos they give away some freebies. At the end of the hot glass demo (glass blowing show), they gave away two pieces of glass, and I was selected to receive one of them! I was stunned to see my face on the tv screens showing I had been picked! It's a beautiful blue vase that

is now sitting on my dresser in our bedroom. When I purchased the kids' fused glass ornament tickets, I didn't pay for shipping at first as I thought we'd just make another trip sometime in the next few weeks, but then today I decided to just pay the $18 to have the three ornaments shipped to our house.

Yesterday's plans changed several times. One option all along had been a project at Home Depot. I had never leaned in that direction. For awhile I had planned to take them to the Montour Preserve for a program from 10-11:30 about bird migration, which seemed like perfect timing as we were studying birds, bats, and insects the past three months. Paul thought I should pick the Saturday Science program at Susquehanna University as I've been wanting to try that for a couple of years and never made it down there thus far often because it conflicted with a soccer game or basketball game or flag football game. If he had been willing to go with us, I would have gone that route, but knowing he was going to work, in the end I ended up doing none

of the above for a variety of reasons. I didn't want to stand outside for 90 minutes when the temperature was below 40 (ruled out the bird program). I didn't feel like getting the kids out the door by 8:15AM to drive to the Saturday Science program. Now that I get them out the door at 6:30 two days a week plus at 7:55 on Sundays, I like having four mornings that aren't so rushed. Many times Oliver and Nadia sleep in a bit on those days. And I didn't want to overschedule myself knowing we were going to Corning on Sunday. Also, we had received four free tickets to a Christmas show at Bucknell. So in the end we ended up going to the library, new Children's Museum, and the show at Bucknell (those three are very close to each other) and also running a few errands for Ian's upcoming birthday and a little Christmas shopping.

That was more than enough for me in addition to the things I did at home such as two loads of laundry (yay for being able to do 2 loads in one day now that I have a new washing machine), a load of dishes, cleaning the

bathrooms, cleaning the guinea pig cage, math flashcards with Nadia and Ian, some grading, baking a batch of Heath bar cookies, making lasagna, helping Ian with practicing the piano, etc. Paul didn't get home from work until 6:50pm last night, and that made me even more sure I made the right choice in staying home in the morning. The Christmas show at Bucknell was excellent. I hadn't purchased tickets because it would have cost $50 for me to buy 3 children's tickets plus one adult ticket, but as we were enjoying the show I thought to myself that now that we have two incomes, we can afford a few splurges like that now and then. I'm much more a fan of spending money on experiences that make memories rather than lots of toys that clutter up the house. It made me think that at some point I want to take the kids to the Miracle of Christmas at Sight and Sound and also to the Christmas Show at the Radio City Music Hall in NYC. The show at Bucknell was very cheap compared to what tickets to those two events will cost, but my kids enjoy them and I treasure sharing those experiences with them. It often brings me to tears (the happy kind).

Aside from the silverware, tablecloth, and napkins, everything else is made from glass!

My hand blown glass vase! I am not one for collecting things that I'll have to dust, but I'm keeping this!!!

That was fast!

I purchased a washing machine online on Monday afternoon, and I got an email saying someone would call me in 24 hours to schedule the delivery. Well they never called me, but they tried to deliver the machine at 9AM on Tuesday morning. No one was here. They called me at 8:30AM to tell me they were on their way, but I was teaching and didn't listen to the voicemail until 1:45PM. I called them back and told them I had no idea they were planning to deliver the washing machine this morning. I said I would be home on Wednesday, and he said that would work. Our new washing machine was delivered before 8:30 this morning. I had seen that the price was the same at Home Depot, and I had picked Lowe's because Home Depot's website said it would be several weeks before they could deliver the machine. I was hoping Lowe's would be quicker, but I didn't expect they might try to deliver it less than 24 hours after I placed the order! Here's to hoping we can get closer to 10 years out of this machine, although the delivery man said that appliances are not being build to last very long these days. He was impressed that my dryer is 21 years old and still going strong.

I also didn't have to wait long for my mammogram results. I had it on Monday afternoon, and they called me on Tuesday afternoon with the report that everything was normal. They didn't have to remind me twice to schedule this appointment like they used to in the past. After watching all my mother went through (albeit hers was ovarian), I plan to be very diligent with all screenings in the future.

I had my phone interview yesterday for the spring semester after I taught my first two classes, and then I dashed upstairs for my next two classes only to discover the computer wasn't working properly in that classroom. It was a stressful few minutes, but eventually I got it working. Earlier in the morning the department chair told me my schedule for the spring might change because faculty members might request "my" classes as overload. I would still have a FT job, but it would mean I'd have more student teachers. I was pleased with the schedule, but I'll have to trust that whatever happens in the end is what is best for our family. I had been working on preparing for the classes. I am going to hold off for now on my preparations for the two that might be assigned to someone else, but at some point I'll get back to working on them if they haven't been reassigned yet because I am not going to wait until the last minute to prepare. Hopefully they will make a firm decision in the near future so I won't prepare the classes and then find out at the last minute my schedule has been changed. When I felt frustrated as I thought of the time I had already invested, I told myself that if I don't teach the classes in the spring I might teach them another semester in the future (and then my efforts won't have been in vain). We shall see. I do like supervising student teachers, and that schedule is very flexible so there are pluses to that if that's what ends up happening. The first step is for me to be officially offered a job for the spring semester. I'm thinking they'll make a decision in the next week or so. Next year I'm hoping I get a year long adjunct contract so I don't need to interview in the middle of the year, and then I'm hoping to be permanent again starting in fall 2019. Time will tell!

We could have gone to the children's museum today for a homeschool hangout about geology, but I decided to just stay home this morning, in part because we were just there on Saturday for turkey day. I took a video of Oliver as we were working on his verses for AWANA this morning. I am also working with him on learning the books of the NT. He's learned about 1/2 of them.

Back to School

Most of the schools in our area didn't have school today.  When I moved to Pennsylvania in 1996 I learned that it was the norm in this area to not have school on the Monday after Thanksgiving because it is the first day of deer hunting season. Since I gave my kids all of last week off, I decided that today would be a school day for us. Last week I exercised six days in a row (Mon-Sat), but given I was up late last night watching the Steelers win (we're 9-2!) and the fact I was homeschooling the kids today, I skipped my exercise. I go back to school tomorrow. I have four days left of class (T/Th this week and next week) and then a week of final exams. Last week I got almost everything done on my to do list. It was a very varied list that included things like writing final exams, polishing my shoes, creating a calendar on Shutterfly, getting the last of the apples off the grass, etc. Two of the things I didn't complete were ironing the drapes I bought in August for the basement (I ironed 2 of the 7 panels last week) and ordering new carpet for Ian's room. Of course I did some things that weren't on the

list such as today I ordered supplies for the guinea pigs and a new washing machine. Ours started working only sporadically in early August, and it was getting even worse lately so I decided we have probably gotten all we could out of that machine, even thought it's only 5 years old. My dryer is still going strong, and it's 21 years old! My first washing machine lasted 16 years so I wasn't expecting our second to only last 5 years. Hopefully we'll get more than 5 years out of the one I bought today. In addition to homeschooling the kids, cooking dinner, doing the laundry, etc. we also did some grocery shopping at Walmart, went to the library, and I had my annual mammogram.

I have a phone interview tomorrow at 10:30 for the spring semester (even though I'll actually be on campus during the interview). I had been working on the spring semester some. I knew it was a bit of a gamble because I hadn't signed a contract yet, but I didn't want to wait until the last minute to start working on it like this semester. Hopefully my efforts haven't been in vain.

It's beginning to look...

a lot like Christmas. They haven't fully decorated at church yet (they go all out!), but the platform in the auditorium looked very Christmasy today. We sang some Christmas carols in church, which is something I always enjoy, and six of the pastors plus two other male staff members and five of their wives (total of 13 people) sang a gorgeous acapella arrangement of "Mary Did you Know" (sounded like Pentatonix if you're familiar with them). A couple of days ago I had brought up our Christmas books and Christmas cds, and this afternoon we did our Christmas decorating. I was extremely grateful that Nadia and Ian were able to help more with that this year, and Paul assembled the tree and put up the lights. Hopefully in time decorating for Christmas will become pleasurable for me again, but last year and this year it just chokes me up. It's all I can do not to break down and sob. Putting the snowman plates in my kitchen cupboard just about did me in. My mom gave me those plates. She had some of the same kind. My mom loved snowmen. Of course there are

many times I think of her, like when I am working with Nadia and Ian on the piano because she was my piano teacher the first few years that I played the piano, but for whatever reason decorating for Christmas is something I really associate with her to the point that I just want to either skip it or burst into tears while doing it. I force myself to do it for the kids, and they do really enjoy it, which makes it all worthwhile.

Have I ever mentioned I regret the color I chose for the living room? Well I do. All the other colors I chose in 2016 I like, but not that one. It was a very spur of the moment choice. I mostly regret it when I take pictures in that room. At that point I was just *so* tired of having almost an entire house with white walls, I swung the pendulum too far. I wish I hadn't picked such a dark color. Live and learn. I don't dislike it enough to feel motivated to repaint it quite yet. The good news is that I used my camera two days in a row. It used to be the norm for me to use it almost every day, but the past three months about once a week has been the norm.

Today I'm giving thanks...

1. that Paul and I were able to go on a date on Saturday night. The kids really enjoyed the Christmas party at the Alliance church. They decorated Christmas cookies, made Christmas ornaments, etc.

2. that the kids could build an ornament at Home Depot with me yesterday morning. They enjoyed comparing the ones they made last year with the ones they made this year while we decorated the tree this afternoon. They also enjoyed turkey day at the Children's Museum.

3. I've really enjoyed the parenting class that the pastor's wife led. It ended today. The pastor's sermon was very thought provoking on the topic of showing mercy. As I mentioned earlier I've heard many sermons over the years about gratitude. I haven't heard too many on mercy. I'm not sure why that topic isn't as popular as it's certainly taught in the Scriptures. The ensemble was amazing. It was the first time those 13 sang together. They

said it won't be the last. I look forward to hearing them again in the future!

4. A couple in my Sunday School class shared today that their daughter's recent surgery went well. Their daughter Hannah is close in age to Nadia, and she recently had a 10cm tumor (size of a bagel) removed, and they think thus far that it's benign. Answer to prayer!

5. I have had a closer relationship with my Aunt Janet following the passing of my mom. I'm thankful for her.

6. Paul has been working on fixing our master bathroom floor. It will be wonderful when he completes that project and we can use our shower again!

7. Ian has been enjoying reading the Imagination Station chapter books.

8. I've been asked to interview on Tuesday for the spring position at BU.