Year 2, Day 112: All done!

Well, Abishai seems to be all done with breastfeeding, thus the title of the post.  And I must have miscounted again, because today is day 112, not 111.  But anyway.  Let's see.  It was a typical Saturday with projects and church.  Jared and the kids moved all the boxes and two bookcases to the garage for me.  Then Jared took Keturah to church so she could sing with her Sonshine Kids' Choir before each service and have an extra rehearsal in between services.  Then he stopped by the place where our stored stuff is to get boxes.  They are covered in fiberglass, so we'll have to carefully wipe them down first.  It's a huge storage barn with tractors and such, so things have gotten a little dusty, too, but that's ok, our friend is letting us borrow the space for free.  I'm hoping to get everything removed from there by the end of August.  It's been a tremendous blessing to us!  Speaking of boxes, I really do need to work on letting go of stuff.  Not necessarily as I pack, but as I unpack.  I've got to figure out what holds me back.  I don't want my house feeling squishy like it has been for years.  I need some "white space" or blank space in the rooms.  I need to not see so many brown Uhaul boxes.  But, as I was thinking, if we stay in this house for 10 years, all 3 older kids will be in college or beyond, so I will have purged a bunch of their toys and clothes by then.  And hopefully gotten rid of more of my parents' stuff.  We'll see.  It's a goal for a little bit later.

That's pretty much our day.  I'm ordering some vitamins and special foods tonight, catching up on some other miscellaneous business items, and trying to get a handle on this next week, which includes a trip to the Indianapolis Speedway racetrack!  It won't be our last time there this year either.  We are going to one of the areas where they build engines I think.  And then, AND THEN, Thursday, is the Michael W. Smith concert, complete with songs from the 80's and 90's.  It will be a nice break in the middle of the chaos and it didn't cost me an arm and a leg this time!  Woot! Woot!  I'm going with a friend who has done lots of concert things with me before, so it should be home.  It's over in Columbus, Ohio, which is about 2 hrs away.  Oh yeah, and homeschool co op, and regular school stuff, etc.  I will hopefully spend my mornings packing a few boxes while helping kids with their independent work, and then get back to regular afternoon together work like history and read alouds.  Can't wait to get back into it either!

Oh, and one last thing: Abishai has a social security number!  Finally!  And just in time because we need to try to qualify for state health insurance and were denied this month due to income.  But maybe with officially having the fourth kid in the mix, we'll re-qualify.  Please pray for it, because we cannot afford to pay for any health insurance plan.  Either that, or pray for congress to decide that health insurance is optional.  I pay cash for most of my doctor appointments because they aren't covered by most insurance companies anyway.  Having insurance does help pay for medications though.  Anyway, having the SSN for Abishai is a wonderful thing! It's the last step in a long process of making sure he's a legal citizen.  It took a total of 9 months to get it done.  What a pain in the rear! And he keeps his Canadian citizenship, too, by the way.  I tell ya, Abishai is very unique.  As are all of us, but there's just something special about him, I don't know.

Meanwhile, these guys are special, too.

Justin saw a suggestion in one of his many Lego books that he owns, to make your "dream home."  Well, I guess his dream home is a Poke' ball home for Pikachu!  He even has the white "O" n the front door and a little garden gnome on the left side.  He started with the bricks we had sorted out by color and put in plastic ziplock bags and he said that it did help having the colors sorted.  He had to go digging for some others though in the big box.  I made sure that those already sorted bricks did NOT get dumped back into the big box.  We'll continue that project as time allows.

It has a bed and fridge and all kinds of stuff!

Pikachu with his morning newspaper!

Abishai found Keturah's headset and (non working) mini radio with a racecar on it.  He thought he was too cool!

Abishai thought it was hilarious to run threw the Thomas blanket like a bull with a red cape.  Back and forth he went until Jared finally said "just one more time."  And Abishai is actually starting to get that concept!  It mostly worked when we read books tonight and I said it.  Woot!

Threw one way.

And then back threw the other way.

Gotcha!

Brothers gaming again.  This was hilarious!  I asked Justin to get Abishai out of his crib after naptime.  Well, Justin didn't realize we don't go and sit down to nurse anymore, so he was bringing Abishai to me (I was in my room).  Justin tried handing Abishai to me, but Abishai wanted him!  So, Abishai got down and started pulling on Justin's hand to go back to the living room.  I started to follow them and Abishai turned around and put his hand out to stop me.  He wanted me to stay in my room so he could have time with Baba!  Abishai really missed his siblings.  He even made a much bigger mess of his toys today then he did the whole week combined because he felt more at ease and the others were interacting with him and the toys.  So sweet!

Ah, I should have had Justin right down the name of this!  He made some kind of electric generator or something.  It was a random idea he had.

He's also very good at taking his own pictures of his Lego creations.

As it sometimes happens, we do our holiday themed fun activities after the holiday.  So, we finally made our Jell-O eggs tonight so we can eat them tomorrow.  I always have to look up the recipe to make sure I use the right amount of Jell-O and water.  I think we've been doing this activity every year for 8-10 years now.  There's a hilarious video of Benaiah filling the eggs from 3 years ago on Facebook I reposted about 10 days ago.  His voice his higher and he's much shorter.  Lol!  And he makes a mess!  It was awesome!

I did four of the eggs and Keturah poured two of them.  She did great and spilled a whole lot less than I did!

Yup, we do look alike, folks, just a little bit.

Cuteness overload with these two munchkins!

The kids' choir right before they got up to sing.  Can't wait to see them perform next week!  They did two songs from the musical and then helped sing the first worship song.  I got it all on video, but only had my phone camera with me, so the pictures aren't great.

Yes, it's a huge kids' choir!  So much fun to watch them!

So, we finally let Benaiah have Instragram on his iPod.  And he's doing a great job with it!  Jared has Benaiah's login information and stays logged into his account at all times.  I have an Instagram account but don't use it.  Now I have a reason to check it!  Beniah's been posting pictures of what he's been up to and it's interesting to see life from his perspective.  He's taken pictures of working behind the scenes at church, a couple of pictures with his friends, and now these kinds of pictures of other work he does, like mowing Grandpa's lawn.  He said it took him 1 1/2 hrs to mow and trim today.  And it's a push mower, not self propelled.  It's been a bit wet here lately, so I'm sure it wasn't an easy job.  I just like how Benaiah lined up the mower for the picture.  I'm sure he mowed in straight rows though because Grandpa would not be happy if he didn't.  This is a story that when Jared was the mower of the family, he tried to mow the grass into the pattern of the airforce or something.  Gary was definitely not a happy camper.  But I'm sure it was cool to look at!  Soon Benaiah will have an even bigger yard to mow and will need to train Justin on how to do it, too.

Then, Benaiah got to be the video switcher for all four services this weekend!  A video switcher changes the main screens from the cameras to the lyrics for songs, to announcements, to baptisms, etc. I think the different elements run from different programs, so it's important that it all talks to each other right and on time.  Benaiah even said that when Brian was talking to him using camera lingo, he actually understood it!  Fun!  I love being behind the scenes and supporting the "big wigs" out front.  And little known fact about me is that I was behind one of those big video cameras 3 times a week videoing the chapel services at the college I went to.  I always worked as secretary of sorts in the TV/video department collecting orders from graduation ceremonies and filling the orders.  And yes, I even had to stay an extra couple of days to help film that year's graduation.  It is one long and boring job to film 400 students walking across the stage to get their diploma.  But I did overall love it!  And the "boss" guy was very kind and taught us what he could. (There were a few others on the "crew.")  But the point of this story is look at how grown up my almost 15 years old boy is!  This is a HUGE deal to be responsible for even a fraction of all this expensive equipment.  And he's learning about all the other equipment and such, too.  It's almost like an unpaid internship! (Which he needs to get onto his resume asap.)  Anyway, we are very proud of him, and the others, and all that they do each and every day!