Year 2, Day 222: The Calm Before the Crazy

Ah, finally, a morning where we didn't need to be anywhere! I felt like I could breathe, but only a little bit because I had packing to do.  So, most of my day was made of that.  We did get a visit from Jared's brother and family before they head off with some of her family members for a couple of days.  We'll meet up again next week for vacation!  Yeah!  I tried to keep resting today, because my back was pretty painful thanks to the gluten I ate at the fair.  I've been pretty good otherwise with food choices since then.  I got ourselves mostly packed, or at least things gathered into one place.  The kids puttered, did their chores, fought a little, had their screen time, all the normal stuff.  Normal is good.

Benaiah had a good day at school and got his school assignments to be completed next week while on vacation.  He got a musical book from his choir teacher, who does or did attend our church and remembers the kids' choir doing this particular play.  I think they changed the title from "Angels Aware" to "Angels Alert" but Benaiah remembers the songs.  He wants to change the class, but his principal said no.  I'm hoping there will be some vocal training and not just "let's put on a musical!" Benaiah has a great voice, but we can't afford proper voice lessons right now.  Only time will tell.  He had a great time in Algebra 2 partly because it was review but mostly because one of the girls, Emma, (see pictures from last Saturday's post), had sugar in her lunch and was in rare form.  This is the girl that will just randomly blurt out something that makes no sense (or even just a sound!) and gets the whole class laughing.  She's awesome.  I like her.  I asked Benaiah if he learned anything today and he said, "meh."  You go to school to learn, not just for a social life!  Ok, he is learning more social skills, but at this point, we all know he has those, so learn something else, buddy! Lol.  Teens.

Then tonight, Justin and I had a volunteer meeting for Kidustrial Park, full of "do this and don't do that" policy stuff but mostly vision and wow, did it feel almost too organized and a lot of pressure!  I'm glad I only volunteer to be with the babies.  Justin will work with the elementary kids.  It almost felt like we are to put on a show.  I know it's not their intent at all, but it's a lot of programming and mostly necessary because of our church's size.  I'm just not as comfortable or as used to it as others are.  It feels like a school, but it is Sunday School so it should be on some level.  I just don't like being put in a box! Lol, I'll get over it.  Keturah enjoys it, and Abishai keeps learning and Justin and Benaiah have their friends and events, etc.  It's fine.

I came home to a whiny baby and some messes but got all that taken care of before sitting down and typing.  Tomorrow is a homeschool class on birds, and I'm taking all 4 kids again with me.  Yeah!

Here's the rest of our day:

Benaiah had to do color a picture by number (answer) for math class!  Bwahahaha!  See, coloring is not just for 6 year olds!

I don't color my hair, the sun does!  You can tell that a) I have my hair up almost all of the time and b) I've been in the sun a whole lot more this year because I've got some nice highlights in the front part of my hair!  Plus the freckles.  Always the freckles.  And my hair is getting very long again.

"Come on, guys!" as Abishai says.  We loved showing our new digs to the cousins and aunt and uncle.  And Abishai can say everyone's names now!

Abishai was a little unsure of everyone at first because he probably doesn't remember them much from past visits because he's still so young.  But he did warm up to them after awhile.  Uncle Aaron got to push him on the tire swing for quite a while and Abishai loved it!

As typical, Nora and Justin paired off and Keturah and Everly paired off.  Remember, they are all 18 months apart, starting with Justin, then Evelry, then Keturah, then Nora.

It takes a lot of effort to push this big guy!

Uncle Aaron doing the superman!

Always Hungry Hippos, which makes it hard for the adults to talk.  But the kids had fun.

Then the others joined in.  You can definitely tell that Abishai's hair color matches Everly and Nora's more than our family's brown color, lol.

Oh, they grabbed the battleship game that used to be their Daddy's (both Jared's and Aaron's).

Saying "bye bye"!

I think the boy was a little too eager to eat his cheese.  No, this cheese stick isn't twisted.  Those are all bite marks.

Yeah for younger brother Aaron! He got our washer hooked up in less than 10 minutes!  I know Jared doesn't like to mess with plumbing, so I didn't nag him about it.  But I'm glad Aaron jumped in to help.  I checked for leaky pipes, at least right behind the washer, and everything seemed up to snuff.  Aaron has a lot of experience in construction from helping clean up after Hurricane Katrina and doing project for their church plant, The Gathering, down there, as well as rebuilding their house, which was one of the flooded homes.

This washer has an extra large drum and I was able to fit a huge load in it!

One extra large load of wash just barely fits on the clothesline!  But it did!  It took 35 minutes to wash the clothes, and about 2 hrs to dry them on the line.  That's a new record!

Wow! This much laundry was done in under 3 hrs!

Keturah is very eager for vacation.  She voluntarily decided she would clean the car because she didn't think we would have enough time on Saturday to do it.  She's probably right.  She took out all the mats by herself, vacuumed and checked for trash, and then put all the mats back in place.  She also put away the vacuum cleaner.  All without being told to!  Amazing!

She's such a big girl!  She also put nail polish on her fingernails and toenails all by herself this week.  And she didn't spill anything.  My little girl is growing up!

Great job, Keturah!

Pastor Gary doing his thing at our volunteer kick off for Kidustrial Park.  Justin and I now have matching red shirts, in the same size, that we are supposed to wear when we serve. I'm also sharing water shoes with him on vacation.  Oh, and by the way, Everly is taller than Justin and about to be taller than me!  Shes' only 10 1/2!  I'm so short, though! Lol!