Year 3, February 11th-13th, 2018: Abishai's 3rd Birthday!

I wish this post was just about Abishai's birthday, but real life happens before and afterwards, and it's time to catch up!  It's a busy week ahead decluttering and cleaning, getting ready for 30 plus people showing up on Saturday morning for the birthday party!  Abishai is mature enough to understand what a birthday is, that only he gets gifts, that he gets cake and candles, and he has friends coming over to play!  I LOVE this phase!  I've MISSED this phase!  Birthday parties are important to me because I only had one party with friends growing up.  It's the one time a year we spend just a little bit of money on just one kid at a time. I love planning and inviting, along with decorating and even baking the cake! We keep it fairly simple and focus on one set of themed plates, napkins, and cups, a couple of themed decorations for the wall, and a themed balloon, along with themed cake of course.  I don't try to come up with fancy labels for every snack we serve or game we play.  We try to offer juice drinks (not 100% juice, but not pure sugar either), and some kind of fruit/veggie as well as a salty snack like pretzels to balance out the cake part.  We love to do watermelon in the summer, but it's not summer yet!

Anyways, we had the normal start of the week with church activities on Sunday and a fantastic two days of school!  I'm a bit sore from the concert, because I did use some muscles I don't normally use, in ways I don't usually use them.  But thankfully it's just that "post workout" kind of sore and will subside.  And essential oils are helping with that, along with a little bit of extra pain med.  Life is pretty much the same.  It's around 32-40 degrees F every day, not much percipitation, Benaiah goes to school, kids fight, Abishai runs around like crazy, everybody gets screen time, etc. Oh, I guess one difference is that we try to watch some Olympic coverage every day, but it's hard to come by because we don't have cable and the streaming from the NBC website doesn't always work well.  The Johnsons are Olympicholics and thoroughly enjoy the games.  Gary even DVR'd the opening ceremony so they could watch it when they get back from India.  But no one in India is talking about the Olympics because they are just too poor and just trying to survive the every day life over there.  The mission serves one of the poorest areas in India, has an orphanage, and provides some medical care as well as trains nurses.  In fact, I can't recall if India send athletes to the Olympics or not.  I'd have to look it up.  Ok, I did look it up, and yes they do have a small delegation.  Hm,....

Anyway, today was Abishai's 3rd birthday!  Wow, 3 years old!  He can already show you how many fingers is 3 years old.  And he's still pretending to spell his name like Blippi's.  He spent a good part of the morning terrorizing Keturah and Justin, and then playing in his sandbox and had his screen time.  He seemed very tired and when asked if he needed a time out or his bed, he volunteered to take a nap!  For once the naptime routine was easy!  Got up after a 3 hr nap anticipating Benaiah and Daddy's arrival so we could eat dinner, open gifts and HAVE CAKE!  He certainly had an enjoyable day as the pictures will show.

Hahahaha, I couldn't find my hair dryer, and I honestly think I gave it away when we moved from Charlottetown two years because I don't remember seeing it at this house or the condo.  And when I take a shower at night and then sit in my colder sunroom, the wet hair makes me feel colder.   I thought if I dried it, then I wouldn't be so cold.  So, bring out the redneck way of doing it, in front of a space heater, carefully not touching the space heater of course.  Redneck or innovator?

On Friday, we joined our east side homeschool group for one of their gym days and a Valentine's party.  They play every Friday, but they ask for a small fee upfront at the beggining of the winter to cover costs.  It's 30 minutes away and I knew we wouldn't get there that often, so I didn't sign up to do it every week.  But they opened up the gym day to the rest of those who didn't sign up but wanted to participate in some Valentine's exchange and games.  44 Valentine's per person later.....but Justin had a blast, Keturah saw a friend from gymnastics, and Abishai clung to me like glue.  I love this group because everyone is new to me and unconnected to the Creek and they run a very tight ship.  It's the group I did the TV station tour with/for.  And even if we don't make it every Friday, I think it would be great to continue to get to know them, especially since they also do playdates at parks around town throughout the spring and fall and of course other field trips.  I also do mom night's out with them.  Justin is doing a three legged race here.

Keturah loved this little rolling board thing.  She did get her feelings hurt today because the girls were playing a game of protecting their base from the boys and Keturah didn't want to play the game.  See, home schoolers do get socialization and have to work out their issues with other kids.  But the benefit is that you have many more adults right there, who know their kids well, and can help steer them in the right direction to resolve issues.

Playing a musical chairs game of sorts.  There is one less chair.  They were counted off as apples, bananas, or peaches, and then the one in the middle calls one of those or says "fruit basket" and then that fruit or the whole group have to switch chairs.  I helped Abishai play and he definitely got into it and could do a few rounds by himself near the end!

Keturah put everyone's name on their valentine so it took her a while to find the right bags.  I helped her as well.  Justin just put his name, and I did the same for Abishai's Valentine's.

Abishai understood sort of what was going on, and did help me put the Valentine's in each bag.  Too cute!  And yes, I know that's a PJ shirt, but who cares, we needed to get out the door this morning!

We stopped by Daddy's office on the way home and had to "pet/pat" Daddy's truck on the way in.

Since no one but Daddy and maybe a couple of others are there on Fridays, (most staff members have Fridays and Saturdays off) the east side doors were locked.

More play time!

"Miah! Chip please!"

Justin's Roman phalanx!  He so didn't want to do it, but it was super easy.  And yes, that's not all the mini figures he owns either.

Benaiah made homemade mac and cheese!  He boiled the macaroni in the milk and then added the cheese.  He said it was great!  Way to go!

I think I have pictures of all the kids looking like this, lol.

We tried to watch the opening ceremony of the 2018 Winter Olympics but NBC has a monopoly on coverage and you can only live stream so much each day from their website.  Otherwise you just get clips through the app.

Ethan spent the night on Friday just for fun.  I told the boys that I would only allow it IF they would get to bed by 1 am.  I'm not sure that they obeyed.  I just didn't know how late we would be out the next day, so I wanted to make sure they had enough energy for Sunday and Monday.  But Abishai had a ton of fun chasing Ethan around and around on his bike.  Hysterical laughter!  Also, Ethan has been dubbed by Abishaias another big brother to Abishai.  Which is probably strange for Ethan because the youngest in his family.

Playing with the big boys!

Slightly gangsta?  I love how he uses his pockets for his hands and STILL holds onto his water cup.

Benaiah taught him how to dab!  Hilarious!

Abishai learned how to "dab!"

Watching olympics on Daddy's computer during Crave/Kids' Choir.  Back to the Sunday night routine!

"Hey, Mom!  I look like one of those cool kids!"  Uh, ok, maybe you've been watching too much YouTube or reading too many comic book novels.  But yes, you are growing up and noticing these things.

Overachiever he has on some things.  I love how Mrs. McCollum gave him a gold star!  But oh his handwriting is well, it could be better!  Way to go on the A+!

This preschooler lives life to the full and doesn't realize how good he has it!  Watching Blippi while laying on the table.  Oof!

Last night as a 2 yr old!  He'll be 3 yrs old before he wakes up!  5:26 am!

Abishai added matchbox cars to his sand today.  And now I have to wash them, and make sure they are dry before he gets them back, which leads to a tantrum, but, he did stay quiet for a very long time.

"I do it myself!" Yes, he peeled the whole orange while pressing the lever that opens the garbage can all by himself all at the same time.  He also pulled the orange apart by himself.  So big!

Abishai peeling an orange!

(DSLR pictures, so jumping back a few days.) Wake up, Ethan!  Come play with me!

Watching the luge competition and Jared is holding Abishai up and moving him back and forth while the athlete is going down the track.  Abishai loved it!

Keturah built Abishai a race track out of Duplos! Abishai has been quite the handful last week and this week, being tough to put down for a nap, stealing stuff from siblings, it's been frustrating.  So I've had to utilize the trick of having one sibling play with him while I work with the other one or one of my own projects.  We have a lot of people coming on Saturday for the birthday party, so I needed to clear out some furniture and toys so there's enough room, nevermind clean and bake a cake (and decorate it!)  I'm so glad the older kids can help, even when I'm beyond frustrated and not holding my tongue very well.

Super cute start/finish to the racetrack.

A regular Lego car going down the Duplo (big Lego) track.

Surprise!

I guess Abishai has watched a few too many "mudding" videos where jeeps and suv's go through mud and backwoods for fun and usually have to jump over things.  He made a wall for his bus to jump over.  Or maybe it's the monster truck stuff (although he hasn't watched any of that lately).  Or a number of other kinds of videos of people playing with toys he's seen.  Lol.  I'm glad he can take what he has seen and act them out.  I'm not sure the others have done a whole lot of that.  I've heard other parents say that the kids will take whatever history lesson they are learning and incorporate some of it into their free play?  My kids don't, at least not what I've heard or seen.  So this is good to see Abishai doing it.

Time to bring out the special birthday plate for the birthday boy!  I made this in MOPS about 12 years ago.

Abishai opened his gift from Aaron and Shauna while we facetimed them on my phone. 

He's been waiting all day to open it!  Thankfully he didn't mess with it too much today.  Check out that smile!

Lots of fun goodies in that box, and some of it came from their Mardi Gras celebrations.  I still don't know what Mardi Gras is but it's huge down there in New Orleans of course.  Before opening the box, Abishai shook it and thought it was a box of Legos!

Lots of goodies like a water gun, frisbee, football, bead necklaces of course, a light up rubbery fuzzy thing, a pez dispenser, and more!

Mama was cheap and didn't cover the whole box on purpose.  Actually it took me forever to find the paper because I had it in one place for several months, and then moved it.   Ugh, I can't wait to get this house in proper order this summer!

Ta da!  A big dump truck and ex-ca-da-tor!  (Excavator!)  He was so excited!  He can't wait to take it outside to play in the dirt!

Hurry up, Dad!  Abishai at one point squeezed his fists tight and together, clenching his teeth in anticipation!

I'm ready, Mom!

Since I'm making the fancier cake for Saturday, we just did a brownie mix for tonight.  The number #3 candle, and 3 of the traffic cone candles I bought.

ASEN sang with us, and then Abishai was blew out each candle one by one.

I could barely get the camera out before his piece was gone!  It was a brownie mix where you put cookie mix on top.

Already running through the house, crashing into things.  He is using the excavator to scoop up cars and put them in the dump truck.  He loves them!

Playing with new trucks!

I told Keturah she couldn't open up her pottery studio until she finished this sewing project and an art project we started several months ago for school.  She strung up some felt hearts and then she decided to give it to her gymnastics coach instead of keeping it for herself.  Very thoughtful!