Year 3, May 14th-15th, 2018: Nearing the End

Today, we surprised Benaiah at school for an early Happy 16th (!!!!!!) Birthday because school will be over two and a half weeks before his birthday and celebrating with friends is always more fun.  We brought him a Minions balloon, which he promptly turned around and sucked up all the helium and threw away the balloon.  Grrrr.  But he put up a nice video of what he sounded like on Instagram, so I caught that at least.  Instead of cookies or cupcakes, we brought him fruit snacks.  Yes, fruit snacks, and enough of them to give one to everyone at school, except that he decided not to give them to the younger grades because they don't need sugar and are too hyped up anyway.  Um, excuse me? Your friends are much more hyper than the middle schoolers, but anyways.  Keturah also made him a lovely sign that he stashed in his locker.  If I don't see that on Thursday when he cleans out his locker, I'm going to kick him.  In fact, I might just go there myself again tomorrow and make sure it comes home.  Anyways, he had no clue we were doing this, despite me repeatedly asking about his schedule today.  Thankfully, he plays it off and has fun with it, so he's not super embarrassed.   I think if he was shy, I wouldn't do it.  But you should have seen those teens act like vultures when a bunch of fruit snacks were dropped on their table.  Oh my goodness.

So that was the big highlight of the day.  Abishai wasn't so sure of it all and one moment he wanted to do it and another moment he didn't.  Benaiah was able to play that off as well.  His friends only noticed Abishai because Benaiah only talks about Abishai.  Go figure.  But it's finals week and he says that it's going well.  We are trying to stay on top of my goals for finishing up the homeschool year strong.  It's hard to stay motivated when it's so nice outside!

Ok, now I will bounce back to Monday because the creative juices/memory flashbacks are flowing.  Sometimes it's hard to remember what happened an hour ago, let alone yesterday.  Yesterday started off slow, so I felt pretty hurried by the end of the day and did snap at a slight schedule change.  Boy it's hard when teens get to the point where they are coming and going all the time, but add in other family members with very weird and unpredictable schedules and I'm all out of sorts.  Anyways, I did pull out the pool on Monday and gave it a good scrubbing.  It will probably be replaced midway through the summer, but maybe we can get one of those nicer pools that you can use chemicals with that will last more than one season at a deep discount.  We'll see.  The big kids whine about the pool, but they do have enough fun to stay out for 1-2 hrs with Abishai for me.  I didn't even have the family sized blow up pool when I was growing up.  We had a sprinkler, and a slip and slide, that we would put down our big hill out back.  That's it.  And we didn't have A/C and despite living within 1 1/2 hrs of a beach, we never went because my mom would get heatstroke.  And, we didn't have a membership to the YMCA until we were teens and I don't know if there were city pools like there are here in our parks in Indianapolis.  SOOOOOOO, get over it!  Maybe Grandma can take them to some pools.  I just don't have the time like I used to.  We rarely get to a park as it is.....

I digress.....oh yeah, more appts this week at the chiropractor, so that takes up a lot of time until we get it fixed and into maintenance mode.  I'm a little sore today from it as well as trying some PT exercises.  Then I just realized I haven't taken my supplements like I should.  Whoops.  Anyway, pool, school, appts, Benaiah birthday, what else did I miss?  Not much.  Preschooler meltdowns.  Finding new features on the Amazon app, letting the boy use my Amazon Prime account to connect his Twitch account and now both boys have more costumes for their video game that everyone plays and they are having a tournament during youth group on Sunday with.  Oi! They are also having a sing a long version to "The Greatest Showman" so I can't complain.  It's a fun night because everyone is worked up over finals.  Benaiah's fine.  He doesn't have to study too hard to make A's/B's.  I encourage him to shoot higher, but he's like "Nope, I'm good."  Ok, son, that will only take you so far, but whatever.

At least the kids have been outside.  That has helped the house stay cleaner and the noise level down.  I made a couple of phone calls this morning and decluttered my desk a bit again finishing up 5 minute projects.  That's just so many of those 5 minute projects or read this book, or try that app or I've gotta make that phone call that I just don't want to do any of it.  That was on Monday.  So Tuesday I made myself do something, and that helped.  Ok, I'm rambling.  I'm done.

Unfortunately, my camera was set on a lower aperture and therefore, these pictures look much darker than it really was.  It was very bright out with lots of sun.  Whoops!  The summer is still young though.  I'll take some better ones in the next few weeks.

The pool is open for the season!  Wahoo!  Gather all the toys!

The pool is old and so are those reusable swim pants, so we will upgrade those, too.

Down she (the boat) goes!

We get the new water softener and filter this week, thank goodness!  That tannin in the water makes the pool water look gross!  It's actually clean.

Swing time in swim shorts.

Look what go in our house when the door was open too long!  A monarch butterfly, my favorite!

Poor thing was stuck, but Grandma was able to get it out!

Sweet!

Abishai loves the hose!

I'm telling you, those youth group leaders/sponsors are nuts!

Keturah tried to pick up this bag and said it was too heavy.  Abishai killed/nailed it! Way to go big guy!

Construction vehicles on the way to Southside to surprise Benaiah.

Friends share their birthday fruit snacks.  And there's a pic of the balloon that didn't make it home. Sad face :(

Singing to Bubby!

Give us more! Give us more!

He said, "Do you have any games on your phone? I want to play some games, man. I want to play...fruit ninja!"

Gotta love his friends.  Yes, he did sound a lot like the boy with glasses from Polar Express, the obnoxious one.  And it's very possibly that Seth's right.  Cracks me up!

You can't see me!

Nope, can't see me!

Jared put one of his t-shirts on Abishai and look how cute he is!  I called it his toga, probably because we are studying the Roman Empire in our history.

But maybe we should call it a choir robe instead.  Doesn't he look like he's raising his hands in praise and worship?

Cute story: Abishai wanted to work outside so he gathered up his two toolboxes and put on his sandals and his yellow sunglasses (Jared's work glasses).  When he went outside to the driveway, he discovered that all the wood had been chopped up and he was pretty upset that he had no work to do.  So I showed him where the wood went.   He whined, "Put it back together!" Poor thing, how dare we take away work from him?  And how can we bottle this kind of desire to work so we can sprinkle it back on his head when he turns 8 or 12 or 16 and doesn't want to work?  So, I left him alone and later on in the day, I came back and found that he had moved a piece of wood and started chopping it up.  Where there is a will, there is a way with this one!

Ditto!  This boy can climb up the back of the truck and over the ledge into the truck bed within seconds, even with a toga on.  Crazy good climber!

"I'll just hang out here in MY truck in MY toga protecting MY yellow sunglasses while Daddy puts another yard stake next to the tree to keep it upright.  Yup, that's what I'll do."  Crazy baby.