Year 3, May 5th-7th, 2018: A Whirlwind Life

Thankfully, Saturday the 5th, was a much needed quiet, catch up day.  Because my computer is slow, and the tablet has a learning curve, I'm having a hard time sorting through email, updating the family calendar, going through paperwork, homemaking (cooking and telling kids to do their chores), homeschooling, etc.  Combine that with constantly on the go, fibromyalgia brain fog, and high anxiety, I'm not even sure what to write.  I can't remember what we did day to day, never mind write it down in a fun and entertaining way.  Prayers would be nice right about now.

Saturday, Keturah, Abishai and I stayed at home.  I literally don't remember what we did.  Oh, maybe blog writing! I had started the major upload right after the concert because I knew I couldn't sleep anyway and needed the headstart to it all.  The boys had their final Bible Bowl tournament.  The teams both won a trophy to permanently keep in division 2 for 2nd and 3rd place!  Wow!  I wasn't expecting that!  Way to go, boys!

Sunday, was the very, very full day.  Leah took Benaiah to church for middle school Crave and a meeting at 8:15.  Gary took the middles at 8:45.  Jared and I brought Abishai for the 11.  Gary took off right after the sermon at the 11am to head to the Shelby St. campus for part 1 of the church's annual meeting.  Boy were they were surprised to see him just a mere 20 minutes after the sermon ended on their screen!  Lol!  Jared and I dropped Leah off at her house so I could borrow the car to go the bridal shower for Savannah Foster at 3, at the church's Shelby St. campus!  I'm sure Gary got home at some point.  And then he went back to Franklin Rd for the 4:30 in his car, and Leah rode with Jared and the 4 kids also for the 4:30.  I try to leave Gary out of the all the car shuffling so he can concentrate on his job.  The bridal shower was the fastest bridal shower I have ever seen!  Because a lot of those guests also had to be back at the Franklin Rd campus by 6 for high school Crave and/or the annual meeting, the bridal shower was over in under 2 hrs.  She flew through those 40 gifts like crazy!  I had mixed emotions with attending having to do with my personality and friendships but I worked it out between the car ride back to Franklin Rd and the annual meeting part deux. All 8 of us then converged again at 6 pm for required annual meeting of affirming the budget, elders and changes to the by laws (which hadn't been full updated in 17 years, and we've grown by 200%!)  While Gary, Leah, Jared, Abishai and I were at the meeting, Justin had his last middle school small group, where they let the 5th graders come and preview what it will be like next year.  Benaiah had high school Crave, and Keturah had her reward for memorizing those Scriptures for kids' choir, a Star Wars movie!  I usually say to people that we eat, breathe, live, and sleep at church, but on days like this, it nearly is true!  Someone remarked that you could indeed do that in the e2 office with the couch, fridge, coffee maker, work stations, books, etc.  In fact, Gary did some more rearranging of the office moving some of his furniture from the current office over to the new one.  He's not counting down the days is he?  Oh yes he is! Alrighty then!

We got home around 8 that evening, and head right into prepping for the next day.  On Monday, men went to work and school, and the other 3 and I went to Justin's arm follow up appointment, had a picnic near all the war memorials and the Central library, and attended Poke'mon club.  When I told Abishai that we were going to have a picnic lunch, he thought we were going to the beach!  In his big vehicle book, the pig family drives to the beach for their picnic and on their way is when they see all the vehicles.  Awww, sorry bud, but there's no beach in Indianapolis.  Justin's arm is nearly healed, but not 100% healed yet, so the doctor wants to see him again in 4 weeks.  He also needs to continue to stay away from high impact sports.  Gaga ball is ok, but I'd prefer if he didn't.  At least all his tingly and numbness has been resolved and he can stretch out his arm to more than 95% straight.  Yeah!  No physical therapy needed!

You'll see pictures of our picnic below.  And then we had a fairly quiet time in the library as well.  But you can tell we are all exhausted.  Abishai slept for 3 hrs after he had fallen asleep in the van and I had transferred him to our bed.  Keturah laid down in her bed from probably some dehydration and exhaustion and slept for a bit.  Justin and I powered through catching up on school from Friday and today.  Then dinner followed by prepwork for Tuesday and more tree planting for Jared.  Tomorrow, Tuesday, I have an early morning chiropractor appointment and then it's the only day this week we have at home for more than a couple of hours.  But we do have to go back out to Benaiah's school because a little birdie (aka the principal Mr. Nanney) told Jared Benaiah is receiving some kind of award at the attendance/academic/sports awards night.  Wahoo!  I can't wait to see what it is!  We had to tell Benaiah that he was receiving something so that he would go.  We weren't planning on attending at all.  But that's tomorrow.  Let's finish up today.

When I had to switch to using the tablet, it was filled with pictures and videos I had never downloaded.  Well, within those files were all about 50 pictures of the house in New Palestine that we put an offer on but didn't work out to buy last year.  I still like the house, but I'm glad we don't live way out there, near a busy street, and near a pond, with three floors, etc.   It would make a great bed and breakfast or missionary house.

This was me when I received my phone, the one that I just lost.  My new one comes on Tuesday!

Other fun finds on the tablet were all the selfies! So that's what all the giggling has been about lately!  These two are a hoot together!

These might have been from a couple of months ago because her hair is longer now.  But, she was definitely working on her selfie game.  We had to have a little chat about that and how she shouldn't be posing in certain ways.

That's a cute smile!

Mr. Selfie man!

Random, but Keturah might have taken this one!

This is pretty neat! I went to look for all the wedding bags and paper I had saved from our wedding gifts and lo and behold, I had given a bunch of them away!  I did keep all the bows however!  Sweet!  And I had this cute butterfly wrapping paper I could use as well.  Score!  We had a huge living room full of gifts to open after our short honeymoon.  And we received 3 vacuums!  It was nuts, actually, and took awhile to sort out.  We had people in NH buy and ship gifts online directly to Jared's parents house.  Fun memories!

I think part of this bow was made by Gail Scherer, who also did our flowers for the Indiana ceremony.  She was known for her home decorating and floral arrangements.  She even took my bouquet and made it into a wreath after she dried the flowers!

Jump to today when little man was looking so big but not quite big enough for riding in the van without a carseat.  He even buckled himself in!

Then jump back to Sunday.  Abishai insisted that he needed to gather all his work on Grandpa's desk.

He kept running around the office looking for work, sound familiar? 

"I working."

He even stole Grandpa's pen from his Bible!

Isn't he the cutest?  He's got the best work ethic!

And now we are back to Monday again.  The kids were chasing a squirrel but it ran up the tree.

Mr. Squirrel is hiding up there somewhere!  He kept trying to come down, but Abishai kept chasing after him.

Picnic time on this gorgeous spring day!

Mr. Squirrel himself.

Actually, we were quite afraid of him/her.  It kept coming closer and closer.  This is how close he got to me without me zooming in at all.  In fact, he was inches away from jumping up on the bench we were sitting on.  I had to keep pulling Abishai back to me because I was afraid the squirrel was going to jump in his lap and bite or scratch him!  It was fun but scary all at the same time.

Practicing his gymnastics.

Keturah practicing her handstand!

And her cartwheel/round off!

We ate our lunch near the Korean memorial on one side of the American Legion's plaza.  The plaza covers 3 city blocks from the World War Memorial with a museum in it's bottom floor/basement to the fountain below, to other structures like this one, all the way up to the Central library.  It's definitely an underutilized green space.  Although, we did walk past several homeless people and groups that could have been there for any reason.  If you can't tell, the boys were throwing up a stress ball as high as they could.  We discussed how that was kind of disrespectful but at the same time, it did keep Abishai entertained while I finished my lunch.

This was on the other side of the memorial.

The Scottish Rite Cathedral from where we stood at the Korean memorial.

The obelisk/fountain.  Abishai had been sitting up and decided to lay down for the picture anyway.  Yes, that's gold leaf on top.

Here you can see a bit of the World War memorial and museum off to the left.  The kids loved walking around on the edge of the fountain.  Our friend Jenn Wagar took our pictures here at the World War memorial before we moved to Canada.  The kids don't remember it though.

I'm thinking these are Indiana county flags?  There were more on the opposite side.

Abishai also ran around on the top of the fountain edge, which was a bit scary given it's a good 3 feet down into the fountain, which was dry. He was fine until you tried to grab him and he'd lean slightly towards the fountain. Yikes!

Looking north towards the Central Library and another big building behind it.  Or is it the main part of the library?  I can't tell!  Looks are deceiving, too, in other ways because it looks like the American Legion plaza isn't very long when in fact, it is.  We obviously parked in the library parking garage, but if we had only come to the park, I would have parked on the street like we have done before.

The gorgeous Scottish Rite Catholic Cathedral.  We were in there for a wedding way, way back when Benaiah was little.  I'm not even sure it's actually a church anymore.  I think it's now just space to rent out.  But don't quote me.

The plaza!  North is on the left, south is on the right.

Here's another church nearby, and on the opposite side there was also a third church!

The entrance to the library.

Hugging the bison.  Awwww....

I asked him to give the bison a kiss and he did!

The original library.  I have yet to actually gone up those steps to explore, but I bet it's awesome!

Just a handful of friends today.

One brought his "invisibility cloak" with him, (Harry Potter referenced here), but it turned into a tug of war instead.  I love it when multiple ages play together!

Time for a little screen time while Justin finishes up his social time.  This kid is very exhausted and hardly ran around like he usually does.  He also ate a huge breakfast, lunch (all in one sitting without running off!) and dinner.  Yikes!

This section is actually very brand new.  Some people have recently donated homeschool curriculum to the library!  In fact, I think I have some of it at home right now.  There's two more bookshelves just like it that.  And this is just curriculum, not the "how to's" of homeschooling books.  And they are asking for donations as well.  I'm super excited about this!  Now we can try out a curriculum before buying!

Big baby in my bed.

Happy baby feet.

Angelic.

The new grass grows incredibly fast!  It's making my front garden look trashy though.  And the weeds are already out of control.  Time to call in a friend.

Gorgeous purple (lilac?) tree!  It's not as full as others are on our street, so we need to maybe help it to get healthier, but for now, it's lovely.  It's kind of nice that our trees and flowers bloom one after another and not all at once.

Helping Daddy put on the registration stickers.  First we clean the license plate.

Then we add the sticker.  He helped on the van one as well.

Jared purchased the water softener and filtration system today!  Yippee!  I cannot wait! 

The work ethic this kid has!  Daddy let him help cut open the bag of soil for the pot that Daddy's going to put more seedling trees in.  In fact, Keturah made it known that she's tired of seeing Daddy plant all those trees!

Fill 'er up!

Handsomest 3 yr old there is!  And those tie shoes are to die for!  They make him look so much older!  And he's loving them because everyone else has tie shoes.  Ah!

Look, Daddy, I jump!  That's the epitome of how this kid lives.  He jumps in with both feet, loud, fast, and hard.  If only we all had that same kind of fearlessness and sense of freedom.  I'm glad we have the daily reminder in Abishai.