The J6 Journey: Year 3, June 14th-16th, 2018: Keturah's 10th Birthday

Thursday, June 14th

Today was all about the dentist and getting ready for me to go a concert and the rest of the family to stay home. Well, Benaiah had rehearsal for worship team for Sunday. He's playing the drums for the big stage at the Franklin Rd. campus. The dentist went very, very well. No one had cavities. We only had a little plaque and tartar build up. And Abishai had a full exam and cleaning because he sat on Jared's lap the whole time. And because of how we scheduled it, all 6 of us were done in under 1 hr! They had 3 of us go at a time, which was great. Jared had a lunch appointment, but I'm glad he was able to help with Abishai because I was getting my teeth cleaned at the same time. Therefore, I don't have pictures, super sad face. Oh well, I got to hear Abishai talk to the dental hygienist and the Dr. Doug, it was so cute!

I volunteered to hand out child sponsorship packets during the concert, so I got into the concert for free! I ended up getting to watch 90% of the show, including all of the main set. I pysched myself up to be content with whatever I could see, but I was happy to be able to enjoy all of it because this is the farewell tour of this particular band, Third Day, which was one of my top 3 favorite artists in high school. Third Day was my mom's absolute favorite Christian artists as well. I'll write a whole blog post on it of course, but I'll include a few pictures here. Unfortunately, I was standing behind a large man and didn't get to "see" it as well as I did for the other concerts this spring. But I had a seat to sit in and I enjoyed listening to it all. It's really cool that I've gotten to see all 3 of my favorites within 4 months of each other, and both bands, Newsboys and Third Day were doing a reunion/farewell/let's sing all of our favorites type concerts so everyone was there. The Third Day guys hadn't actually toured together in awhile because they had started some solo projects. It was a sold out show that I wanted to go to but couldn't because it sold out within 2 days. There were fans from 25 years ago like me to younglings that weren't even 10 years old. Lots of reminiscing and they recorded portions of the evening to use in a future "live" recording or video! We were only 1 out of 3 cities that they were doing it with. Pretty awesome! Ok, I'll save the rest for the blog post on the concert itself. I had a great time, drove downtown and back by myself with no issues, and was home before midnight. Yeah for leaving in a state where I can see a Christian concert nearly every week! Next up: For King and Country in August at our state fair all for the price of fair admission which is only $8 a piece. I'm excited!

Abishai got a special treat! He got to ride in Daddy's truck to the dentist's office, 35 minutes away! It just a pain to move his carseat so we rarely do it. We had some nice surprises under the seat though in the van! Just kidding, we just had some crumbs and wrapper or two, not nearly as bad as one would expect.

He's the king of castle all right. Sheesh.

The dentist visits couldn't have gone more smoothly than they did. Daddy went first and Abishai wanted to watch so we let him. That was a PERFECT intro to get Abishai to sit for the dentist, too. Monkey see, monkey do!

Abishai, who cannot sit still for anything, was up and down on the little chairs and all around the dentist chair touching Daddy and messing with his shoes and tickling him!

He even went over to to one of the other sections and brought back a chair. Meanwhile, I'm sitting on the floor filling out paperwork. It's a good thing that Jared's been seeing our dentist for 27 years! They know us by name because we've also been taking the kids here for their whole lives (except for the Canadian years of course). Dr. Doug is a long time member of our church and has gone a bazillion medical missions trips, some with Gary even.

Abishai made visits to Benaiah and Keturah when they were getting their teeth cleaned, too. Jared's dental assistant did a great job explaining everything to Abishai as she was doing stuff to Jared so he wouldn't be afraid when it was his turn. And I could hear her say similar things when it was Abishai's turn.

Going to the dentist (and being up early at 6:30 on his own accord) is exhausting! Abishai sat very still on Jared's lap and he got a full exam and was so excited to pick out his new Iron Man toothbrush! Yes, he even knew the name "Iron Man" vs. "Minion."

Sifting through my CCM memories box, I came across this gem. Most teenage girls would have their boyfriend's picture in their locket. Bwahahaha, not me, uh, I had Michael W. Smith just because I liked him so much. I was very naive and now looking back and knowing about how affairs work and how you shouldn't crush on married men, yeah, oops. BUT, when I did meet Jared I added his initials on the left side! See! I was very naive and innocent. Fun times though because I thought I was hot stuff for even owning a pretty locket. I can't remember how I got it though. It might have been a hand me down of sorts from my cousins. I have no idea.

I overheard this man child singing to himself. I'm not sure what, but it's not very often I get to actually hear him sing!

I wasn't meaning to do a new updo for the concert tonight, but I did. I guess I made the main twist a little tight/short so the ends stuck down a lot. I left it like that because I thought it was pretty neat!

Accidental hairdo! And I am loving the hand me downs from a friend of ours! She got excellent taste and I feel like a million bucks because these clothes are a perfect fit. I'm picking out something new to wear almost every day and deciding if it is something I want to keep. This top was very silky yet like cotton, not slippery, and I like how the pattern looks on me.

I left my little creeper at home (without any clothes on underneath his brother's jacket because he was going to keep up the potty training). Cute little guy though!

Friday, June 15th

Abishai woke up early at 6:30 am, and snuggled with me for awhile and then wandered off. I actually went back to sleep for a bit. When I woke up, Abishai snuggled for another couple of minutes and then we had to get the day started. We had planned a month or so ago to celebrate Keturah's birthday with Gary and Leah today because they are leaving with Justin tomorrow for the Houston hurricane relief mission trip. She actually doesn't turn 10 until 11:44pm. When I went into the kitchen, I found a mess from tortilla chips Abishai had gotten into. I knew I had to clean up the countertops and dishes that weren't totally finished. Jared had made the kids dinner and done most of the clean up, thankfully, but it wasn't as clean as I prefer it. The rest of the morning was spent trying to hustle everyone along because we needed to leave by 1pm. It was already 9am. If it's just me leaving, sure, I can get ready in an hour. But when you are chasing a half naked preschooler back inside after he escaped outside because the garage door was left open by teenager, after telling to get up for 90 minutes, and you have to then continually block the preschooler from climbing up onto the countertops or opening up the lazy boy chair or stop him from locking bedroom doors, all the while telling the middle children to hurry up and get their chores and homework done, and find time to make food and eat yourself and find time to shower all the while some guys from the electric company finally showed up at your house after 8 months and the lights go out as you finish showering, therefore the preschooler who was watching YouTube suddenly looses his tv show causing more crazy running around trying to keep him out of trouble.....it takes 4 hrs to get ready to leave for the rest of the day! Phew! I once saw a video during MOPS kind of detailing the same thing. By the time you are out the door, it's lunchtime, so the kids are hungry. And you wonder why I don't schedule back to back stuff all on the same day.

But we did for the rest of today. We went to Steak and Shake for Keturah's birthday lunch and were in and out of that place within an hour. I keep forgetting that the men are used to 30-90 minute lunches and when I think "eating out with the family" I think 2 hr ordeals. We then headed to the movie theater and thought we had just enough time to get seats. Well, we went to see Incredibles 2, and since it's opening day for that movie, the tickets were sold out. This is why Jared and I try to buy tickets ahead of time. Gary takes his chances. But there was another showing an hour later, however only the 2nd row from the front was available. We bought the tickets, but it was very uncomfortable for me and made me carsick. Lesson learned. Abishai bounced between Jared, Keturah, and I but actually sat fairly still for the whole movie. He didn't understand that you had to stay quiet, but he wasn't obnoxious. He was just asking questions about the plot. The movie itself was very enjoyable and I was glad to see that every family member helped the other and that the dad was not just shown as incapable, but overcame his weaknesses at being a stay at home dad. It's definitely one we need to have in our home library. After the movie, we all scooted to a prayer and meal time with some folks starting up a new medical clinic that will be serving a very specific community of people I believe from India that have migrated here, but also some other folks, too. There will be a language barrier but one of the partners can translate. I think we've seen these folks at church or in the community at large, so I'm glad a need is being met. We came home afterwards to open Keturah's gifts. And since Abishai had to sit a good portion of the day, he needed some extra playtime outside, too.

Keturah is spending the night at Gary and Leah's house and then they will take her to a birthday breakfast at Bob Evans as soon as they open at 6am. They have to be back to our house by 7, drop off Keturah and pick up Justin and Jared, and Jared will drive them to the airport. They fly out at around 9am for Houston. Then we will finish out the birthday day with a slower morning, another open house in the afternoon and groceries in the late afternoon, followed by pizza in the evening. And then Sunday, Benaiah plays drums at church for the first time on the big stage at Franklin Rd. campus. He's actually glad that Grandma and Grandpa won't be there because it a) makes him nervous and b) he doesn't like it when Grandpa tries to pull the "staff" or "lead pastor" card to get extra sneak peeks of him playing or changing the schedule so Grandparents could see him, etc. Someday he'll appreciate why we've taken videos and pictures of him. Someday when he's some famous drummer on a famous Christian rock band or he's the lead musician at a mega church or......someday.....

The big 1-0 girl asked for a TRIPLE steakburger, fries, water (Sprite?) and a milkshake! She ate it all, too! And was hungry in about 4 hrs! Gotta love the fry dipped in the milkshake though. And, for the record, every single one of the 8 of us used a coupon. I love that! Keturah usually asks for Steak and Shake for special outings. Our server has been a server there for 27 years! She told us why the Steak and Shake that we usually go to was shut down was because it was understaffed and managers don't show up. I guess we'll be going to this one more often. It's only a couple of extra minutes away.

"Hey dingus monkey, do you need help with that?" Benaiah likes to helps his siblings, but he still needs a bit of polishing with his approach. This scene reminds me of the scene in the first Incredibles movie where the mom says to the dad "Bob! Are you going to help the carnivore cut his steak?" as Dash, the son, is tearing until a piece of meat and literally tearing off a bite of it to chew like he was an animal.

"Mus-ard" with my "fwies." Yes, he asks for mustard every time, and yellow mustard, not honey mustard!

Again, up early and can't handle the excitement of life, Abishai fell asleep on the way to the movie theater. We let him sleep for a bit while we waited for the show. He probably was calmer during the movie because he had a nap. He gets super loud and stir crazy the more tired he gets.

He's still such a little guy in Daddy's lap. And Daddy milks these moments, too. When you catch your own son at his birth at home, there's bound to be a special bond.

Messing around in the arcade as we waited. They loved these motorbikes that rocked back and forth when you leaned your body weight to one side or the other. I tried them and they aren't actually that easy to control. I felt like I was going to fall off so I put my feet down on the platform.

Still asleep despite being moved from the car, to the movie theater, lots of loud talking, moved several positions while sitting, etc.

Now he's awake! Just in time to try out the motorcycle and walk into the movie!

Vroom, vrooms, as always.

The lighting is always poor in the movie theater and I hate putting on the flash, but here goes. The 1-0 year old ready to watch Inrcedibles II on OPENING DAY. Yes, I totally forgot that part. It was perfect timing that the movie came out the day before her actual birthday. That's why the shows were selling out. Plus, it's summer so kids are out of school. Makes perfect sense!

First movie that Abishai sat through! Not counting the one where he was 3 months old and nursed to sleep with me. Yeah! We can attempt going to movie theater on our own without a babysitter! He did bounce between Jared, me, and Keturah, but it wasn't horrible. He only actually moved 4 times. And of course these are the fancy pants seats that cost a bazillion dollars, but it's all worth it for Princess' birthday!

We were second row from the screen. Never ever again. It hurt my neck because I was wearing a flexi clip which always lifts my head up from the seat a bit when I lean backwards. I didn't like looking up at a screen instead of straight forward. I even felt motion sickness because I had eaten the cheese fries and cheese on my frisco melt, as well as had diet coke (aspartame and cheese bothers me). But the movie was great despite all of that! Oh, and Abishai was free because he was a lap child.

We made it back to the grandparents' house first because they stopped for some errands. We were going to open a couple of Keturah's gifts with them. Justin and Abishai are like best friends. It's super adorable to see them together, except when Abishai purposefully steals and/or destroys Justin's Legos. He just wants to be with big brother!

Big boy takes off down this steep driveway like crazy AND stops himself right at the culverts! There's a nice bump at the end of the driveway which makes a natural line barrier for the children to gauge when to stop before entering the road. Abishai is an expert at stopping by the time he gets there, too. It's about 3 feet away from the road.

Keturah's turn.

"I pedal!" Wow, you ARE big enough to pedal this 13 year old motorcycle trike all by yourself. Gary and Leah bought this at a touristy type shop with one of a kind type toys for Benaiah when he was about 2 or 3 yrs old.

Watch me, Mom! She might be 10 but she still has a ton of little kid fun. And this ride on toy has been so well loved by the kids for about 10 years as well. Someone gave to Gary and Leah. Again, hand me downs are the best!

Oh my goodness! He's going to be ready for this bike next year! I'm not sure why we accepted it as a hand me down in Canada and then brought it here because we've now had it for 2 1/2 yrs but still, it's in great condition and ready to roll when he is!

Whoops! Aaron, Shauna, Evelry and Nora sent this gift home with Gary and Leah for Keturah's birthday. Leah wrapped it I think though. And then Abishai got to it when it was sitting for a couple of days in the dining room. Whoops!

What a big box!

Now you can help open it, Abishai!

It's a...it's a....

A huge set of ponies! The girls didn't want it at Christmas so they regifted it to Keturah (see this frugal theme that this post apparently has). I vaguely remember saying yes to them doing that. She loved it when the girls opened it and since they aren't into ponies, it was perfect! Yeah! Thanks!

A few token gifts from Gary and Leah who already gave her the gift of summer camp.

Grandma made this decorative tea towel! Everly and Nora got ones, too!

Time to sing and spank 10 times and pinch to grow an inch! She barely fits on Daddy's lap anymore!

Saturday

Saturday started early at 6am making sure Justin got up in time to eat, take travel medication and be out the door as soon as Gary and Leah came back with Keturah after their 6am Bob Evans breakfast date. They were back right around 7:05, so breakfast took maybe 50 minutes start to finish, with Gary racing back to our house of course, cutting driving time in half, maybe, probably more like taking 75% of the time that we take to drive that distance, lol. Anyway, that means Abishai was up super early, too. Jared took Gary, Leah, and Justin to the airport and came right home. I had already had some breakfast and had puttered around with chores, so I ended up handing responsibility of Abishai over to him outside while he was watering the trees. I went back to bed. Abishai ended up watching tablet for the rest of the morning while Jared and I snoozed. Benaiah was snoozing, too. In fact, the kid slept for 11 hrs! Then he finally got up and mowed the rest of the grandparents' lawn at noon, when it was already 92 degrees. Smart one, that kid is. Anyways, he got that done in an hour, and then we were off to another graduation open house and shopping for groceries. Home to put away groceries and to cool off on a brand new 3 person slip and slide we got at Aldi's for $15. I wasn't going to open it until Keturah's friends come on Wednesday, but Daddy was willing to go set it up and be outside with Keturah and Abishai and they had a blast. Go Daddy!

For the most part, today was our Sabbath and I didn't stress about getting anything extra done. Benaiah has to be at church all day tomorrow and we will go at the 11 and then I'll go back at 4:30 for nursery. Oh yeah, and it's Father's Day. I'm horrible at planning special meals and party stuff for holidays like Father's Day because Leah's usually got it covered and Jared doesn't care. So, I didn't plan a meal for tomorrow. Oops. He'll be home with the younger, too, and we'll all be home after 6. So, it will be fine.

But more importantly, today was Keturah's 10th birthday. I don't know why I spaced it and didn't plan something extra special for today. All three older kids are hitting the big birthdays, 10, 13, and 16 this year. We plan the birthday celebrations, but I keep forgetting balloons and decorations on doors and planning special birthday meals. Whoops. I think she's had a good day anyway. She has done some crafting, she's had her TV time, she had fun on her new slip and slide, and she's looking forward to Wednesday with her friends. I haven't even written her a card yet. I think I have one. If not, I'll figure it out. I just finished writing Abishai's card from February, lol. So, I guess I'll get to that now.

Finished the day with some TV time and Facetiming Justin. Halfway through the day, Abishai was asking where Justin was. He's going to be really missing his buddy for the next 11 days. And then he'll be missing 'turah and 'miah. All the while, he has to still be told to sit on the potty which he hates to do. We're hoping we can get him to not potty in his pull up next week, but for now, we are still doing the naked method at home. We also have to train ourselves to get him to try while we are out doing activities. Sigh. The fun around here never ends!

And....10 hrs later....this one is headed to Houston with Grandma and Grandpa to help rebuild homes after the hurricane last year. He's super excited about going on his 2nd official mission trip! It's awesome to a) have the family culture of mission trips being important and b) having the church culture echo it as well. Some of the high schoolers are on mission trips to Zambia and Haiti this month. Gary and Leah's small group from the past 6 or so years have done these working mission trips, every June. They started with coming up to MCC and doing remodeling the school up there. That's how I met most of them. And then they went to Alaska last year to help finish building a church and now they are in Houston this week. Our favorite handy people, Mrs. Mary and Mr. Dan Craft are part of that group, as well as the friend who shared her clothes with me. Life is done well when you are part of a small group/life group.

Saying good bye to Justin. Actually, Abishai was upset that Jared was leaving.

In fact, he ran down the driveway and watched until the car turned onto Thompson Rd. Sad little boy. Daddy was back within the hour.

With Justin gone, we had to split up the chores. I vacuumed and brushed the dog. We own a beast, didn't you know?! The kids have never gotten the hang of using the right brush at the right angle on the right places so they never get this much hair out of him. I have the advantage of brushing horses in high school, especially when it was shedding season in the springtime. Alas, this dog sheds this much every day all year round.

Our beast, who is acting more and more like a senior dog every week. He sleeps a lot more and runs less.

Keturah received a couple of packages in the mail yesterday, so we opened them after she got home this morning. Unfortunately, the mail sorter machine ripped a hole in the bottom of the envelope and the bracelet Everly made had fallen out and was missing. It's a miracle the card made it to us because the zip code was off. Lesson learned: use a padded envelope for jewelry!

The machine and the bracelet didn't agree with each other.

46239 not 96239

These were neat scratch stickers! They had sayings underneath like Happy Birthday, but I think there were some clear ones where you could write on the card and put the sticker on top of the writing. The sticker itself had a clear layer underneath and the scratchy layer on top, so when you scratched it off, you could see the handwriting. I was impressed!

My sister also sent a gift! It was my sister's first time sending an Amazon gift card so I made sure I took pictures of everything so she knew exactly how it works. Thanks Stef!

Gorgeous box!

Sweet! And the there's a clear window on the underside of the package so you can see the numbers on the card and you don't even have to take it out in order to redeem it! Cool!

I downloaded the flight tracker app again so I could watch Justin's plane take off and land. There's been some nice updates to it! I love the split screen here. They left Indianapolis on time, but had to sit on the tarmac for almost an hour because a fire alarm was going off in the Houston airport. They survived just fine.

A new chair seemed to just appear when I was at the concert. And it's found a new occupant. The old chair was wearing out and Gary didn't like his new chair, so now we have it. It seems a little big for our house. And too nice for kids to be using, but whatever.

Keturah dug in and got all her ponies out and organized all by herself. I'm glad she still loves these little girl things! I played with my Barbies until I was 12 or 14. It didn't seem childish to me and I didn't have anyone giving me peer pressure about it. Sweet!

On their way to Houston.

Landed, sat on the tarmac for awhile, but were fine after that.

Benaiah's every growing Rubix cube collection. He's going to sign up for a cube competition in July in Ohio and we are going to combine that with our vacation. He knows he won't win but he's going to try!

We told Abishai it was time to leave so he put on his socks and shoes all by himself. Except, he forgot that we are potty training and he spends all day naked. Bwahahahahaha! If we don't laugh at this process, we are going to cry, just sayin'.

On a whim Keturah and I saw this triple slip and slide and since our blow up pool is not doing well, we decided to buy this in time for her party with her friends this week. We found it at our little grocery store Aldi's for $15! Daddy got it all set up for them and they played for an hour before supper time. Abishai was shivering by the end of it but having a blast!

Up down, up down, up down.

I love that it has this bumper/slide at the top so the kids don't get hurt when jumping on the slide. It's not as slippery as it could be because there's not much water hitting the top, so we might add a touch of soap on Wednesday.

It has this great bumper pool at the end, too. We needed something to cool off with on this 95 degree day! We had to turn up our thermostat to 80 because our electric bill was 50% higher than what it has been because of the a/c running all the time. It definitely made me feel more sticky and sweaty. And this house not only has very cold/warm areas in the winter but very hot/cold areas in the summer. And I seem to always been in the wrong room with the wrong temperature for the wrong season.

So much fun!

Rolling down the slide.

1, 2, 3...dunk in the icy cold pool at the bottom!

Leaves from one of Jared's baby trees.

Senior dog could hear his kids screaming and laughing, so he really want to be let out so he could check on him. He stayed right beside Jared and I after looking at them and making sure the kids were ok. Faithful 8 year old puppy dog. Abishai was even stepping directly on his spine for 30 seconds and he didn't move a muscle. Precious doggy.

The chair that has been replaced. Super sad face. This chair came with the Johnsons from Illinois when they moved here 28 years ago. It's been recovered a couple of times. The mechanics are still ok. And it fits me better than the newer ones do because of it's age and people being shorter back then. Abishai and I do not want to give it up.