Year 3, July 20th-21st, 2018: Friday & Saturday, V6 & V7, When Plans Drastically Change

Well, today, Jared woke up early to go to his men's group, but the rest of us slept in until at least 9.  Ok, Abishai was up and rummaging the pantry and ate a ton of raisins.  And it showed later on in the day when he ran to the potty and had 3 BM's in the toilet!  Success!  He is definitely on his way to being potty trained.  It just took consistency from us parents.  Meanwhile, it was a very slow day, except for a couple of business phone calls that had to be made and decisions agreed up on by the J2, J6, and even the J4 for vacation plans for this coming week.  Benaiah got scheduled to work on Monday and there's a possibility that Everly and Nora will be joining us thanks to their Aunt Stasia and Uncle Ben driving them up here by Monday night.  SO, we aren't going to Chicago regardless of ASEN until Tuesday, and return on Thursday.  We have also decided not to go to Ohio after all because we need some rest and recover time.  Uncle Bill also needs some time to recover from his busy week, so it worked out well.  That gives me more breathing room to catch up on these blogs.  I'm not doing too bad and I have a plan to chip away at them as the weekend progresses.  I have all day Saturday, a good portion of Sunday, and part of the day on Monday.  I don't have a set goal but will work diligently at it.

Therefore, I worked on the blog and then ended up taking a 2 hr nap while the kids had their electronic time.  They actually had extra amounts of screen time, and I'm ok with that because it meant we all stayed quiet and they hadn't hardly any over the past week.  Even Abishai was willing to go potty between shows on the tablet.  The kids had showers, a load laundry got done, supper made, chores done, nose wiped a million times over, and movie watched over at Grandma and Grandpa's.  We decided to rent the new "Paul" movie from Redbox and Grandma popped popcorn instead of going out to a movie.  We would have had to split up to see different ones and that's no fun.  And Abishai got to run around at Grandma's house and play with her cars, and headbutted the back of Grandpa's chair full force, falling straight down, cried for 10 seconds, got up and ran another lap.  This happened at the very end of the movie when the pivotal moments were being played, but we couldn't stop laughing!  It was so comical!  He also chattered our ear off during the whole movie.  Some of us even went in our PJ's!  Justin even got to work for Grandpa and will finish up on Saturday.

I just feel much more at peace having these next few days to rest up before tackling Chicago.  Between this nasty headcold and my normal aches and pains, I've been pretty moody.  I've had to drug myself up just so my nose won't run and then I can't think straight long enough to think rationally and make decisions.  So I took a break from those kinds of medications and even my essential oils so that my whole body could rest. And rest it did, along with some bad dreams, this afternoon.  I'm finding that I'm not very happy with how my home looks but have no motivation again as to what to do with it.  But I don't have to really think about that until next week.  I'll spend the next few days still "on vacation" and only work on the blog and having fun with the kids.  We all needed time apart from one another and time in the dry, air conditioned air!  I've been having trouble taking deep breaths because of the heat and humidity and this cold, which scares me.  And I know the kids are worn out from each other and the excitement, too.   Now, if I can only convince the men that we are still on vacation, that would be grand.  I really don't like that they are going in and out of the office, but that's the nature of ministry I guess.  I just want to be cut off from the world, thanks.

He wanted a knife to cut his own pancake himself.  He even tried to put the knife in between the tines of his fork!

Um, yes, this happened.  I'm in the backseat and Benaiah is driving us from Gary and Leah's to our house.  And yes, he's got a longer torso than Jared.  Ah!

And sssshhhhh, he drove barefoot!  We had gone over there to watch a movie, so some didn't even put their shoes on or change out of their pj's!  We watched the new Paul movie.  It is well done, although I was expecting more of a chronological approach, not a flashback approach when he was old and in prison in Rome.  Lots of great messages.  Not gory, but a little scary for Keturah.  I'm glad Abishai didn't actually watch it but wandered around and played and talked to us the whole time.  And Abishai even ran so hard and fast that he ran directly into Gary's recliner at top speed, fell down, cried for 10 seconds, got up, and ran another loop.  Crazy children!

Saturday:
Saturday was rainy and an errand running kind of day.  I've been working on putting captions on pictures for the blog posts from last week, the kids did their chores, and they all had electronic time.I played a game with each of the three youngest.  Abishai tried cheating at Hungry Hippos.  Justin beat me soundly at Othello but I beat Keturah, but barely.  Benaiah worked a long shift at CFA. I'm now coughing and my nose isn't dripping, but it's pretty stuffed up.  I'm trying not to get overwhelmed by my seemingly disorganized house (which usually happens when I've been out and about and see the simplicity some people live in) and remembering what my goals for these very welcome and needed, but unexpected days of rest.  We are still "on vacation."  We will go to Indian Creek tomorrow, but the grandparents will visit other churches.  I'm just feeling that "I have energy when I'm out for vacation, why don't I have it at home?" blues.  I think it's mental state of being overwhlemed.  We'll have fun next week and then I'll set up my mind and my goals on our drive home, ready to dig into the rest of the summer projects before our schooling starts.  Most schools start in about two weeks or less here.  Benaiah doesn't start for another month, and we'll start soon after that probably.  It will depend on if I feel finished with the major projects or not.  I have a plan, I just need to work it when we are back from Chicago.  Patience, rest, catch up on blog stuff, it's ok.  I wasn't supposed to be home these days anyway.  And now I won't be so far behind on the blog, so relax, chill, you will be ok.  That's what anxious people have to do to calm themselves.  Take those thoughts captive like the Bible says.  You WILL have those evil/misguided/false thoughts, there's no doubt it.  But it's what you do with them that counts.  Feel them for a moment.  Sit with them if you need to, and then say good bye to them and move on.  That's why I need my time outs, even if it's holing myself up in the bathroom sometimes.

It was a good day for the most part.  Hey! Abishai did most of his pottying on the big potty today, including poop again!  He did dribble a couple of times, but the training pants were enough to keep his actual pants dry AND he went to the grocery store in underwear!  That's major progress!  We'll do pull ups exclusively again in Chicago, and probably at church tomorrow, but at home or when we have short amounts of time out and about, he's in underwear.  He's running to the potty on his own now and can do the whole routine in time! I'll take it!  And he wakes up dry, too.  So he does have a lot of control.  I don't know why I was so worried about it.  It does eventually happen.  I know that.  So I'm shaking my head at myself, silly goose.  We'll have to check what "potty trained" means when September 1st comes around, but I think he'll be able to move up.  Not sure if a pull up is allowed or not, so we'll see.  I hope so!

Like I said, it rained a good portion of the day.  Justin was able to finish working for Grandpa today.  He's doing things that Benaiah has done the last couple of years but doesn't have time to do it now.  Now, if they all could come to my house and work in our flower beds.....I wonder if Grandma and Grandpa would be willing to assist them if we paid the kids.  I just don't know the first thing about flower beds.  Or I need to pay my friend in the spring to do it.  It makes me mad it wasn't done this past spring.  I just need Alisha to get here and do it, and I'll pay her.  She's my favorite person to work with on these types of things and she LOVES to garden.  Next year I guess.  We'll start planning in January.  And set aside some money, as well as try to save for our own vacation.  So much to plan and save and do!

Ok, back to the older blogs now.

Mommy, you have an apple on your phone! And someone ate it! (See the video below where he was doing his morning snuggles and wrestle time with us).

Grandpa cleaned out his garage so it was time to bring this high chair back to us.  He's so big but he wanted to use it!  It needs to be cleaned and put away.  I don't know if I'm ready to part with it yet or not.  There's a possibility of letting it go, but I wasn't mentally prepared to make that decision yet.  I DID have a relevation today about how to get some things into more permanent storage without buying more containers!  Well, at least the bulky picture box of baby things and the bassinet could be wrapped in heavy duty plastic wrap that they use for shipping skid loads of stuff!  $20 for a roll that will last forever!  Then I would be ok putting it in the shed and keeping an eye on it for mice that might chew through the wrap.  The other clothes stuff can easily be transferred to Rubbermaid roughnecks after I purchase some.  I was waiting until August to do that.  But I could also wrap those boxes, too.  Then I need to buy two more pieces of furniture for our bedroom so I can get the book boxes taken care of.  Also part of August's budget I hope.  We'll buy them from the Habitat for Humanity ReStore.  I have plans.  Now to execute them.

I'm still loving this "radio station" even when they play things I don't know because it's from the 80's.  But this song is a song that my dance instructor choreographed for me, the star of the "The Apple" that she and her husband wrote.  It was about a girl who wanted to steal an apple and there was a spiritual war going on.  Think Carmen and his awesome songs about the devil and his minions.  It was awesome!  And I was even lifted up by her husband, which is like a dancer's dream!  I loved ballet, but my legs weren't built for it so I never moved on to pointe.  But I have incredible memories of those lessons and recitals.  And it was cool to be "the star" too.  I think I was about Keturah's age when I did it.

Keturah put the sunglasses on him after he fell asleep during our first couple of errands.  I'm glad he slept only about 15 minutes because we don't need him staying up so late!

I walked right past our little bunny friend who was not even three feet from the sidewalk.  I had to come back to it after Keturah pointed it out.  I feel like sometimes I could just reach out and pick him or her up.  Such a sweet cottontail bunny eating the goodies we've left in the garden for him.  He sticks around for a long time before hopping off.

Isn't he or she beautiful? She looks so healthy, too!  Wildlife in our front yard is a GREAT thing!  We even planted some baby vegetable plants just for her.  Love it!