On Thursday, I was emotionally drained, but I made it through and the sunroom boxes are 95% completed! I have some side projects to do that were created as I went through things and boxes I added to the original stack, but all in all, 20 boxes became 13. I got rid of 3 boxes of paper and 3 boxes of books and office supplies. Woot! Woot! All our records are organized and I touched every paper. Mission accomplished. Now I can deal with the leftovers or put them somewhere while I get the school books organized for this. That just means I have to put away books from last year and gather up the books specifically for this year. I do need to go through all the bookshelves and purge, but that won't happen until next year. So, school prep, Labor Day getaway prep, Labor Day weekend in Michigan, and then time for school, I think. It depends on what I can accomplish in the next few days. When I'm ready, we'll start.
Friday, I woke up to an eye infection. Great. It's good thing I know the right protocol to nix this thing in the bud. I also didn't have any obligations because I was going to keep working on home things. I used some essential oils around my eye, antibiotic eye drops and warm washcloth, multiple times on Friday, a few times on Saturday, and a couple of time today on Sunday and I'm almost normal! But it was very frustrating at the same time. I was going to help with transporting Benaiah, too. Keturah went to her friend Bailey's house, so Jared also had to transport her. We had dinner with Gary and Leah that evening, while Benaiah worked a shift at CFA and then he was the lucky winner to wear the CFA cow costume at the first township high school football game for the season! He wasn't particularly happy about it, but seemed to enjoy it in the moment. It's surreal to think my little guy, who met the CFA ago 10 or more years ago, is now the CFA cow. There was another employee there, too, in a different costume. But how fun! AND, he got to walk around on the same field, generally speaking, as his dad did 21-25 years ago! Different turf, same location! Jared said that when he was in marching band playing the trumpet, they only played a couple of games. Otherwise they focused primarily on the state band competition on the 1st day of the state fair every year. But hey, how neat that the boy is sort of following in his daddy's footsteps? Well, there's so much more than that, but I've already metioned them a million times: Lincoln Christian University, first real job at a Christian company (CFA and Jared worked at the Family Christian Bookstore), similar grades in school (see some of the pics below), working at church (both volunteer and small paid gigs), the physical looks, the tendency to procrastinate (although Jared is much better at NOT procrastinating), computer gaming, and the list goes on. You cannot deny that they are related. And yet, they are different, too. And Benaiah strives to be his own personhood different from Grandpa and Dad. Anyway, that's that.
On Saturday, Benaiah worked at church for an e2 event in the morning and then CFA the rest of the day. How that boy will ever get homework (and mowing) done, I don't know. The rest of us stayed home and did our normal stuff. This is when I wish I wrote done cute sayings of Abishai and stuff, because just typing out a play by play of the day is boring. Pictures help to jog memories, too. But I'm loving including the video clips because then you can see just how crazy these babies are. I worked on school planning, aka our routine, which was surprisingly easy to put together. I really only tweaked a bit more than the spring's schedule was and added some expectations like Justin breaking up a week's worth of lessons and who gets the TV when. That's the big one right there. I already cut back their TV time and I'm going to permanently take away the tablet for now. I'm just unhappy to know that a) the stuff Keturah is watching is not necessarily in her age bracket and b) Abishai ends up toy unboxing videos. I just want to control what they are watching more AND teach them to share the one TV screen, rotating who is on. Justin and Keturah will each get one hour and Abishai will get 2 hrs, only because I will need that quiet time with Justin and Keturah for lessons in the afternoon. We have plenty of VHS tapes and DVD's to keep them all occupied. And we will be a little bit flexible with one kid watching the other kids' shows. So if Keturah ends up watching a little bit of Fortnite playing, so be it. And if Justin ends up watching a little Kratts' Kreatures, then so be it. I'm also adding a brief morning basket time in so we can start including Abishai, and more intentional time with each of them. The time slots aren't exact, but the routine will be close. Now I'll have to do the bigger prep of pulling the books and seeing where to start and try to read ahead. I want to officially start the day after Labor Day, but that will only depend on if I can everything in line before we go to Michigan. Realistically, I might just add in a couple of things for that week and then add the heavy stuff the next week.
Sunday busyness. Crazier than normal, but we executed it well. Both Keturah and Benaiah had the longest days with Benaiah being at church for 13 hrs and Keturah having a total of 10.5 hrs. Justin clocked in at 6 hrs. Jared and Abishai were there for 4 hrs, and I was there for about 6. We had extra rehearsals/auditions/parent meetings to attend, as well as normal services and volunteering. I did get to spend a few minutes with a friend, and I got to communicate not only with Benaiah's youth leader about stuff, but with the owners of CFA and make that connection, finally. Apparently I've known about them and/or known their faces, but have never put the two together. That felt good. 5,000 member church, always in flux, and you're gone for 4 years can really put a kink in knowing who's who. Plus, Benaiah nailed it on drums today at our main church campus, and he got to play with a bass guitar guy who's been looking forward to playing with him for awhile. This guy has been a friend of Aaron's, Jared's brother, since middle school or high school. So that was neat. Benaiah drove me home tonight as well, even pulling into and out of a parking spot at a gas station. He's doing very well. I'm a tad nervous, but I'm relieved that I don't have to drive. More time to do other things! Now he's working on his English class that has an assignment due tomorrow that we both wouldn't have known about unless a friend had talked to me this evening. Her son is also taking the class and mentioned the assignment, praise the Lord. Fellow homeschooling family, and it's her second child to do the course, so that's promising. Benaiah is a little overwhelmed as I predicted, so we are giving him lots of space to figure things out. Jared had a pretty rigorous schedule, too. I had more free time because of homeschooling and my parents didn't want me working a ton. But we're figuring it out.
Tomorrow is a new day, but it's going to be a busy few days with errands to run and bit of packing to do for the weekend, which includes deciding on what school books to bring to start preparing for. I'm stressing out a little bit, so I need to wrap this up and move on. I'm going to try to write down more quotes/stories in the future so I can put them here, too. Having them on Instagram is a help, so I hope that it's not annoying to post those pictures here. Now let's see what other stories these pictures will prompt.
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| Baby snuggles in his "candy candy jammies." He loves these jammies and there's a few holes I need to fix but he puts them on as soon as they are clean. We had a cool week, but summer's not over yet and the temperatures are going to rise to the 90's this week, so he's going to get hot. Very cute though. |
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| Strange musthrooms. Justin saw them while mowing and came to get me. He thought they were toys or Nerf bullets because that's what their texture looks like. They were sticking straight up out of the ground and I thought that they were the head and tail of a snake or something. They are hollow in the middle, too. I poked them gently and they just toppled over. Then I stuck the stick into the middle hollow part to put them aside to show Jared later. It's a good thing I took a picture though because they were shriveled up when I went back. They aren't poisonous, but we don't want them or the massive piles of other mushrooms in the yard. We've never had a yard with this many mushrooms. Jared has now put out a dry mushroom/weed killer of sorts on the entire areas these are cropping up. So now we have to be careful sending out the dog or walking on the grass while it soaks in. We aren't people who use fertilizer and such so it's a new routine for us. Frustrating, too. |
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| I was finishing up the last of the papers and came across Jared's elementary, middle school, and high school grade reports, some as far back as 1st grade! He's practically a genius! His iSteps scores were outstanding. And he hardly studied. It's because he has a photographic memory, too. I'm very impressed. I knew he was smart, but I had no idea he was this smart. 9th grade iSteps and his reading level was also 99 percentile. |
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| Wow. |
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| Seriously? I know I would do fairly well on these types of tests when I took them every year for homeschool evaluations that were required by the state at the time, but not this good. I didn't see his ACT/SAT scores but they could have been mixed in with college application stuff. |
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| Best buddies. |
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| Look, Mom, I'm a satellite dish! |
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| Playing pirates and treasure! Abishai often says, "Justin, come play with me!" Justin is very good with the little ones, and loves his 1st graders that he helps with in KP. |
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| I feel so bad at this front garden. First of all, both other houses we were in had only a 4x4 patch that had one type of flower in it and tons of mulch. The rest of the greenery was just that, self sustaining shrubbery or green plants. I have no clue what to pull and what not to pull, nor do I have the physical ability to spend that much time on it. The grass that has gone to seed must have blown into the flower bed and now it's all over it. I've whacked it down with the weed whacker, but the whole bed needs to be dug up, the black liner pulled up, the dirt cultivated and new mulch put down. That was supposed to be this year's project. We not only need the mulch but the labor as well. So sad. I'm sending the kids out tomorrow to work on a bit of it, but I just don't have time to sit there and teach them. I have bigger priorities, but at the same time, it looks so ghetto. Can anybody help? Definitely next year. |
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| Nice picture on the trampoline with the sun at their backs. Abishai goes out for 10 minutes about 5-6 times a day. It's nuts! |
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| The procession to the shed. File boxes I don't need everyday. Sorted and ready to go. |
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| Gotta tackle this little mess next. These are the mini projects I'll tidy up here and there. Miscellaneous information papers that need sorted, books that need to be put on shelves, books that need pulled, a final sort of electronics, etc. Mini projects. Next spring, I'll start tackling the bookshelves. I'll try to do it earlier if school is going well. |
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| Wow! I have a clear pathway to the door! The kids can, and have gotten into the science and art supplies already! See, I knew I just needed to make them available. I did have to tell them I couldn't let them get everything out right now because of other things going on, but it's a start. Now I just have to promise myself NOT to put anything in front of it to relieve pressures in other places like the other side of the room. When you aren't used to a certain amount of floorspace, the tendency is to refill it. It's a hoarder thing. I'm used to clutter. I'm used to pathways inside homes. It's how I grew up. It's just a different mindset for me. I'll get there, one box at a time. Now remember, about 6 boxes are now sitting in my room waiting for a new bookshelf. So my room is temporarily crowded again. But I only go in there a couple of times a day. I'm in and out of this room a hundred times a day. I got 20 boxes down to 13. That's something to be proud of. |
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| This looks like it's an old photograph, but it's just the "golden hour of photography" playing it's magic. |
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| Ok, ok, I'll call! |
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| Abishai has had this absess near his airpit for 6 months from where the paci clip pinched him. It's been just a little bump that stayed the same color as the rest of his skin until this Wednesday. It started looking angry, bigger, redder, so I took him to the doctor. It is infected, so the doctor put him on antibiotics. He must have nicked it somehow in his playing. I'd like for him to wear shirts but he gets too hot. Tonight (Sunday) it looks like it's burst open, so I'm definitely putting a shirt on him tomorrow. Once the infection has healed, the affected skin won't fully go away for a few years. He kind of has to grow into that extra skin. It's hard to describe, but my point is, we were fine leaving it alone while it was the same color of everything else, and were good at bringing him in when the color changed. I hadn't brought Abishai in for his annual, and he's not due for awhile, but it was good to get his vitals checked, too. And this clinic actually prints all of that out for you along with this actual diagnosis and treatment plan. Sweet! I appreciate not having to scribble all of it down. He's just over 3 ft tall, almost 29.5 lbs, BP 92/50, Pulse 24, RR (resting heartrate?) 107/min. They also interestingly enough calculated his BMI. I guess with the rise in childhood obesity, they want the parents to be aware of it. It's 15.85, which is in the 51 percentile? So, you don't give me his percentile on height/weight, but on BMI? Interesting. The charts say 25% on weight, and one chart says he's at 5% height. That makes sense to me. Stay little, little one! |
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| Here's a look at all I've accomplished! Clear pathway to my desk and the science bookshelves! |
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| Truth. The tools, the sadness that I couldn't work on stuff, ugh. |
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| I bought this toilet paper holder this week and it works like on of those car things where it slides down one way and then flips and slides down the other way. Abishai LOVES it! |
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| Then he pretended to have his car fall off the cliff onto the soft toilet paper. Nice! |
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| Time for a little baseball at Grandpa's house. However, Grandpa just did a major cleanup/out of the garage and now they can't find the baseball mitts! Surely he didn't throw them out? But he likes to toss things, so who knows. We have some at our house that I think are ok they can use. |
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| Bubbles with Daddy. |
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| He loves to work hard like his Grandpa. He felt like a million bucks carrying this thing and blowing people with it. |
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| Even big kids like bubbles. |
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| Grandpa teaching the wee one. |
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| Insert evil laugh here. It was a good thing the hose was wrapped around the cement culvert. Otherwise, he would have walked up the driveway with it and sprayed us all. I was trying to stay out of the sun because of my irritated eyes, and I wouldn't have appreciated being sprayed on. He thought he was something else with all that water power. |
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| Meanwhile, Benaiah was at the Franklin Central High School's first football game of the season! We drove there to pick up Benaiah who was working the event as the Chick-Fil-A cow. He was one of two guys who did it. There had a been a challenge the week before between Roncalli and FC to see who would raise more money. 20% of the food that was purchased by fans of the schools went to the charities of the school's choosing. Roncalli won by something like 200 sandwiches. But FC won the football game. This stadium seating was built about 10 years ago and they just got a new artificial turf this year. |
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| I'm serious! I'm sure we know several of the team members, but the littles were all getting all excited about what was going on. They wanted to go in, but you have to pay for tickets. Who says field trips are limited to museums? I really do want to do this some time! |
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| Beautiful new artificial turf. So professional. Not the same as it was in Jared's youth. Benaiah's in the white cow costume next to the red Roncailli cheerleaders. |
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| Wow, oh, wow! Because of the challenge between the two schools, the CFA DRIVE THRU saw record numbers! That's right: 200 CARS not people went through the DRIVE THRU in ONE HOUR. That's insane! When talking the owners of CFA they said the crew get really excited for these things and push hard to break those records. Challenge accepted! And yes, we are the busiest drive thru in the nation, hands down. I'm so glad that Benaiah did end up here. Everyone should work fast food and/or retail at some point. And I'm grateful he does get to do it with people we trust, that won't necessarily treat him different than other employees, but it just gives me peace that he's in good hands with solid management. Yes, he's experiencing employees that don't work hard or don't get along, too. Not everyone is a Christian. But it's a more protected environment. Plus he's making less than he did working for us last year, and taxes are being taken out, so he gets to realize just how good he hast it sometimes. Oh, I should say, that just up the road a mile or so, an area near us is becoming more ghetto and the restaurants are having a very hard time keeping good managers and employees. Plus food service is horrible or the food is gross. So it makes us even more grateful that he has where he is. |
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| Humongous pop up thunderstorm with lots of awesome lightning and thunder. And for once, we actually went outside to listen and see it before it dumped rain. It was pretty surreal. I made the kids go out briefly and safely as well. We were right on the edge of the storm line, so the rainburst was maybe 15 minutes. But behind that front came hot, humid, sticky, ewwwwww kind of summer weather. Not good. Gross. |
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| Heavy rainy clouds. |
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| Whenever Justin and Keturah get out their Legos to play with each other, Abishai desperately wants to join them. They try giving him different mini figures or vehicles, but he really wants what they are playing with. We haven't found a good solution yet. Distractions don't really help, and I do want them to be able to play together. But Abishai just needs more practice in sharing period. He doesn't have to share his other toys because the middles aren't interested in them. It's a skill that needs to be worked on with all three of them because Justin and Keturah also don't handle the situation well. They do get frustrated and raise their voices at Abishai. Any suggestions? |
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| Being dumped on by rain. |
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| We were on the bottom edge of that red on the far left. |
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| Less than 15 minutes later, the sky cleared and sun came out. We forgot to look for a rainbow though. |
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| Friendly face at the dinner table. |
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| Socks is sitting, I assure you. I havne't taken a picture of him in awhile, so snapped this one. Isn't he an adorable old pup? |
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| Again, these two make a great pair. We were watching the 2nd installment of "The Adventures of the Wilderness Family." This movie takes us through the Colorado winter and the mom's pneumonia. When I was younger, I could identify again with the girl (who's actress was recast) taking care of her mom because my mom was hospitzlied for a week with pnemonia when I was 7 yrs old. My dad took us to our first ever movie that week, "The Land Before Time." I don't remember going to the theater, but it's impressive that he took us all because I was 7, then my sisters were 5 and 3, and my brother was 1. Maybe he left my brother with my aunt. I have no idea. My dad officially died of double pneumonia, so it's an interesting connection to the movie. Jared of course pointed out a few good things in the movie to the kids, like how do you smoke meat and what the different animals are. This time they included a wolverine and "Scarface," a black wolf with a scar down the middle of it's face. Yes, before there was "Scar" in Lion King with a similar scar, there was Scarface in the Wilderness Family. |
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| Gorgeous moon and clouds. |
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| Sunday morning breakfast. |
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| Keturah's friend Bailey got to hang out with us at the office between auditions and Kids' Choir. They giggle A LOT and that's so good for the both of them. Bailey is the oldest, so she needs some good older influences to help her mature a bit and Keturah needs the exact opposite. Because Keturah had older siblings, she's had to mature a bit faster, so it's good to see her just being a kid and goofing off. |
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| They found a big box in the closest! Giggle fest! |
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| Jared used the van to take Abishai and Justin home in, so we had to wait for him to bring it back because a) I don't drive the truck because it's a stick shift b) we don't all fit in the truck c) I couldn't help Benaiah drive it. It was SO HOT AND STICKY AND STEAMY out. Ah!!!! I'm glad we are going to a lake this weekend, but it's still going to be pretty hot without air conditioning. This should be fun! |
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| We still see a few fly overs from commercial aircraft, which is awesome because we used to see a ton in Charlottetown and some in Beech Grove. This one was flying under all those clouds and was clearly visible. Awesome! |
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| Yes, mission trip, NYC, need funds, October 13-18. I hope to post a video with him talking about it soon. |
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| Sundays are exhausting. He feel asleep in the middle of the first book. He's so spoiled, too, getting put to bed with books and cuddles and a Daddy who waits until he's asleep before leaving the room. He snuggled us a ton this morning, too, probably because he didn't have any competition around because everyone else was at church already. |
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| Very dirty baby feet. |
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| I had a few days of very low numbers because I didn't move much while I sorted papers or put a wet washcloth on my face. But just a couple of back and forths at the church and the steps rack up fast! |
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| Because of the schedule, we only had one child to transport to church this morning, drop off and pick up at nursery, and eat lunch with. Justin had the grandparents with kids at a "Welcome to the Creek" lunch, Keturah had rehearsal, and Benaiah stayed at church and ate lunch with them. It's so strange only having one child. It's too quiet. Plus I had to do some of the chores. But at least we had enough letftovers to heat up! |
