Year 3, July 27th-31st, 2018: Phew! All Caught Up!

I *think* we might be all caught up on sleep, housework, emotional and mental wellness, and me with those super long Chicago blog posts.  That's what happens when you take over 1,100 photos and videos in a 48 hr period.  Oh my word! I will be definitely be taking a step back from taking photos and videos so that I don't feel the pressure to do anything with them.  Thus, this a blog post covering the last 4 days!  I think when I restarted the blog a couple of years ago, it was because I had quit uploading and captioning photos to Facebook, and I had stopped making physical scrapbooks 10 years ago and was feeling the need to write down what we were doing in this season of life, even the mundane stuff.  I felt that I wanted to record more of Abishai's toddlerhood before it got away from me.  And of course the others, but as they grow, they don't change as fast.  I think I've accomplished some of that goal.  Therefore, I think I'm going to slowly pull myself away from blogging so frequently.  I have the "fear of missing out" syndrome where I have to check every single person's social media stuff every single day, and I have to know about every single event happening around town, and I have to share every little thing that happens at home.  It is a problem for me and it does take up a lot of my time.  And I've come to realize that I won't have a perfectly written chronology of our life because of the different mediums I've used and the different season of life requiring different amounts of my time.  And I need sleep.  I write blogs and upload/back up pictures and deal with emails that need to be opened on the laptop in the evening between 9-11pm.  That sounds like a long time but when you consider how long it does take to upload pictures to different platforms, write information to go with them, and sometimes deal with a very uncooperative laptop, it can take that long if not longer.  The big blog posts from vacation took several afternoons to complete.  I'm proud of them, and I want to do them, but I also need to re-prioritize.  I don't want to just live life through a lens and words I write.  I'm not sure how and what I'll do, but that's some thoughts for now.

So, what have we done this weekend?  Yes, rested our brains and our bodies.  It's taken most of the weekend for me to settle back down.  The physical stuff of vacation was taken care of easily because we stay organized while away and always clean before we leave.  But I think we all needed time apart from each other and to just chill, and that's what we did.  Jared went to an all night prayer thing at church from 11pm on Friday night to 7 am on Saturday morning, so he spent all day Saturday in a fog and took a couple of naps.  Sunday was very full, as normal, even though Mom and Dad were gone again for a week long work trip to Oregon.  (No rest for the weary).  OH, THAT'S what we did! Friday night Jared and I went out to dinner and a cheap movie, Infinity War, FINALLY, for our 17th anniversary, although it was on Saturday and Sunday because Mom and Dad were going to be gone.  That was a very last minute plan, but I'm glad we had that time to talk.  I needed to decompress for the week and I'm very happy we finally saw that movie!  It can be hard to wait for movies to go to the cheap theater especially when you've been seeing them the weekend or two after they are first released.  It's a bit of a different experience because the theater is definitely not as nice, but it works for us.

What else?  Benaiah was at church from 7 am to 8 pm because he played drums at the Franklin Rd. campus and then stayed for a last hurrah/start of school worship night for the high schoolers.  Yes, the kids in our township went back to school this week.  Yes, it's earlier than a lot of places.  And yes, I'm trying to ignore it because I don't want the pressure of starting school yet.  We still have 3 weeks before Benaiah goes back and I intend to still do our summer "bucket" list like bowling and local swimming pool, and of course the state fair.  And that was after he worked an 8 hr shift on Friday and Saturday.  I guess I can't complain too much that he slept in until 12:30pm today.  Now he's off to Ethan's house for the night because it's Ethan's birthday.   I realize he's a teen and doesn't want to hang out with his siblings that seem to fight all the time, but I wish he would engage them more.  Their relationships are not as strong as they could be.

Meanwhile, I think the other 3 are rested up and back into routine.  The middles actually didn't ask for screen time until later in the day.  They did their chores at a slower pace and then played two rounds of Monopoly without me begging them to find something to do.  Abishai did all of his potty business in the potty, including #2, so it was a good day with that.  I have to teach him to put his underwear back on before he moves up in September, but I think we are going to make that goal and he even talked about eating "green goldfish" (aka the brand of fish crackers called Goldfish come in rainbow colors) in the "yellow" room.  So, yeah, he knows and understands and wants to move up.  And he needs to.  Yesterday, Jared ended up helping at the 11 am service because they were short and at the 4:30 because Abishai wanted him to.  Jared was going to go to service because he missed out this morning, but nope, little guy wanted him.  BUT, Abishai proceeded to misbehave and climb up on the toys AND the climb up and run on the little tables.  Yup, we have to move him up.  Period.  He doesn't belong in there with the little two year olds. He'll be a bully to them in no time.  So why was I so worried about all of this?  Because I have anxiety.  I freak out.  I have issues.  And we won't discuss them here.

And now we are looking at a fairly open few weeks to fill as we please.  We are probably going to the fair on a Tuesday and then again for a concert on a Sunday.  We have two birthday parties to attend on the same day.  I have a little educational event for essential oils one Saturday.  Benaiah needs to go school supply shopping.  But otherwise, we are HOME and have to be so I can get these projects done.  I did putter today, not as much as I probably should have, but I was easing myself into the tasks again.  I hate doing it, but I have to.  We can't do school until I'm done certain areas.  I have a plan, I need to execute the plan.  So here I go, getting caught up, reducing the frequency of taking photos and videos and posting them.

Excited to open their new Lego sets!

Abishai wants to play with Justin, but Justin doesn't like him messing with his stuff.  Justin tries to be nice, but I can understand the frustration of having younger siblings.

Daddy was watering the trees with the fan type of sprinkler so the kids decided to join in and cool off!  It hasn't been terribly hot, but still, who doesn't like going through the sprinkler?

Abishai got in on the action, too.

Uh oh.  Abishai purposefully got in Daddy's watering buckets after they were filled with fresh water.  Daddy noticed grass in them when he went to refill them.  Sneaky little boy.  Justin also mowed the lawn on Saturday.

Abishai grouped his cars by color!  Justin said he showed him how to do that once.  I guess I don't have to do any preschool work with him then if he's just picking up this stuff on his own.  Yeah!

This is how a pyro "weeds."  We don't pull weeds, we burn them up!

Bubbles on a gorgeous Indiana summer evening!

And the redneck's other method, just kill the weeds with gas!  Smelly and not safe for kids, but whatever, it does the trick.

While Justin returned Grandpa's mower after using it to mow the lawn over the weekend and Keturah went to help bring leftover milk and the weed eater.  Abishai and I played a game of putting the basketball into the truck, climbing in the truck, throwing the ball out, then climbing out of the truck to retrieve the ball.  We played like that for like 15 minutes.  And then I would pretend to be a sleeping giant, and when he would throw the ball in, it would wake me up, like Jack in the beanstock.  These are the things I should be doing, not cleaning out boxes full of stuff.

Pretending to sleep like the big giant.

Cute little guy.

Dance party in his underwear.  The kids moved the CD player into the dining room and have been playing old school Newboys non stop.  I love the music, but, not the extra noise at certain times of the day.

Yup, that's how Abishai and Jared spent their Sunday.  And those are the tables Abishai climbed up on and Jared had to discipline him about.  Time to move up!

Making his own breakfast.

Yup, and it's now under my desk eating the last one like this.  Why won't it die if it's eaten this much poison?  But now that we know that it IS going under my desk, we can set a sticky trap or other trap and get him.  I'm just afraid it's going to try to come out from there and scare me.  It has a nice tunnel though behind my desk along the wall.  Unfortunately, I think I found mouse poo on my desk this morning.

Blowing raspberries in bed.  We hung out together goofing off.  He did miss Daddy a little bit, but I think he was also happy to be with me today.  He likes being at home with us and his toys just as much as going out and seeing the world.  Plus, where else can you spend the whole day in your underwear?

Watching YouTube, in his underwear.  HE was the one who set it up like this, by the way.

I went pee pee and poo in the potty all day today, I need lots of MM"s!  Ok, yes, you did and since we haven't been rewarding him for all his victories, I gave him a big handful after supper.  But again, on the counter, in his underwear.  He's spoiled.

Protecting those MM's with his big toddler toes.

I wanted to put these with the blog post on the Shedd Aqaurium and I might still do that, but I think they are going to get lost.  But these are from the trip we took on September 6th, 2004 with a friend who stayed at Gary and Leah's for 6 months.  Benaiah was just 2 yrs old.

Lots of Nemos!  And yes, Abishai has worn that shirt.  This is Benaiah at 2 yrs old at the Shedd Aquarium.

Aww, Jared and Benaiah.  You can barely recognize them!

This looks a bit familiar, lol.  Same view of Chicago, same light post.  But there weren't as many boats.  And, we have 3 more kids.

Cutie Benaiah.

Our friend Olga from the Ukraine.  I wanted to recreate the bottom picture but we didn't go into the Field Museum.  Benaiah took a good long nap on that bench.

The picture is from the Shedd Aquarium where the white sided dolphins are and where we saw the show.  I guess we went to the Adler Planetarium, too.  I'm not sure how we accomplished all of this, but then again, I took way less pictures and I only had one kid to keep track of, and I didn't have chronic pain issues.

Probably the same Beluga whales! Sweet!

P.S. Because tomorrow's blog will be longing, I'm tacking on Tuesday's happenings here.

On Tuesday, Keturah's glasses lost a screw, so instead of staying home, we had to go get them fixed.  It was raining, but since we were out, we also went to Meijer for more mouse bait and a "few" other things, some of which I had coupons.  Of course I spent too much money as always.  Benaiah was gone Monday night through all day Tuesday at Ethan's house because it was Ethan's birthday, so it was just the three younger ones and I doing errands.  We ended up stopping at Jared's office and then dropping off library books on the way home.  I feel like I haven't stayed home long enough to get enough motivation to tackle the rest of the summer projects, and that's partly because of the blogs.  I just have videos to add to the Chicago blogs at this point, so hopefully I can finish those in the evenings (after tomorrow's blog) and leave the days open for work.  I've got to work.  But tomorrow we play at the Children's Museum.

Justin - "Butter is the glue to hold the cinnamon on."  So true!

This is what Abishai think Daddy does all day, well, Grandpa crunches numbers and Daddy uses a lot of sticky notes.

Abishai started to splash in the puddles on our way into the eye glasses place and Meijer, so I told him to wait until we got home.  I'm glad he waited because he didn't realize how wet he would get and then he didn't want to be wet.  But he had a great time before that!

The water feels more yucky without shoes.  It took his shoes about 24 hrs to dry out with a fan blowing on them.

There was a bigger puddle on the sidewalk near the back yard so Keturah tried it.

Abishai thought it was yucky, so we went inside soon after that.

Abishai using his ladder truck to put out the fire at the 'pair shop (repair shop).  He knew exactly how to get the guys to climb the ladder and use the fire extinguisher.  Toddler play is so cute.  I also tested him with a bunch of puzzles and he knows his shapes and colors and even a couple of letters - all thanks to YouTube videos.  Whatever works!  Although I love some of the preschool programs I have, too, and I'm going to be bummed if we don't get to sue them.

Old childhood toy from a great company.  I built a "garage" and then had to figure out how to shut the door (because Abishai wanted it closed) without another square piece.  I came up with this front area, but before I actually attached it, I could open and close it like a mouth.  Abishai hated that.

This is how I keep track of what I've done for each set of pictures/videos and blog posts.  That includes backing up photos and videos to websites and an external hard drive.

Timehop on Facebook today showed us Justin climbing a tree at almost exactly Abishai's age.  Now I think Abishai is looking more like Benaiah in pictures rather than Justin.  But isn't Justin's dimple so adorable?