Year 3, September 7th-9th, 2018: Another Year Older

Today, Sunday the 9th, was Justin's 13th birthday!

But first, back to Friday and Saturday.....

On Friday, Jared left super early to go with Gary to Cincinnati for an e2 conference.  They stayed late at church the night before putting together new "elder kits" full of e2 books, guides, videos, etc.  They are going to send some home with Mr. Estep to take to another conference in a few weeks.  So conference season has begun!  Sigh.  I'm not really looking forward to all the back and forth again, but thankfully it's mostly Gary going and coming, not Jared.  But when Jared isn't going, I have things to do, too, so it's about to get super busy. That left me today with a lawn that had to be done today before the next 3 days of rain came.  It was too hot and we were too busy to do it earlier this week.  Justin and Benaiah begrudgingly tag teamed it.  Grandma helped with Benaiah's transportation to and from work so I could stay home with the kids. It did rain all afternoon, and Abishai was exhausted from the back and forth yesterday at church and Grandma's house, so he spent the day rolling around on the floor or following me around like he was superglued to my leg.  He hardly ever clings to me like that, so I tried to give him extra attention. Thankfully, he went to sleep ok because I started the routine super early so he wouldn't get wound up.  I think he sort of gets why Daddy wasn't home, but he still asked for him.  Abishai won't read with me and didn't want me to cuddle him either.  I actually cleaned the bathroom while he was falling asleep so I was nearby but still ticking something off my to do list.

Oh that to do list!  I have so many things on that list just so that we keep functioning.  I don't know how some of these moms have any down time or energy to deep clean their house or read a book.  I have so many 5-15 minute projects, it's ridiculous.  I continually have to choose which project comes first and dusting a bathroom is just not on the top of the list.  I think Leah cleaned up the front garden area again when she was waiting on Benaiah to get out of the shower.  Sure it only takes 5 minutes and yes the front garden bothers me, but the weeds will keep growing regardless of how much time I spend on it and it's something someone else can do.  I focus on the things that only I can do.  So have at it! It doesn't offend me at all if someone cleans my house.  Just don't throw stuff out.  Or organize anything.  Just clean around the stuff.  Anyways, I hadn't properly deep cleaned that bathroom (wipe baseboards, clean the floor around the toilet which is mostly dust because we don't use it much, clean up the drywall dust from a year ago; the sink that is usable gets wiped down daily by Justin, and the inside of the toilet is done weekly) in months.  Dust didn't hurt anyone, did it?  Ok, it affects allergies, but we have so many other allergens in our house, it won't make a difference if it's there or not.  I hate cleaning, I'm not great at it, I physically can't speed clean like some can, and it's something I can delegate.  Enjoy.

Otherwise, we got school done this week, although my little routine/schedule isn't working out yet.  It was a bad week to try and start that when I didn't have all the materials ready and we were gone for two of those days.  Next week is looking extremely quiet, so I know we can tweak it and make it flow better.  I'm just super tired from an emotionally draining week.  We'll get there.  We always do.  The kids have been pretty good about their work, too.  First week down, lots more to go.

Jared started tweeting again!

By coincidence, a friend on PEI retweeted about another friend who is helping to bring awareness and help to those with depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, etc.  So I clicked through to another story and last year, Cows Creamery had a MOO Let's Talk day to promote talking about these issues.  They raised $35,000 in the name of a young individual who committed suicide and was related through family to the company (I believe).  Anyway, I wonder if these shirts they made for the event are still available, because yes, we need to openly discuss these issues, especially Christians who might be embarrassed to admit that they have issues with depression and anxiety.

Hm,.....the dog came in with dusty paws, so when I went outside to put something away, I took a look around.  It seems to me that he's been trying to find a cool spot to lay down.  Many animals will dig down to get to a cooler level of earth.  What we have here is Socks digging himself a little nest in the untended to backyard flower beds.  Sigh, once again, it saddens me that we have these wonderful areas we could do so much with and I have no time, energy or money to do anything with them.  Sigh.  But enjoy your hidey hole Socks!

This is one hardy bush that doesn't need my black thumb in order to grow. Yeah!

Benaiah was making comments about how loud Justin was on his his video game when we know that Benaiah can be just as loud and animated as Justin was.  Justin is enjoying connecting with his second cousin Luke in Michigan and playing with him on Fortnite.  I'm sure Luke is enjoying the friendship, too.  I have a feeling he doesn't have a lot of friends.  Maybe he does, but having Justin as a friend doesn't hurt.

Abishai wanted to watch Justin mow.  He misses his siblings when they are busy with other things and not playing with him.  He will say, "Justin, come play with me!  Sista, come play with me!"  Awww.....

"Fingie" wave at Justin from the front door.

Abishai wanted to do school today.  He asked me to test him on his CC cards.  I love that he's imitating his older siblings, although, he actually doesn't want to sit down and do anything I suggest.  He did tell him I had to sit in my chair and he had to be on the couch for school time.  Ok, then, Mr. Boss.

Doesn't everybody lay on their backs eating a bowl of popcorn with the bowl propped up against their legs?  This child.

Oh yes, Abishai most certainly did this.  And he laughed about it!  Oi!

"I'm so cute and funny, you can't be mad at me!"

We spent Saturday doing this or that, and then in the mid afternoon, after Grandma had taken Benaiah to work, we stopped by that fry store to have snack and get our wiggles out.  It's going to rain until Monday and we've been stuck inside.  I gave them the option of going to the bigger PlayPlace at McDonald's on Washington St., but Abishai insisted on going to Chick-Fil-A.  He even ordered me to ask Justin if he wanted to go to CFA or McD's.  We all got a snack and stayed about an hour to play.  Then we bought groceries for the week on the way home.  Jared said that they would be come around 7, but he ended up walking in the door at 5:30 just after we got home.  Surprise!  Yeah!  We had dinner and watched the last "The Adventures of the Wilderness Family" movie.  It definitely isn't as good as the first two.  And Abishai was super wiggly and needing Daddy wrestle time.  He still made a lot of observations about the movie though.  His sentences and thought processes are advancing quickly.  And with that, comes silly things like dunking his head in the toilet and saying, "just one more time!" And, "It takes a loonnngggg time!"  Oi!

I can still remember the first time I put cream in my tea, which I thought was coffee.  It was at a church potluck on PEI and the tea urn was bigger than the coffee urn and I saw people putting cream into whatever was coming out of that bigger urn, so I assumed it was coffee.  Nope. Well, I have had a lot of coffee in the past week and my stomach is rebelling because I'm sensitive to the actual coffee bean (and legumes in general), so I need to stay with tea.  The caffeine in either one doesn't bother me, and of course I'm using unsweetened vanilla almond milk, not real cream because I can't have dairy either.  I've just been bored with plain tea, no sugar and no cream, so I said, why not just but the almond milk in it and just pretend it's coffee?  Well, it worked!  I think I'll be happier and less bored with this because I can always switch up the creamer.  I guess I've gone and become British or Canadian or something, lol.  Also dairy free creamer, preferably unsweetened and no added sugar or sweetener.

Hey, I just washed those sheets you hooligans!  They were pretending to sleep.

Um, I will let this baby lie.  Sorry, but be a man and get up before 1pm even if you did go to bed at 3pm.  (insert huge eye roll here).  This is becoming an issue because on his mornings off, he's sleeping instead of spending time with us.  We need to work on this.

Look who we found at work!  He didn't know we were there and since he had just started his shift, I didn't ask for me to come out.  You can see his hat and ear back there making sandwiches.

Abishai was bouncing to the music they were playing (instrumental modern worship music), it was so cute!  And in this picture he looks like he was having a conversation with his Chick-Fil-A cup.  I'd like to think he is very partial to CFA nuggets and loves them more than other store's nuggets.  And he did drink half of his Sprite this time.  But when he didn't finish his fries, Justin and Keturah kept begging for them.  I wouldn't let them touch the fries because I knew Abishai would eat them later and he did.

Abishai can now scale this tube of climbing platforms in just a few seconds.  And slide down.  It's crazy.  But here he is in his happy place.

I'm the boss!  You do what I say!  (and yes, he's become quite bossy lately.)

Back at home, he keeps carrying around the instructions for his Lego fire truck because in the back it shows other Lego fire sets you can get.  He keeps saying he wants the big fire station or police station for Christmas.  He wants us all to stay home and sleep so Santa can come.  Thanks, YouTube, for putting those thoughts in his head.  Sigh. And this is why we've transitioned back to watching TV and Mommy changing the YouTube video instead of him randomly selecting videos on the app.

Burrowing in behind Daddy.

My Justin! My Justin! Justin, come play with me!  Sweet, sweet brothers.

Justin's birthday was a full day of church activities from sun up to sun down.  From Abishai moving up to his new classroom to Keturah dancing on the worship team for Kidustrial Park at the 4:30pm service to me prepping school lessons to Justin starting his small group again, our schedule was in full swing.  Add in Benaiah on drums, Jared on nursery duty, Crave, choir, extra meeting for Benaiah's NYC mission trip, yup, exhaustion sets in.  But Justin had a grand birthday anyway from his favorite foods and drinks to extra birthday gifts!  He asked for fried chicken, shepherd's pie, salad, pink stuff, key lime pie, and mint chocolate ice cream.  Grandma also found 8 different kinds of Mountain Dews and hid them all over the house!  But just like the Easter eggs, we couldn't find one of them!  She had hidden a certain number of Easter eggs, but didn't find the last one until 3 months later.  Thankfully, though, Gary found the 8th pop bottle right before we left to come home.  They also gave him a Ninjago Lego set (that he had just talked about a week ago), and that was on top of paying for CIY.  Grandma worked hard at putting the meal together and picking up the gifts.

But it's now late because Justin and I were working together on getting his new phone set up!  Did you know that some people who are on certain government aid programs can receive either a free android based phone or basic internet service?  Well, now you do!  The kids are on Medicaid so that makes the household qualified to receive ONE device! And since Justin cannot use the old iPhone 4s at all, it was his turn to receive a new device.  It's a fully functioning smartphone complete with limited data and a phone number.  But he's restricted to using it at home, in a public place.  Not in the bathroom to play music during a shower and never in his room.  Just on his little couch in the fireside room mostly.  I might let him take it it to church after a few months of use at home.  We are taking this much slower than we did with Benaiah.  Thankfully, everything is based through his Google account and I have full access to that on my computer.  Maybe not what apps are loaded, but I can get on his YouTube and email history at least.  And I can see what pictures and videos he's taken because I made sure everything gets backed up.  He won't have social media just yet either.  I trust him but I want him to learn his way around a few other things first.  And I don't have to monitor everything at once.  But he's pretty excited.  He knew it was coming, just not when.  It came in last week but I saved it for today.  Oh, and it doesn't have a case yet, so I'll have to pick up one of those at some point, another reason for it to NOT leave the house.  I'm excited to give him more access to the internet, to the Libby app where he can download eBooks from the library (we have a kindle somewhere but I have no clue where it went), and for him to take his own pictures and videos, even when he can't upload them to social media yet.  Smartphones are only scary when you don't know how to navigate them and communicate to your teen how to use them well.  We bumped into an older teen at the grocery store on the way home from church tonight and she said that she's only had hand me down phones too, flip phones, slider phones, and then an android phone for the last 4 years (and she was grounded from it for 1 of those years).  But her parents decided it was time to get her a longer lasting brand new phone (9s? maybe that's not the brand new model, but I don't have a clue about android based phones) and she seemed very grateful.  She also seemed very content with the hand me downs and even mentioned how satisfying it was to slam shut the flip phones.  It sounds like her parents are teaching her well.  It was so good to hear a young person say those things in a mature way, not in a "I can't believe my parents only give me hand me down phones" kind of snotty way.  Sweet!

Anyway, that's our day.  Time to wrap it up.  It's supposed to be a very quiet week this week, but now Abishai's absess has popped up again and he has new spots down his side.  We just finished the antibiotics two days ago.  I'll have to take him into the doctor again tomorrow.  I'm super frustrated about it, but of course he's worth it.  I just hope I can a late in the day appt because I've got a full day's worth of homeschooling to do plus start the other two subjects we didn't start last week.  Ugh!  So, here's the pics and vids and then I'm going to work on older posts to get them done.

Aunt Stefanie found this gem on her Facebook page today.

Keturah wants a real horse after reading a book series that I read called Thoroughbred series about racing horses.  At least she knows what a horse needs!

Big day for this little guy!  He has moved up to his new 3/4 year old classroom, the blue room.  But he cried when we dropped him off.  He wanted to go back to the baby room.  We didn't get called out of service though, so I'm sure he did fine.  He did so fine in fact, he learned new songs and could retell the story about Moses parting the waters of the Red Sea back to us!  Yeah!

See the story behind why Emma and Benaiah were on the stage today on the 3rd picture down.  Grandpa's mixing up the cubes.

Ready, set, go!

 Benaiah and Emma with Rubix Cubes Sermon Illustration

The boy has amassed 14 or more cubes!  Here's 13 of them I found and he probably has one on him.  They are better than sitting on a little screen!  Take a few moments and ponder the different shapes and number of sides each one has.  Some have stickers, and some are stickerless, which is what is preferred by professional rubix cube solvers.

Emma, who got Benaiah into rubix cubes, and is Mrs. McCollum's daughter (best teacher in the world), and Benaiah were invited on stage today for a sermon illustration. It was all about having a plan or algorithm to solve the mystery of how to share the gospel with others.  And of course not to just know the plan, but work the plan, pray for one (thanks Bo Chancey), and all that jazz.  Gary was also full of family stories today, from when Jared got lost in a department store in a close rack at 3 yrs old, to walking into a casino to have $1.99 steak and eggs breakfast in Las Vegas at 4:30 in the morning (Leah had a conniption over that one), to his love for all things Titanic, which he wrote a report on in 5th grade.  The Scripture was Jonah 3 and he also talked about having a heart for the lost, especially after God saves them like he did for the Ninevites.  Jonah refused to accept that God had forgiven them.  You can watch the whole sermon at thecreek.org.

Got a quick pic of our drummer today.

No smiles for his first day of preschool class at church, but he made it through.  Oh, he did have a little potty accident. He's been dribbling in his underwear before he realizes he needs to go so only his underwear has been getting wet.  We'll just remind him and the volunteers about that next week.  AND he has the same teachers that the others kid for the 3's class, the long term church members and elder, David and Michelle Boyer!  Woot! Woot!  Michelle used to take Benaiah out to the hallways so he could see Grandpa on the big screen.  Yeah!

Abishai is way back in the background, but he's in there!  I love that they post pictures from various places in KP.  I like knowing what's going on!  Here they are crossing the red sea!

Birthday boy time!  Lots of blue and green happening here!

7 of the 8 bottles Grandma hid.  Who knew there were at least 8 flavors of Mountain Dew.  And the "ice" one is actually caffeinated "Sprite" flavored.  Caffeine and Sprite don't go in the same sentence.  And to the health conscious, this screams "chemicals!" "artificial flavors and food coloring!" "corn syrup!" "Ugh, my blood sugars!"

Abishai hadn't finished his meal but Grandpa intervened for him and got him ice cream despite the rest of the adults telling me no.  And it happened to be in the biggest wooden bowl they own.  Grandpa did make Abishai eat his tomatoes first though.  Justin asked for key lime pie AND mint chocolate chip ice cream.  The raspberry sorbet is what Leah always gets me so I can have desert, too.  Yeah!

No seriously, he DID say that!  He knows that others will finish off his plate so food won't go to waste.  He can be very bossy and bold.

As Jared said on twitter, "The 16yr old had a productive morning."  This is a drumstick head.  He broke it on the last song of the last service and didn't notice it until afterwards.  It wasn't totally broke through like this though.  He made the final cut.  He said he hadn't broken one in 3 months and that's a good long time!  Ok, then!  It's a good thing the church has a huge stash of basic ones in the back. And drummers always have new ones in a pouch nearby.  Actually, his backpack the last couple of years is meant for baseball bats and shoes, but he puts the drumsticks in one of the upright pouches for the baseball bat!  Pretty neat!

You guessed it!  New Ninjago Legos!

Didn't mom ever tell you NOT to throw a ball in the house?  And yet, here you are, bouncing once between yourselves.

Keturah was going to be on stage this afternoon for KP worship team, so she needed to practice the hand motions.  Thankfully, I found some of the videos on YouTube and made a playlist of them on my phone.  Then, she logged into my YouTube account on the PS4 and, bam, they were right there for her.  That's the best use of technology when you can sync your accounts across many devices.  Abishai enjoyed watching them because he had already seen them in the 11am service.  So, maybe I'll get to hear some of the new songs they are singing these days.

Keturah is in this one, all the way to the left.  This was during the preschool service.  Then the dancers go over and do it for the big kids and there's different songs for each.

I had to scramble to find pants today.  And everybody's like "yeah, it's finally fall!"  Um, not quite yet.  It's not fall into the leaves change color and temps are consistently cooler.  Therefore, there's no need to break out the fall sweaters yet.  Although, the pumpkin spice latte brigade is in full force and I'm looking for pumpkin spice creamer. 

Playing pew pews!  The label maker is on Jared's back because Abishai uses it for his police station to type up reports on the bad guys.  There's no tape in it though.

Cutie!

The students and leaders going on the NYC mission trip over fall break in October are being encouraged to read Acts in preparation for the trip.  We had a little meeting after Crave tonight to discuss some of the details.  They are going to be in safe areas and they are bringing extra adults along, so there will be a 1 adult to 2 kids ratio at all times.  Normally they do 1 adult per 4 kids.  And only 20 kids are going.  And imagine, all 3 Strunks and Benaiah are going.  They go to EVERYTHING and are involved in EVERYTHING like leadership stuff.  Nah, I love them for it.  Benaiah's just like another one of their kids and it's totally awesome.  Benaiah is trying to recruit Ethan to work at CFA because they did a round of firing and now are hiring again.  That's how they keep up the great service, they aren't afraid to cut slackers off.  Poor Ethan doesn't have a chance because Benaiah's mentioning it every time he talks to him.  Benaiah will also get some cash for recruiting him if he stays for 9 months.  Anyway, the kids on the trip will be visiting 3 church experiences and talking to church planters in Harlem and Brooklyn.  In fact, they are going to Hillsong and the Brooklyn Tabernacle.  The goal of the trip is yes, to help somewhat, but to also encourage the kids that church happens everywhere in all kind of shapes and forms.  Benaiah has seen that, most of these kids have not.  They want the kids to be able to be connected to a church when they go off on their own after graduation.  The church doesn't have any strong ties to ministries in NYC, but there's been some friendships forming and it's taken two years to get this trip in the works.  Benaiah is paying for it himself, and it's not a cheap trip. It costs more than CIY and they'll be driving to and from NYC from here.  That's a big 11 hr drive!  Yikes! Manchester, NH is a 14 hr drive, so it makes sense.  It takes about 3-4 hrs to go from NYC to Manchester and yet, I've never been to NYC.  Boston was only two hrs away and I only got to go there once and I lived in the area my whole childhood!  Anyways, it should be a fun, eye opening trip.

Bwahahahahhaha!!!! This had Ethan, Benaiah, and I in stitches laughing about it.  I don't think straight in social situations and it was the end of the day.  I was trying to think about what the date was and remembered it was Justin's birthday.  Well, between typing in his birthdate a lot recently and just in general, I went on autopilot and wrote it here.  Whoops!  Oh boy!  Momma's losing it!

Birthday gift from Kylie.  It's a drawing book!  And it was wrapped in tinfoil, the most unique wrapping I've ever seen.  Oh, and I literally had to be in 3 places at once at 7:30pm tonight at church.  I quickly stopped by the middle school small group room to tell Justin where to find us when he was done.  Then I ran upstairs to collect Keturah from choir.  Then ran back down the stairs to the East Hall for the NYC meeting.  I was huffing and puffing because I'm so out of shape.  But I got 'er done.  Happy 13th birthday, Justin!  We'll get together with his friends at some point for his birthday.

No joke!  We need some watercraft down here!  And this was just from Saturday and Sunday's rainfall and doesn't include Friday's.  It rained just as hard on Friday than it did on Saturday.  Yikes!