Year 6, March 26th-28th, 2020: Out Like A Lamb?! More Like A Lion!

 Oh wow, it's been 5 hrs since coming home from our usual Friday park day with fellow homeschoolers and my feet still don't feel thawed out enough. Brrr!!!! We were at the park for 2 hrs and I didn't dress warmly enough. It was less than 50 degrees! My knees, too, aren't happy. But the boys were VERY happy. There were a ton of kids at the park today, older ones, like 10-15 yr olds, some without parents, I assume, that live in the neighborhood next door. But, they all seemed to get along. I don't know if our homeschooled teens knew that these kids were not part of our group, but I didn't see any fighting or cussing. What I saw was the big kids included the younger kids in their playtime. In fact, Abishai made friends with a 14 yr old public school boy who was so kind to him and even to me when Abishai brought him over. It was so sweet. I had my eyes directed at the playground area more often than I normally do when it's just us homeschoolers and I reminded Abishai to stay where I could see him and to not run off with anyone. We were at our closest park, Wolf Run, which is close to a very nice neighborhood (and probably expensive). Abishai says it's his favorite park. We did have some new moms join us, so I really don't know her belonged to who. But I was so cold. So very cold.

I didn't take any photos. I guess I've just been in my head so much that I've forgotten to take many photos in the last month or so. Not that anything really major has happened. This morning I got right on my Bible study even before eating breakfast because I didn't finish yesterday's study. Then I finished the week's blog post and paid off the medical bills. Woot! Woot! No more medical bills at the moment! And credit cards are paid off, too! Now we wait for the other medical bills to roll in....and keep rolling in.....  I let the boys have some screen time before we left for the park because I knew we would get home too late in the afternoon to do any before dinner. They played with each other for a bit and then separately in the evening when Jared went to talk to a friend. I let Keturah sleep in a bit, but she didn't last long because the boys were loud. And she finished cleaning up her room and came up with ANOTHER load of laundry!!!!! Where does she stuff it all? Granted, most of it probably isn't dirty because I know I see her put her dirty laundry in the basket twice a day. But, because it's been sitting, it's better to wash it just in case. Well, I made her put this load of laundry through and put it away since it was only her stuff. Now she can do it if I need her to. Justin can, too. I've taught them in bits and pieces. And I've reminded them why I just throw everything together and I don't turn things right side out and I don't check pockets and just because I do it a very simple way, doesn't mean you can do it a different way if someone suggests it. Our clothes get clean and most stains come out. Our clothes are going to dull in our well water anyway. So we do everything on the same setting. Large load. Same temperature on the water. Throw it in there, add 2-3 laundry tabs, push start. An hour later, push start again because for some reason it pauses and won't continue in the middle of filling for the rinse cycle. And THEN you can put in the dryer. And everything goes in the dryer and on the same amount of heat, until it's dry, not mostly damp like Leah does it. Nope, fully dry. I also made her put it all away, too. She pulled out a few things that she didn't want anymore or didn't fit. 

And then she went with Grandma to get yarn for her latchhook. They went to three stores, Hobby Lobby, Michael's, and finally Jo Ann Fabrics and did find something at Jo Ann's. They also went to Half Price Books, too. They got back to Grandma's house just a few minutes before we got there after park day so I just picked her up from there. I'm glad that errand is done. I now have two errands to make myself to return some items, sigh, but I'll work on that next week. I also need to get that Cortisol testing medication and get that done next week, too. I don't know if I'll go out tomorrow or Sunday or Monday. The kids don't have youth activities on Sunday, so we'll see. I procrastinated again and didn't touch the school books so I'm going to have to make it an all day project tomorrow. But I'm caught up on everything else. Maybe I can get Jared to do something about the chicken for dinner. Hm,...yup, that's where I'm at. Now to finish up here and catch up on some audiobooks or lectures on the internet. We'll see!

They had all kinds of people in here, yes, some ancient ones. And Abishai guessed right on Beethoven! So, not bad!

Hey, Mom, take a video! The things this little guy comes up with....

Mom, help me make a fort of pillows around myself! And now, put the blanket on top for a roof!

I gently made Little Miss do her SECOND LARGE load of laundry that she found stuffed in corners in her room. (See explanation in the body of this blog post). This load got all the way through the laundry even with us being going today AND I made her put it all away.

See! I KNOW she KNOWS how to clean her room and what I expect of her. I want to SEE the floor. I don't want things jammed into corners creating havens for critters. I do NOT want little bits of paper and glitter and dirt left on the floor either. I helped her set her room up ONCE after we painted. It's up to HER to maintain it. And I told her, isn't it easier to maintain it than to do a major overhaul every 6 months?

Abishai added to his Lego base asking for me to find a very specific piece. He knew exactly what he wanted! Crazy!

I saw cocoa and almond on this coffee creamer and I assumed it was non dairy almond milk chocolate coffee creamer. Yes, it does say "real dairy" but most bottles I buy will say "non dairy" so it was easy to gloss over it. But have you ever tasted a REAL dairy creamer made to taste like almond and coconut creamer? It's good (plenty of sugar), and it isn't hurting my stomach, but still, kind of weird marketing, the "flip edition."

Withing 10 minutes of coming home from park day, Abishai had changed and created this wall and readied himself for Daddy to come home.

Prep those guns!

He wanted all the lights out and he was ready! He had a little hole in which to shoot through, too.

Go, go, go!

Oh wow, this is cool! Mini golf game!

Yeah! Another productive Saturday! So tomorrow will be a restful Sunday! Let's see, I showered, I studied my Bible, I listened to part the kids' audiobook for next week, I kept up with emails and phone games, I made a gigantic meal so we'd have leftovers, I switched out Civil War books for books about the 1870's to 1910's and books on Native Americans and Westward Expansion (which will be their summer reading because it's hard to fit that in when it happens throughout the 1800's), I weeded and hand aerated the flower beds for 3 hrs, I listened to more of the health summit I've been listening to, and I did all the normal routine stuff.

Jared finished cutting up the wood pile into useful pieces. Abishai spent a good portion of the day outside. Keturah took Socks and Abishai on his bike around the corner to Grandma's house and back for a "walk." (I think she really can't count it a walk until she does the whole block.) She also cut the yarn Grandma and her bought and used it on her Latchhook kits. Both kids read the rest of their Riffles for Wattie book. Justin said he organized some Legos. Everybody had screen time. Oh, and the kids ate a large very powdered sugared doughnut for lunch because Grandma brought them over at lunch time, lol. We had the windows open and house fan on. Jared played Risk with Abishai (Abishai's version) as well as video games per normal. Oh, and everybody else had showers/baths, too! Our poor water heater! Lol. I just ran another load of laundry and I need to run the dishwasher, too. Plus I used a lot of water washing all the pots and pants from supper. 

Tomorrow is church, lunch with Grandma, and then home for the rest of the day because the public school kids are still off for spring break. They start back on Monday.

Roll the dice, move your guy to destroy that many people on the other perosn's team? I have no clue, but they made it work.

He's getting too big for Daddy's lap!

Working hard with Daddy splitting wood!

Just a little bit more power when Daddy helps.

The final hit.

Abishai said, "Mom, you know when you put your drink in the shade, it cools off and stays colder." Remember, Jared uses old alcohol bottles as his tea bottles. Isn't it cute to see their drinks side by side?

Wow! These two plants exploded! I made the effort to dig around the weeds and grass that had embedded themselves into the flower beds and dug up the roots. I told Justin he has to blow the grass back out of the flower bed, especially if it has already gone to seed. Now we are ready to add a new layer of mulch! I knew when we finished last year that there were very thin spots and we would need at least another layer. Plus, the underside of the mulch had already turned more to dirt than mulch. I saw a lot of earthworms, too, yeah!

Sunday was COLD! From 70 degrees yesterday to 40 degrees today and super windy! There was a good line of storms that went through about midnight, too, with lots of lightning. Jared left the fireside room window open and it was incredibly cold on that side of the house. I had to pull out my other heater to warm up the sunroom! But we went to church as usual. Keturah sat with me in the highest pew in the balcony (so I could take my mask off) because she didn't have middle school worship. Jared had nursery duty. Justin and Abishai were in their classrooms. We had a 4 band member acoustic set today for worship which was different and a pretty good sermon from Tom Harrigan. Then we had lunch with Granmda as Grandpa was traveling again. We helped Benaiah file his FAFSA and I gave him his letter that said he needs to sign up for the draft. Yikes! I completely forgot about that! I don't remember if I was around when Jared did it. Apparently they catch you when apply for financial aid if you are a male by birth. Jared never had to apply for financial aid, so he said he did his when it popped up at the post office of all places. I would have thought it would pop up at the BMV or something. Anyway, interesting. I wonder with all this gender equality stuff if they will change the law and include females in it as well. But for now, it's old school with males 18-25 yrs old being on the draft list. Thank goodness we haven't needed a draft in decades and I don't anticipate there being one anytime soon.

After lunch it was naptime, screen time, and discussion time. Jared sat with me and listened to some of the things I had learned about in my Elijah study and in general what I've been thinking about. We had been arguing about it via text. We didn't resolve anything, necessarily, but we are on ok terms again. Some of these topics will be part of our discussions for a lot longer I think, which is hard when you just want to be desperately on the same page. After that, we ate a bite of supper and did some chores. Jared played with Abishai on and off the screen and I worked on the IAHE Region 9 Newsletter for April. 2 1/2 hrs later and I don't feel like I used my words well. But I got most of the photos and links in place. So, now I'll just tweak it some more tomorrow. Tomorrow should be a normal heavy on the schoolwork Monday and then I'm going to run out to the local errands. Tuesday, I'll do the bigger errands like taking back some items. I was going to get groceries but I still don't think we need them yet. We got a lot of leftovers from Grandma today. I'll pick up a couple of things from Kroger when I pick up some medication tomorrow. And then sometime this week I'll get my labwork done.

Well, not much else is going on around here. Just kids getting bigger and older and hopefully wiser.

Abishai stole Daddy's phone to play a game and he stole Daddy's spot on our bed! Grogu enjoyed watching Abishai play, too.

Grogu and Lovey Valentine were left in the van at church and were super duper cold, so they spent the afternoon warming up together in front of the fire.

Because it was only 40 degrees outside and Jared left the fireside room window open all night, he made a fire in the fireplace for the afternoon. Then we got to have some quiet time and some discussion time, he and I.

I just want to sing Britney Spears' "Oops, (she) did it again!" Sorry, I grew up in the 90's. But here she goes, again, rearranging her room. We gave her the glare and side eye and just walked away. Have fun!

Oh boy!

Have you ever seen a blue, purple and green palm leaf before? Me neither! But those are his favorite colors! Growing up, we would bring home just one frond, one part, of a larger palm branch. They were about two week long and one inch across. So that's what I thought was a palm branch. There are many different kinds of palm branches of course.

She still has to have her doggy with her. She's looking so grown up!

She says she will work on that corner tomorrow.

The End