Year 3, August 19th-22nd, 2018: Midweek Update

The good days and the bad days. Actually, I've been very laser focused this week, trying to finish up the big paper project so I can go into school prep mode.  Well, after Sunday's normal busyness, Monday and Tuesday were great, but Wednesday was very sidetracked and ended up being an errand day.  So back to laser focus on Thursday-Saturday.  The poor kid are begging for people time, but I don't want to even be distracted with their comings and goings.  It IS Benaiah's first week of school though, so we are working on the new routine.  So far so good.  I can outline that below in a minute.  Gluten update: As soon as I finish this last batch of brownies, I'm done with gluten forever.  Seriously, I feel like crap.  Bloated and icky and all sorts of wrong.  My energy levels have plummeted, too, because with the gluten comes regular carbs and some sugar carbs so I crash faster.  I'm definitely going to do a "cut out all the gluten/most carbs/most sugar and eat just meat and veggies" detox starting by this weekend.  Well, I will cut back slower than that, but still, I need to feel better.  The weather has been great, and the kids have been out on the trampoline a lot, so I haven't thought too much about them not enjoying the weather at a park or something.  I really should take them to the park, but perhaps Grandma can.  Laser focused now because next week I only have 1-2 days at best to tie up loose ends and get the school stuff out before being gone for Labor Day.  Then I want to dive right in to school, but we'll see.  If we are too tired from the trip and not organized well, I will wait.  It just depends on how the next week goes.

Yup, back to the routine, except Justin's small groups didn't start yet, so he had to just hang out at the office.  Next Sunday is twice as busy as normal though.  More on that later.

Now that Keturah is on the worship team (basically they just do the motions to the songs, they play a cd with the music and singers on it), Abishai is feeling a little left out that he isn't a helper yet.  Actually, there was a 1 yr old in his room in nursery at 4:30 because he was happier over there than in our room.  Leah was helping the little boy, and Abishai also took note and helped keep the little guy entertained by letting trains go down a ramp and crashing, causing the little boy to laugh.  Abishai could tell us a good part of the story, too.  This Sunday is his last Sunday in that room and then he "skips" the 2/3 room and heads straight to the 3/4 room in Kidustrial Park preschool!  He's sad he won't be in the "yellow" room, but the toys are virtually the same in every room so he'll be fine in the "blue" room.  We'll be gone over Labor Day weekend when promotion from Nursery C to KP happens, so he'll just move up the next week.  There will be less walking to do because all 3 kids will be in the main KP area during the 11 am service!  Justin helping in 1st grade, Keturah in her 5th grade room, and Abishai in the 3/4's room.  Exciting!

The youth group leaves out games for the teens to play during their free time, so when they go to their worship time, it's sort of "free game" to us.  Not really, but I thought this was really cute.  Abishai was cracking up laughing pressing the button and sending the cards flying at Abishai.  Don't worry, we picked up all the cards and made sure they were all face down in two piles ready to go.

Then Abishai found out that he likes to literally "hang" on the basketball rim all by himself!  No fear this kid, no fear!

Introducing....Abishai the acrobat!

Introducing....Abishai the rock climber!  He climbed up the stack of chairs holding onto the connector piece.  He went up and back down by himself.  Mountain goat.

Ok, Benaiah's crazy schedule.  So, we pranked him and he did smile about it.  He said he's leaving up the sticky notes as long as they last or don't get in the way.  Sweet!  His week is going ok so far, but he's grumpy from his crazy busy schedule.  Let's see if I can outline it for you:

 Sunday: Church all day either drumming in main service at Franklin Rd or Shelby St. or for Middle School Crave or video switching, drumming/slides for youth group.  Basically he's in the building from 7:30am to 8pm every Sunday, unless we have Sunday dinner (and this week he mowed Gary's lawn in 1 hr and 15 min between dinner and being back at church by 3:20.
Monday: School 8 to 3:30; work 4-10 or 11
Tuesday: School 8 to 3:30; work 4-10 or 11
Wednesday: School 8 to 3:30, until leadership mentoring starts and he'll be at church from 2:45 until suppertime or later.  D groups/small groups from 6-8pm when they start in September (not at church but he has a ride)
Thursday: School 8 to 3:30; family time; rehearsal most weeks at 7:20pm at either church campus
Friday: mow Gary's lawn, work from 11-4/5 or 11-8 or whatever they schedule him for.  Which this week it is his privilege to dress up in the CFA cow and go to the Franklin Central (local high school) football game from 5-8pm on Friday!!!  He's very unhappy about it, but I guffawed and I am still laughing so hard over it!  My son, the one I used to take to CFA to see the cow, is now THE COW!  What a hoot!
Saturday: mowing and schoolwork and usually a 2-10pm shift at work.
Sunday: Rinse and repeat

I'm not happy with him gone all the time, but we'll leave it just like that.  It's too hard to explain all my feelings on the matter.  Moving on.**** I didn't move on, in fact, I wrote a long journal entry about it and couldn't get back into finishing the blog post.  Some reality points hit home very hard and sent me in a whirlwind of emotions.  Life isn't always pretty y'all.****And now I'll really move on.

The second to last box of my paper clean out project had employment records.  When Jared worked at UAC during college, he had to write out these requests like when he was sick or didn't take a lunch or forget his ID badge. I threw away some of them, but kept the ones like these because I could imagine him writing these out during that year we were dating long distance.  He wrote "Good friend from NH visiting." Um, I thought we were officially boyfriend and girlfriend at this point.  Cracks me up that he wouldn't admit to others.

Several months later...again..."Friend from NH coming for a conference."  Dude, we were dating!

And this one correlates to when they helped a preacher move to Massachusetts and then I put my college stuff on the semi trailer that took it back to Indiana the summer I went to college.  My parents did not travel well and weren't there to set up my dorm room, but they did fly out when I graduated.  Anyway, these things are like GOLD to me!  Just wait until I share what else I found in the next box....in the next blog post.

A huge storm came through and was done within 15 minutes.  Now THAT'S a summer storm!

20 boxes at the start, added a few more into the mix because of type of project (aka I needed the current files and the fire safe box, plus other electronic items), and ended up with 13 or so.  This is mid project.  I was sorting through papers as I transferred them from right to left.  I ended up not sorting some personal papers because I couldn't emotionally do it.  So, I ended up using the last plastic bin I was going to get rid of, but at least there will be no more brown boxes!  The brown boxes behind the files are books that are sorted and purged and need a bookshelf in my room.  They will be transferred to my room until we can find a suitable bookshelf.

They had a dancing competition at middle school Crave and Justin got in the right eye by a hand.  What is with this kid and injuries at church?! The other guy didn't know he hit him.  Whoops. Dancing like the video below?  Only this is a llama shaped bell, not a cow bell.

Lots of mommy snuggles because he can.

Here's lots of trampoline videos.  Some of them are short clips that I can make using different filters on Instagram.  Some of them go in reverse! Or include special music! Enjoy!

Uh oh, someone got into the brownies without asking.  And no, he did not get a piece that night.  And as soon as that pan of brownies was done, I went back to being gluten free.  I can't wait to heal and feel back to my new normal.  Gluten causes too much inflammation for me.  Not worth it to eat it.

Abishai asked to paint with water color but he ended up giving his cars a bath and painting them instead. I rolled with it and tried not to fuss.  He was occupied and easy to clean up.  Unlike the massive explosion of cereal he had all over the floor because he violently shook the box up and down and the inner liner wasn't sealed properly.  Nearly a full box of cinnamon toast crunch was all over the floor.  I made Justin and Abishai pick it up because I hadn't had my tea yet and I just couldn't handle it.  I was madder than I should have been. 

New oils to try and help these particular body parts.  I'm pretty excited to try them and clean out my system and not necessarily go off thyroid medication but boost my energy levels a bit.

Did anyone else watch these movies multiple times a year in the 80's?  Well, my family did.  It was foundational to my love for the mountains, for bears, even for homeschooling.  I think my parents longed to be these folks.  My mom always wanted a log cabin and she totally fit the bill on the clothes of the 70's.  My dad loved plaid shirts.  It was my Dad's 68th birthday today, too, how appropriate.  Jared, the three younger kids, and I watched it together.  And the kids didn't wince too hard and didn't say they were bored.  It is a bit more awkward than I remember it, and unrealistic, but so full of wholesome goodness, which was refreshing.  I haven't watched it in 20 years so I didn't remember a lot of the details or exact storyline.  And I have a totally different perspective now that I'm the mom and not the daughter.  I do caution parents with really little ones that there are a lot of animals chasing down different family members, who do get scratched up a bit.  No one dies, not even the dog, though.  But the loyalty the mom has to the dad and expressing fear but not arguing for days on end, again, it's so refreshing.  The board of education sends the kids their books, so yes, they are homeschooling! I don't know how much I related to that when I was a child.  Just the great work ethic and everybody pitching in and NOT complaining was wonderful.  So different than a lot of the family movies today were the siblings fight and the teens roll their eyes at the parents and there's sneaking going on, etc.  Obviously, it's not true to life in that sense, but for kids to SEE that it can be possible to live a good life while being respectful and obeying friends is a good thing.  I can't wait to watch #2 and #3 with them.  Even Abishai was asking about this or that animal, "Are they going to run away? Did the bear hurt them? Is that the good bear or the bad bear?"  You see, there's a very friendly grizzly bear named Sampson that I name my biggest teddy bear after. And they used real, trained animals like grizzlies, grizzly cubs, mountain lions and cubs, donkey, raccoons,  and birds.  There's not a lick of CG animation in these since they were made in the 70's.  So, think about what the original Star Wars trilogy feels like in the terms of acting and green screen and props, and that's exactly the caliber these movies have.  Love them and how they influenced my family!

We took Abishai to the doctor today because his paci clip had pinched his skin about 6 months ago and it now looked "angry" and infected.  The doctor did confirm that it is probably infected and gave us a round of antibiotics to help it along.  I have no problem with that since we don't use them often.  I do want it healed quickly.  It's near his left arm armpit and is exposed most of the day when he doesn't have a shirt on.  It was just a little thing but it now looks like the largest pimple ever.  It did not have puss in it though.  The official term is molluscum contagiosum infection.  It's kind of like a wart and it may take up to 2 yrs to go away.  It's caused by a virus getting into open skin or wound, which was our case.  There's no other bumps, and since it's been 6 months, there's not much to worry about.  It's just a little tender because of the infection.  So, I took the kids to McDonld's on the way home.  The pop machine wasn't working well, but I got enough to help me last through our crazy Wednesday evening.  Abishai got two treats, the ice cream and fries, and he didn't hesitate dipping the fry.  He ate the fries and left the ice cream, so I ate the chocolate part and Justin ate the ice cream.

Oooo, I like these new labels!  Having the dosage instructions in bright colors makes it easy to read!  We haven't had this kind before, but I'm guessing it's on par with amoxicillin which is usually what we get.  The kids haven't needed anything stronger than that and it's rare that we even get that.

Aw, it's almost the whole family!  Since I had to drop kids off early so that Justin could get to Bible Bowl while I had a chiropractor appointment, Grandpa was still at the office, too.  Yes, Gary did transition fully into the e2 office and it's been a little bit of an adjustment getting used to him being there.  The kids run and play while we are there, so I hope it's not disturbing him too much.  Next week, I will be babysitting for a large Bible study that will meet for 10 weeks, so we will have to come early every week.  Eventually, Benaiah will have small groups on Wednesday nights as well.  We are definitely those church all day Sunday and Wednesday evening people.  That used to be the norm for church folks. 

Mountain climber.  He did use the wall to rest his back on.  I can't wait to see if he really does like to climb mountains and I can share this picture with him.  So strong!

I see the moon and the moon sees me on this cool late summer evening.  The weather has taken a turn for the cooler, with cool nights and moderately warm days.  Fall is coming.

Year 3, August 13th, 15th-18th, 2018: A Week of Life

Hiya! I've been thinking about how I love putting together the blog posts, but they are taking time away from other important things.  So, I'm going to work on trying to highlight a few days to a week worth's instead of getting into the nitty gritty.  If we have a big event, like a concert or fair or field trip, then I'll do a separate post.  This is a working idea in prep for our homeschool starting up officially after Labor Day.  It takes me time to change my methods, and it's going to be very hard to stretch myself and only pick out the highlights.  I'm a hoarder after all, and a perfectionist, so, bear with me.

This week we had the concert on Sunday and then the Indiana State Fair on Tuesday.  On Monday, Wednesday-Saturday, we stayed home and I try to get myself to hustle on my summer projects because we really should dig into school soon.  The beauty of homeschool is that I don't have to worry about getting the 180 days in because I count any and all days that the kids did work on schoolwork this summer, even if it's not what I consider a full day's worth.  The trip to the fair counts for example.  Even a day at home learning how home economics type stuff, or taking care of Abishai all counts for something.  I do feel the pressure from everyone being back to school to wrap up the summer and get going on our studies.  I'm trying not to panic because I know once I sit down with all our supplies and books in front of us, I can get it put together in a day or two.  But I have this feeling that I won't have my summer projects completely finished, and that's frustrating.  So, I will again muster up the hustle and get to a more satisfactory point with deadlines for each undone part.  For example, we had to wait on getting a bookcase for our room and the heavy duty plastic wrap for boxes to take to the shed until September, but, the Saturday after I get the wrap, we will do the shed project for example.  Same with the bookshelf.  I need to go to a resell shop to find one, so I'll pencil in a day or 5 days to do that, whatever it takes. I'll also keep checking online.  And like I've said before, as long as I've taken the time to look at the project as a whole and created the smaller steps necessary, I can try to squeeze those in here and there.  That's what I did today, Saturday.  I didn't throw many papers away, but I looked in every box left untouched and decided the categories of where things generally need to go, what I would take into permanent storage, what I want handy, and go from there.  That particular project, going through old papers from 20 years ago, has never been touched, literally in 20 years.  I'm much better at not keeping all the extra papers now, but I needed to go back and get rid of the stuff I thought I needed to keep.  It's a 20 year project in the making!  So, of course it's going to take time with a sometimes very indecisive person.  And I'm ok with that.  Jared's ok with that.  I keep trying to explain it away, but at the same time, my track record shows that I will get it done eventually.

Meanwhile, after having yummy gluten filled funnel cakes on Tuesday on purpose, I thought now would be a good time to do a gluten test, i.e. eat a decent amount of gluten every day for a week and see where I end up.  Well, I'm on day 5 and it's been rough.  Achiness and stomachaches the first couple of days and still lack of energy and focus until now.  And the back pain is very real.  I'm enjoying foods I haven't eaten in years, but some of them taste very strange, even awful to me, like I prefer the gluten free food over it.  Store brand pop tarts taste nasty and the type of sugar makes my tooth hurt.  Twinkies are still yummy.  Soft pretzel bites are addicting.  Stale pop rock oreos are gross.  Soft tortilla shells are incredible.  Homemade brownies are decent.  Oooo, I should try a real bagel tomorrow and the oatmeal square cereal I used to love in Canada.  But I fear that while some symptoms have dissipated like the stomachaches, there's damage being done in my gut.  There is a real connection to my overall feeling of energy (well, maybe I'm crashing because of all the sugary foods, too) and the lower back pain and inflammation.  I'm definitely going back to being 100% gluten free except a one a year doughnut run.  It's not worth it.

Meanwhile, Benaiah is gearing up for school starting next week, and man, I have no idea how he's going to do it all with work, school, and leadership stuff at church.  I have a feeling he's going to have to drop something besides his binge watching and CS Go video game.  I'm trying to step back but it's very, very hard.  We barely see him either, which has gotten me all in a tither.  Sigh.

The other kids continue to get on the trampoline multiple times a day and the back door has becoming a revolving door, meaning I have to keep opening and shutting it for Abishai.  They do their chores and a little bit of schoolwork.  Then they wander aimlessly until screen time, which is something else I'm thinking a lot about for the school year, possibly banning it during the week.  And me banning it at certain times of the day for myself.

That's it.  I'll see what we have for pics and vids for these days.  I tried not to take as many because I didn't want to feel the pressure of posting them all.  Plus, I need to enjoy the moment.  Plus, I have been trying to focus on the summer projects in the morning and putting together the posts for the concert and the fair together, which took a ton of work.  But they are done.  And so is this post. Yeah!

Oh the things preschoolers do.  Run around in their underwear and cool off their behinds with a fan.

This was from the birthday party last Saturday.  Jared is such a good sport.

I "dressed up" too with a our "Super J" cape and this is a young lady that works with me in the nursery.

Understatement of the year.

We had the pool up for a few days, but then it rained the rest of the week.  And THEN Jared told me that the water coming through the outside hose is not hooked up through the water softener and filter, so we are still going to end up with nasty water.  I can't add chemicals to the pool if I want to leave it in the backyard because of Socks.  So I'm not sure what I'll end up doing.  There's a second spigot that might be hooked up to the filtered water line but it's on the front of the house and I'm not even sure it works.

Pit stop at the office because Keturah tried out for the Kidustrial Park worship/dance team!  She did make it, and I know she'll have fun!  Now everyone has a job to do on Sundays.  Abishai's job is to be cute!

Abishai really got into playing soccer after playing it at Hunter's house last weekend.

Justin's big footprint.  I need to do another round of footprints now that I've unearthed some from 2 years ago I haven't had on display yet.

Benaiah finally got a chance to get on the trampoline on Monday.  He worked on Saturday and Sunday, so he wasn't home to try it out.

Big brother hanging with little siblings for once.

I had no idea Benaiah could do this!  And he says that now he finally has something to do with Ethan when he comes over.  Like guffawing over memes and playing separate video games isn't enough, just kidding. 

Playing the "popcorn" game where one person gets in the middle, holds onto their knees in a tucked position and then someone else bounces near them until they can't hold onto their knees anymore and they "pop."  Abishai loves this game, too!

It makes me nervous to have so much weight on the trampoline all at once.  I think the weight limit is less than 300 or 400.  And well, these two equal more than 400, never mind the rest of us getting on there.

Benaiah using Justin as a weapon.

Jared fell face down on purpose.

Awww, found this on the youth minister's Instagram.  Sweet stuff!

I want to take note of this in case it's something bigger.  Socks has been shedding a ton lately.  I'm not sure it's related to the heat we've had off and on, because it seems more than that.  We have to vacuum at least twice a day and brush him for a good 15 minutes.  I think it's because we've switched up his dog food too often and too quickly based on availability at the local grocery store.  I'm going to go back to going to the pet store and staying on the same food we used in Canada and making the effort to get it.  He's currently trying a cheap brand that he loves, but it's basically what I call "junk food" with fillers and less real stuff.  We usually keep his bowl half full at all times, but we can't with this food because he will and did overeat, and then throws it back up.  It's not pretty.  He's got his annual visit with a new regular vet office on the northside of town later this month, so I'll be sure to talk about it with them.  I am also going to have them to a basic senior panel of blood just to make sure we stay ahead of the game on any diseases now that he's 8 yrs old.  I don't want cancer or blood sugar issues to creep up on us.

That smile says it all about how he loves the trampoline. 

Keturah had a recheck on her eyes, so they got to watch a few minutes of classic Veggietales while watching on the eye doctor.  She's fine and will be rechecked in 6 months.  I'm ok with our previous eye doctor for myself, but I think we will stick with this pediatric one for awhile, especially since her health insurance covers the visits and not our primary eye doctor's practice. 

This boy has learned to do flips and headstands!

Don't leave me, Daddy!

Abishai wanted to use the claw to make a road block or traffic jam, not fix it.  I think Justin was the one who was saying something about it to him that morning.  Why do kids have to play so mean?!  Cranes, claws, excavators, big machines are for building and fixing, not creating traffic jams!

Just a boy shucking corn.  Proving again that "There is (not) more than corn in Indiana."  (The motto for Indiana Beach, but I added the "not.")

Old pop rock oreos.  I tossed the rest of them.  Yuck.

Benaiah wants to do this, but I have a feeling it's going to be too much.

What my week consisted of: 20 year old papers and writing blog posts.  And yes, I did put the names on the songs after I created the set list and put it on the post.  I did also publish the post just to have it out there.  This song list took me a lot longer than other set lists because I don't really know the songs!  I did figure it all out I think.  And the bonus was I got to watch all the footage multiple times, and listen to the songs.

They didn't brown up in the toaster oven either.

I love Twinkies.  So soft and fluffy!

Abishai's parking lot in the garage.

Doesn't everyone have a preschooler watching them while they mow?  Benaiah wouldn't get up to help and Justin was helping Grandpa paint his front porch, so it's been up to Jared to mow this week and last week.  I feel bad, though, that he has to spend all day Saturday getting it done.  It rained a ton this week and the grass is super long because it didn't get mowed well last weekend.  Jared said he needs the exercise and it helps him clear his head, but it also induces his sciatica and the heat gives him a headache.  At least he has a cute audience.

Brought the chair inside for snack time.

You can't see it, but we had an army helicopter fly by us a couple of time and we could nearly see the people in the main area.  It was awesome!

No summer is complete without homemade popsicles made with stevia sweeteend kool aid. 

Best buds.

Since Benaiah was working, I brought Keturah and Justin with me to Benaiah's orientation night at his school.  Jared should have been there because he's teaching, but he had to work on the mowing at home.  Anyway, I brought these two because I had a special project in mind when I found out Benaiah couldn't go.  I wanted to put some words of encouragement in his locker for Monday morning to let him know we are thinking about and praying for him.  At first these two didn't want to come and do it, but as soon as we found Benaiah's locker, they were enthralled.  The meeting was in another building, but I was able to leave these two doing their thing (thank goodness the staff know us well and the buildings are small).  These two absolutely loved trolling Benaiah!

These two are in the stage where they don't want to be dragged into doing something, but once they are there, they still have a lot of fun.  You should have heard them showing off the locker to Benaiah's friends and fellow students (some of which are Justin's friends at church).  They were so proud of their masterpiece!  And they should be.  I want the kids to have some kind of connection with one another, even when we don't see them.  And the staff are fairly reasonable with this kind of thing.  He'll still be able to quickly get his act together on Monday morning and everything we wrote was encouraging.  I'm just trying to be the fun, but embarrassing mom, lol.

Aww, Benaiah's favorite math teacher, Mrs. Land, on the fair left, and then three ladies that go to our church.  Two of them are just teaching one class, and the one in the red shirt is Mrs. McCollum, another one of Benaiah's favorite teachers, who teaches English, ASL, and life skills classes, like "Adulting 101" to seniors.  The lady on the end is our upper elementary minister's wife and she's teaching middle school English.  The one in the hat has students at the school and will be teaching an art class.  How fun!

They are so super proud of their work!

Check it out!  I couldn't have been more pleased!  They did it all!  And still left some post it's for me.  I've had the arrows and hearts for years, so it was a good way to use them up.  I hope he does save some of them because they would come in handy for me or him.

Awesome sauce! (As they say.)

Justin's notes.

Keturah's note is on the purple one and I think it says "good luck."

We did it!  We trolled/pranked Benaiah!  I hope it makes his day on Monday start off well, but it could make him mad, too.  We'll see!

Bedtime antics while we waited for Daddy to come in from mowing.