Year 2, Day 36: A Very Important Princess

It's a very special day for a very important Princess!  Rosie, my niece, turned 5 years old today!  It's her golden birthday!  And I remember when I got the text early on Superbowl Sunday morning 5 years ago saying everything went well and she was here!  Sweet!  And that day, the New England Patriots were playing in the Superbowl, which was fun because my brother, Paul-Mikael, and my Dad, grew up in New England, so they also rooted for them.  And yes, the Patriots did lose that Superbowl, just like today.  But most importantly, we remember that day as when this sweet princess was born and my brother became a dad!  And what's really neat, is that Paul-Mikael was born on Mother's Day the year he was born and his wife Marie, was born on Race Day (Indy 500) the year she was born.  Also, this year, Marie celebrates her Golden birthday, and their son, Eli, also celebrates his golden birthday in June!  So interesting and fun!  Happy Golden 5th Birthday Rosie!

Our niece, Rosie, what a princess!  Isn't she beautiful?

Meanwhile, interestingly enough, Jared wanted to watch the Superbowl.  He's not into football, so I'm not sure why he wanted to, other than he wanted to see the Patriots lose.  Well, I disagree because if the Indianapolis Colts aren't playing, I'll root for the Patriots each time.  What can I say?  I grew up in New England.  And 1 or 2 or 10 bad apples on a team doesn't make the whole team evil.  So, give them a chance to change and play hard and maybe win.  Or not.

I had too much to do to get ready for the week, so I didn't sit down to watch any football.  We actually had lunch at Steak and Shake with Grandpa, aka "ice cream" according to Abishai, and Benaiah because Grandma was still gone.  Then Keturah and I went to church so she could audition for a speaking part in the children's choir.  She didn't want to sing, but she did have to sing something because all the main characters have singing parts.  Mrs. Christy said that Keturah's mannerisms and singing and speech all reminded her of Benaiah.  Interesting!  Keturah was very confident, not afraid, and did well.  Then it was off to the grocery store for a few things for the week, like lunch stuff.  Then showers and putzing around and finally bedtime.  Sigh.

I think Abishai has a career as a valet in his future.

Time for the Superbowl!  FOX Tv actually streamed it live on their website this year!

Cheeseburger pizza for supper (not for me of course).

Chips and dip with sausage and beef added.

Justin said, "What's better than a comfy chair, a cup of tea, snacks, and a football game/DS video game?  Nothing!"

Abishai got into the game a ton!  He kept saying go when the players would run.  He also liked settling himself onto the couch with his snack and drink.  Can you tell his eyes are actually staring at the football game?  Very cute!

Yesterday, Justin spotted this huge bird in the church parking lot where they were playing Bible Bowl.  Is it a hawk? Is it an eagle?  I'm not sure!

The bird is just watching everybody's comings and goings.  Interesting.

Them boys with them trophies.  Super proud of them!

Not the best shot, but Abishai was thoroughly enjoying the jeep paper car that they had at Steak and Shake.  Daddy had it going over his hands at one, and also over utensils rolled up in napkins.  Abishai insisted that his car and his drink needed to be on the napkins.  He didn't want any spills.  He does that at home, too.  He asks for something to clean up a mess.  Abishai also ate a ton of fries and mac and cheese, children's size of course.  And that's after having a big breakfast and snack.  He must be growing in leaps and bounds!  Wahoo!  Plus, Abishai is Gary's mini me, lol.  Love it!

Quick update on Grandpa Cook.  He's still with us, but sleeps all the time.  His pain meds are keeping him comfortable.  Leah is back home for now.  Please keep praying for her family and for comfort and peace.  Thanks!

Year 2, Day 35: Lazy Day

It was a lazy day for some of us, a little too lazy for me, and by 4pm I was not happy I didn't get a whole lot "done."  Granted, most of my big projects have to wait until at least Tuesday because they are long phone calls (taxes, medicaid).  But I did stay home to rest, so I sort of did.  No nap for me, but I updated all my picture files and cleaned up my phone a bit.  I tried to keep Keturah and Abishai away from electronics, but it's so hard when I just want some quiet.  I was able to take the time to sit with Abishai and play a bit with the "new" toys we brought out from the other toy boxes.  I will put away some of the older toys this week.  I was also able to sit with Keturah and watch a song from Trolls, a movie, and explain to her that while the message was pretty good, you have to be careful not to use it against people, especially Mom and Dad.  It was about getting back up when you've fallen, which is awesome, but God is the one that helps you up, not just yourself.  And if a kid feels that their parents have knocked them down, it's not a reason to rebel and fight until you get your way.  I'm talking about parents that aren't abusive and are setting up the right boundaries and care about their children.

Anyway, that was pretty much our day at home.  Meanwhile, the boys had a GREAT DAY at Bible Bowl!  Benaiah played on Division 1's team, the team that is going to another bigger regional tournament next weekend at Kentucky Christian University (yes, it was Kentucky Christian College and it's where Audio Adrenaline got started as a band).  The team consisted of 3 Henry kids, Jamie, Ben, and Daniel.  The Henry's are the most devoted Bible Bowl family I know, probably putting in time and effort over the last 20 years or so.  It's their family's main "thing" so they study hard, do well, and win full ride scholarships to college!  But, they hadn't won anything yet this year, so to have one 1st place in their division this month was HUGE.  So proud of all their hard work over the last couple of months!  And then Justin had another Henry on his team (there's 9 kids in their family), Jordan, and a few other girls, and they WON first place also!  They were in Division 3 (there's 3 divisions total) and will move to Division 2 next month.  So, both of our boys got to bring home the trophies until the next practice on Wednesday!  Bible Bowl buys 1 trophy per division (1st, 2nd, and 3rd), and then whichever team wins it that month, they keep it for the month and bring it back to the next competition.  And then whoever has done the best overall for the year gets to keep it.  There's a cabinet full of trophies still at Indian Creek that has not been moved in years.  It's in the upper part of the old gym that's being converted into offices.  I'm actually very glad it's still there because so many other things have been moved around over the years.  Anyway, Indian Creek is known for having a great Bible Bowl program!  And the boys' teams won!  Way cool!

What else?  Abishai woke up to find the boys were gone, so he said his first 3 word sentence, "Baba all gone?  Baba all gone."  Awww, he loves his brothers!  He even asked for them and Daddy on the way to church.  Speaking of church, a nursery volunteer told me that Abishai had his hands clasped behind his back and went around the room checking on the other kids.  He's a leader, that's for sure, and a ham!  He ran all over and under the church pews tonight like he owned the place.  Oh wait, according to the older boys, Grandpa owns the place, so his grandkids can do whatever they want at church, or NOT.  Just the opposite.  Unless you're 2 and you're cute.  Then you can run around.  Lol.

Oh, and I have to include this.  So, Benaiah's English and Literature teacher, Mrs. McCollum, whom has become a great friend to me, has him and two other students writing out by hand in cursive a tongue twisting paragraph because their handwriting stinks!  You have no idea how hard that I and Grandpa Johnson have worked on Benaiah's handwriting.  I laughed though, and I applaud Mrs. McCollum for making it an assignment.  I hope it helps!

Abishai setting up and playing with his "new" toys! I have a bin just for the brightly colored toddler toys like these.  Most of them are Fisher Price or old Play Skool things from my childhood.  I have never been a fan of pastel colored toys.  And we don't have many gender specific colored toys.

Here's an exception to the gender neutral toys, Keturah's pink push stroller.  They couldn't find a doll, so they put a pink dog stuffed animal in it.  I guess Abishai needed a friend in the bathroom with him.

It looks like he's eating the trophy!  First place in Division III, Greenwood Area Bible Bowl tournament!  Wahoo!

I actually did the rest of the sewing for her, but the sock monkey is done!  I think she did 1/4 of the stitches.  It was a very hard project and I wouldn't recommend it to beginners.  But what Keturah did do, she did well!

A little crooked, but not bad for my and Keturah's first stuffed animal!  Seriously, I can sew buttons and anything with a straight line fairly well.  But stuffed animals, nope, not my thing!

Abishai found some old "bam bam's" from the hockey games in Canada, so I blew one up for them.  It's shaped like a hammer and nail from "The Home Depot."  Keturah wasn't sure if it's supposed to be "THE Home Depot" or just "Home Depot."  I guess I'd have to look up which way is right.

Last night, after a day being out and about, Benaiah decided to jump into doing one of Grandma's new puzzles.  He's also watched something on his iPod of course.

This is what happens when Jared leaves early in the morning and leaves the bacon out for me to cook up.  Yum!!  This is one area we don't follow his folks in.  I don't cook breakfast for Jared.  Like I don't think I've ever done it.  I never know what he wants, and he's the better cook, so why try?  Plus, I'm not getting up at 4:30 or whatever early times he has.  I'll stay in bed a few more minutes, thanks.  So, sorry, not sorry about the wonderful breakfast I made myself and ate cold because I'm always doing something else, too.

Jared drove around the parking lot a bit so he could get to 170,000 exactly tor this picture.  We bought the truck well loved, but we've put quite a few of our own miles on it.  Fun!

When you want to work from home and you have two beady eyes staring at you and saying your name.  (Jared put the pic on Twitter.)

This kid lacks fashion sense!  He's wearing white and read socks with black circles that look like buttons.  He got them at our co op sock exchange and the white cuffs sparkle!  He was concerned that other socks would give him too much toe jam.  He's super sensitive about clothing, and in general.

Tomorrow, Keturah has a big audition for a speaking part in kids' choir this semester.  So, please pray for her.  Our director is very good about letting most of the kids who tried out do something, anything.  Keturah has practiced and she's able to speak loudly and clearly, and use hand motions.  Super proud of her so far!  Yeah!

Year 2, Day 34: Busy Waiting

Wait, wait, wait.  This part of taking care of the elderly is hard because it's all unknown what could happen from moment to moment.  Do you stay or do you go.  And we all wait here, making sure we are flexible and yet continuing on in our daily tasks.  We were pretty busy today with haircuts for the boys, doctor's appointment for Justin, stopped by Jared's office (which we hadn't done in 11 months!) to say hi, have Grandpa Bible class at his house while Abishai played with Benaiah, stop by the pharmacy, finally get home to make dinner and clean up.  The boys have a Bible Bowl competition, and I would love to go and stay away from home duties all day and just cross stitch as they answer questions, but I need the rest at home and put away laundry and prepare for the week ahead.  I'm just really beat from all the errands and double the long days of co ops/communities etc.  The next few weeks aren't as busy.  So, hopefully, I'll have some more rest at some point.

Pretty flower continuing to open.  The stem is starting to rot though.

Daddy brought home a big bowl from the church that had some monkey bread in it from the high schooler's breakfast Bible study.  They at the monkey bread and I washed the bowl.  Then Abishai found it.  What's better than a big shiny bowl?

Think: Spaceballs movie!  Hilarious!

I tried a new "do" today based on a video that Lilla Rose did at HQ.  I needed to be a little tighter with a smaller flexi and it stayed for maybe 2 hrs.  But I tried!

Pre haircut

Pre haircut

Post haircuts and Justin, the weird one, for some odd reason taught Abishai to put these big rocks up to their ears at the doctor's office. Strange boys.

Rocks.

Yucky wax that came out with irrigation by the doctor.  Hopefully that will help with Justin's ringing in his ears.  Plus some allergy meds to keep the sinuses in good shape and inflammation down.

Abishai insisted that everyone sit together on the doctor's exam chair/table which is super comfortable.

Playing games at Daddy's office.  This one is called pass the baby!  Abishai got to run around a lot, too.  We won't be doing this once the rest of the staff have moved into their offices, obviously.

This used to be the gym where they held services before the big auditorium was built.  I remember the first time I came when we were dating and Aaron had a sign pointing down on my head saying "this is Melinda."  aka, Jared has a girlfriend!  I also remember the first Sunday I attended after Benaiah was born and Grandpa had a folio of pictures he unveiled to the congregation.  Nowadays, the family stories aren't shared as often, but that's ok.  I share them anyway!  Yes, that big one in the middle of this picture.  HE was that small.

Abishai checking out the new office furniture.  Trying to hide from Daddy.

When did the littlest kid become the biggest one?  They grow so fast and seeing these two together reminds me, wow, we've come so far!

They were playing peek a boo and run away from Daddy, and Abishai found the perfect hiding spot without prompting!  Something about an empty shelf, he and Justin like to find them!

I'm not here!  You can't see me!

Random thoughts:
I was messing around with some profile pictures and saw that I hadn't changed where I live currently on my "about" section.  So I changed it and wrote this on my FB page:

"I guess it's time to change where I currently live on my FB info page, sigh."

And continued talking about it in a message below that one:

"I'm getting there, though! Still not as pretty here as other places. I will travel again, if God wills it, maybe with this new ministry as the kids get older. Who knows? Trying to celebrate all the amazing things I learned from homeschool moms, Canadian history, restoration church life, Doctor Who and all things BBC, Anne of Green Gables musical, sea ice! Celebrating it as part of my experience rich life. Next time it comes up and someone says, "can't you just get past it?" I'm going to say, "Well, it's like grieving, you want to talk about your loved one, not bottle it up inside." Now, I have had a pouty attitude about it with a tinge of bitterness. But it's more of just a heavy sigh, those were good times, kind of thing now. Again, the grief cycle. But I am content, or at least trying to be and making the best of what we have here, grandparents, concerts, Children's Museum, etc. Good corn on the cob! Lol. I am doing it, and I will do it, because God of course is walking me through. I just realized I hadn't changed my location on FB. I am usually a little quicker on those things and was ready to do it a couple of months ago probably. Whoops!"

Just thought I'd share what I had written!

Year 2, Day 33: The Smile Has Diminished

Being out for the good part of two days on Monday and Tuesday, then hitting the books hard on Wednesday, and then needing to go out at midday today and again tomorrow, we're all very tired and on edge.  The boys have a Bible Bowl competition on Saturday.  And Leah is in Michigan with her parents and brother because Grandpa Cook, her Dad, is well, very close to going Home to Heaven.  We knew it would come eventually, but it's definitely still hard to process.  Please pray for her, her siblings, and Grandma Cook.  Sigh. The circle/cycle of life I suppose (thinking of the Lion King movie here, what can I say, I grew up in the 80's and 90's).  From watching the 2 year old take delight in marbles running down a track to watching your loved one struggling to breathe.  Wow, makes you think about all those moments in between, or in the dash between your birth and your death.  We've been studying Genesis again in our History studies and have now gotten through the tower of Babel.  Of course we study how long people lived back then, especially before the Great Flood.  Sons weren't born to Noah until he was 500 years old and then he got on the Ark at age 600.  Wow!  By the way, we learned that at the maximum, it took Noah and his sons 75 years to build the Ark.  Why?  God told Noah to build the Ark after all his sons were born and married.  So, for the youngest to born and old enough to marry at age 15 or so, it would be close to when Noah was 525.  Hm,...fun facts, indeed!

Meanwhile, yes, very full days.  I also am down in the mouth because I found out how much this wonderful Classical Conversations program is going to cost and it's much cheaper than a private school or private tutors but ouch, it's not free or relatively cheap.  It's definitely something to pray about and think about some more.  I still think it's the perfect match of what I want to teach the kids, but don't have the skills to do it alone.  But we have other things to focus on for now.

Oh, speaking of the Bible (see above), Jared and I watched 2/3 of the newest "Exodus" movie that came out a couple of years ago.  Wow, does it ever stray from the Biblical account!  Yikes!  I'm not pleased with it at all.  It spends way too much time between when Moses is fully grown to getting married and having a child who is 8 or 9 years old.  Then they breeze through the plagues without the details of Moses and Aaron going back and forth to Pharoah.  Oh, and there's no mention of Moses taking off his sandals because he is standing on holy ground in front of the burning bush.  And God is made out to be a young boy and says weird things like, "I need a general."  Not impressed at all.  I did show some of it to the kids today because we were talking about Stonehenge and I wanted to show them how hard it was for men to pull big blocks of stone around.  We also quickly discussed what they did wrong in the movie as I fast forwarded to the bits I wanted them to see for the current history lesson.  Keturah and Justin both recognized the differences between the Biblical account and the movie.  I need to rewatch the Noah movie and see if I still like it or not, because if I remember correctly, there's some very iffy stuff in there, too.  I loved seeing it on the big screen, but I think I might change my mind the second time around.

Ok, a couple of pictures from today.

Brushing teeth is more fun sitting on the toilet, banging on the back of the toilet.

We introduced Abishai to marbles when he was barely sitting up.  And now he can play with them by himself!  One of us does watch him though so he doesn't accidentally eat one of course.

He's been doing this since he was a year old or so.  He was so happy to see this toy come out of "storage" aka under Keturah's bed.

He knew this piece needed to be on top of the toy so he tried to put it on while he was sitting in it!

My new dilemma: how to deal with all the toddler toys.  I just have no clue what to get rid of since Abishai plays with all of it!  The two buckets in this picture is about 80% of his cars/trucks alone.

Kitchen and a bit of Little People.

Bright colored toys, stuffed animals, infant toys and one box of duplos (we have another box that side, too.)

Cloth books and misc. box of toys to sort later.

A couple of big toys and some stuffed animals.  I have another box bigger than this that has more preschool toys.

Another box of stuffed animals.

Huge box of Geotrax trains and Little People stuff.  So, what am I to do with all of this?  I just don't know!  But at least it's a bit more organized/separated by kind at the moment.  Sigh.

The flower IS starting to open! Cool!