Day 237: Boredom

Wow, we are not used to being home with nothing to do!  Ok, we have lots of "stuff" and we've tried some of that "stuff" this week, but we are still wandering around not knowing what to do next.  Since I've got school ready to go, we might as well start next week!  Our first co op day is on Monday anyway.  When you are working with lots of people's schedules, and circumstances (like naps and headaches and flying insects), it's hard to plan anything and have fun.  It's an adjustment having Jared gone again, too.  Tomorrow is another day, so we'll try to do something fun and interesting, even if it means 2 hrs of riding in the car to take Jared to his jobsite.

So, there's that. And this is what we did do today.

Always a fun time when pretending to shave the toddler's face.

Don't worry, there's no blade in it.  Abishai was actually very still for it.

Player!

What a ham!

This guy is such a climber!  He can lean on the counter and dangle his feet.  He also sits on the back or side of the chair.  We can't find enough high places to keep precious stuff away from him!

Jared cooked his special meat with a little bit of orange, as was suggested.  I had some and it wasn't that different from regular beef.  It didn't taste gamey like deer meat either.  It did have a different taste, but I could get used to it.

Because Justin had a headache and we couldn't go to the splashpad, I allowed the kids to put a little bit of water in the baby pool.  I think Keturah had more fun than Abishai in it.  I just don't want to fill it up too much b/c then we have to dump it over the railing and I don't want to scare our neighbor or have it pour into her porch.

After a little bit of rest, I was able to convince Justin to Skype with one of his best friends from PEI.  They made faces at each other for 1 hr!!  It really brightened Justin's mood.  At first he didn't want to talk to his friend because it made him sad.  But afterwards he said he was really glad that he got to.  Since there is an hr time difference, it was nearing bedtime for Justin's friend, but his mom allowed him to stay up to talk to Justin.  Thank you!!

Meanwhile, I think we've finally found some YouTube videos that will keep Abishai occupied for a little bit.  Mommy just needs a break now and then (besides his 3 hr nap).  It's this goofy Mother Goose channel, but it's nursery rhymes and songs with hand motions.  Keturah and he watched it for an hr yesterday.

Yeah! He sat still for a few minutes!  I know he's sitting pretty close to the TV and sitting on a table, but I'm just happy we found something he likes.

I did not want to give the kids those colored ice cream cones tonight, so I put their ice cream in bowls instead.  Well, Abishai didn't understand that you needed to use a spoon, so he face planted into his ice cream to lick it up.  Goofy boy.  He was extremely sticky afterwards.

Meanwhile, Benaiah is doing well in school, has only a little bit of homework, has made some friends in his class, and well, thinks all the girls are drama queens.  Lol!  They have a big yard sale fundraiser at the school tomorrow and Saturday, so Grandma and he are going early tomorrow to help out.  I'm so glad we have grandparents that can help out like this because I simply can't be there for everything.  It's frustrating to me because I want to serve and help, but this is a particularly hard season of life with kids in different stages with different needs, and my own health getting in the way.  Letting go of doing it all by myself is hard, but necessary.  I'm grateful for the teachers and parents at Benaiah's school that can help out, and for even some of my friends contributing when their kids don't even go to the school!  We are blessed!  Even when our parking lot has way too many bugs and it's still 87 degrees outside!  Tomorrow is a new day!

Day 236: Sirens! Clouds! Oh my!

Well, I am very excited to show what we did today, but not as excited as to tell you all about the severe thunderstorms we had this afternoon.  Oh my goodness!  The severe weather/tornado sirens went off and on for two hrs.  We had 3 huge downpours, with almost no rain in between.  There was a a Starbucks and several homes flattened 1 hour north of us. AND there was a funnel cloud/tornado touchdown a few blocks northeast of us!  We watched the cloud gathering for it from our porch!  I love weather, alway have, and I would definitely be one of those waiting until the last minute to get somewhere safe.  Plus, I just don't like panicking the kids (even if I'm panicked) if I don't need to.  We did go to our basement when we had one in Beech Grove a couple of times.  And I know we would need to go to one of our bathrooms or kindly ask a neighbor downstairs to hang out there if necessary.  We both watched the news and radar carefully.  Thankfully, no one was hurt in Kokomo or in Indianapolis as far as I know.  But then, a friend posted on Facebook about being 15 miles or so from a major forest fire out west.  And then I also heard about the massive earthquake in Italy.  Wow!  Kind of makes our funnel clouds seem like nothing.

So, that was fun.  What wasn't fun was all the bees, hornets and wasps we've been finding on our porch, inside the house and near our garage.  We have some large crab apple trees, so they have a lot to feast on.  We tried going outside today, but they hornets wouldn't leave us alone.  Very frustrating not being able to be outside when it is nice out!  None of us are allergic that I know of (Abishai's never been stung though, so I'm super nervous about that), thank goodness!  We'll have to work on that, probably letting our landlord know and at least asking if the apple could be picked up or something.

But, the good things: we are hopefully purchasing a second vehicle in the next few days!  A small pickup truck, 1991 Nissan!  Fun times!  We haven't had a truck since Jared's 1990 F-150 which he bought when we were first dating.  It's a manual shift, so I won't be driving it, and it will only fit half of us, but if it gets Jared to and from work, that's the point!  What a relief!

Otherwise, it was a pretty normal at home day.

Every day needs to start with a Lego battle on your countertop.  This is a combination of a video game based on Greek gods and DC characters.  Hm,...

Justin's favorite toy!  Lego minifigures!

A dream come true for me!  I got to say, "Yes, you may paint!" and all the supplies were handy!  

Check out these flowers!  Very creative!  I had no idea she could do that!

Pretty!

Keturah's Bible Class with Grandpa and the cousins, Nora and Everly.

What do you do when you want a nap and your room is being used for Bible class?  Find a bed somewhere else!  Jared's having a nap in the boys' room.

Poor cement guys.  I could tell they were rushing to get done before the big storm!

Benaiah and Justin's Bible class is actually a quizzing type game called Bible Bowl.  They will basically memorize most of Exodus and parts of Deuteronomy and Numbers.  The boys had practice tonight.

Her favorite new spot to watch TV.  Comfy/cozy in our bed!

See the different between the dark and light clouds?  The dark clouds were rapidly going up.  We think this might have been part of the tornado that touched down a few blocks from us.

Mid storm

Ah, beautiful clouds after the storm finished!

Our little monkey

Storm has subsided and we are safe!

I watched some of the new live online and this is a picture of their video camera on top of one of the high rises downtown.  I think it's facing north/northeast.  Dark, dark clouds.

Safe and sound and ready for bed!

Day 235: Day 2 of being home all day

I'm missing my freedom.  But that's ok.  I'm resting up for the start of our schooling next Monday (well, at least our co op stuff).  I'm glad I'm feeling more rested and I'm able to play more and read and find new projects to do.  The kids also found some newer stuff. I'm SO glad I put things out on the shelves yesterday instead of in those yucky brown boxes.  I even covered those brown boxes in our room today.  Some would say, yes, I still have too much stuff for the space we have.  But, I just can't grasp what else I can give away right now.  We are right in the middle of raising kids, and I feel like we need a little bit of this or a little bit of that.  I don't want to have to run to the craft store for something for a project, and then the moment of creativity is gone.  I'll keep thinking though.  Our space is small based on the average home in this area, so I have to remember that.  Plus with homeschooling, you naturally have more classroom stuff.  And that's ok.

Anyway, I finished the book I was reading within 3 hrs of starting it!  Quick, but oh so powerful.  I even ordered it tonight or my permanent collection, and so I can loan it out to others.  I'm glad I borrowed it from the library first, though.  I don't need to own many more books, that's for sure!

It's been an interesting, but VERY GOOD day.  After some "off" days last week, today felt awesome!  Here are some of the reasons why:

These ice cream cones really do have an intense color that shows up later.  Buyer beware!

Got my salad fix for the day!  Blue cheese crumbles, pine nuts, sugar free raspberry dressing, various veggies, and chicken.

They worked on the road again across the street.  Yeah for little guy getting to see more big trucks!

We got to have an impromptu Skype session with some friends on PEI today!  Miss Amy is friends with both Keturah and Justin and they chatted for a good long time!  We'll get to Skype with some other friends from PEI on Thursday!

Justin pulled out Keturah's felting kit she got for Christmas and created this!  It's a minecraft pig and tree and square sun!

Justin loves the piggies in Minecraft and is begging for a Minecraft Lego set with a piggy in it for his birthday.

Having a relaxed day at home allows us to notice the small things in life.  Like, how Abishai eats hot dogs and string cheese from the middle!  He did eat the whole hot dog though.

Today we noticed the differences in our feet.  Justin has long, skinny feet.

And Keturah has shorter, wider feet (Benaiah has hobbit feet!)  Someone called the bumps on the outside of her big toes, muffin bumps! What?! Kind of like a muffin top?  Interesting!

More construction vehicles.

Another impromptu Skype session, this time with the girl cousins!  Shauna wanted to make sure her Skype was working for their Bible class with Keturah and Grandpa tomorrow.  They ended up talking for more than 30 minutes!

Abishai loves books but he's at that age where they easily tear them up.  I love these tiny Golden books that were in my parents' collections, because they are great for little hands.  However, they are easily torn, so we need to keep an eye on Abishai.  This one is animal sounds, which is an easy favorite for a toddler.

Justin's always talking about the next Lego set he wants to buy.  However, I keep telling him he has all the kinds of pieces he could ever want to create anything he wants to.  It may not be perfect like the Lego company would make it, but it will be close.  This guy is from The Flash TV show.  He's in a wheelchair, but this one is ready for off roading.  His name is Dr. Harrison Wells from the 1st season.  Justin also created a house complete with a lab and vials to mix up stuff (they do that in Minecraft as well as in the Flash), a computer with a vent(!), a zebra fabric stool, a stove, and a conference area.  Keturah has her own little house with her PopStar Legos, too.

Benaiah's been busy with school and homework, so he hasn't been doing much else around the house.  And Jared's been working construction most days (yeah!) so we haven't seen much him either.  I think we're in the calm before the storm of the real routine of the fall.  But we're as ready as we can be.  Bags are packed for co op next Monday.  Schedules are written down on calendars.  Let's get this bookwork learning started! (as opposed to the every day learning we do).

Day 234: Gorgeous day!

All day at home, yeah! After feeling overwhelmed for the past week or so, I actually felt free to play today.  So, play we did!  We went outside twice! And got out the play dough and color wonder markers (markers that only work on special color wonder paper)! I also moved a couple more brown boxes to make art supplies and science kits more available.  I really want us to use the stuff I saved and saved over the years.  Let's use it!  But the kids don't naturally gravitate to these kinds of things, so I have to initiate any projects.  So, today, Abishai got to play with play dough for the first time!  Yeah!

It was only 75 degrees or so today, so the windows were open, and the porch door.  But we don't have a screen door and 2 hornets (maybe more) ended up in the house.  Most of us are not allergic, but we don't know about Abishai yet, so I'm always nervous about bee stings.  They just hurt anyway!  So, hopefully we'll find a solution for a screen soon.  We'll have a few more days at least of heat, so the a/c will probably go on again tomorrow.  But at least for today, we had some fresh (although filled with allergens I'm sure) air.

Otherwise, we didn't do much.  It kind of felt good after having a busy day yesterday.  Although, Keturah asked to play with Jordan again and Justin pleaded with me to take him to the playground.  Ok, then!  Maybe we need a little more social time now that we are "settled" and are almost ready to get back into a school routine.

Abishai was able to obey when we said he couldn't eat playdough.  He kept wanting to put it back into the container.  He also took tiny bits and put them on the picture seen here.  Great fine motor skills!

Yes, I'm taking a picture of you!  First time with play dough!

We taught him to squish it with his finger.  I didn't give him any tools because I wanted to a) see how he would react to just the play dough and b) get used to having it in his hands.

When I told him to bring the playdough back to the table, he obeyed!  (He also puts away his shoes when asked).

Playground time!

Mr. Monkey Justin!  Keturah stayed home and played Minecraft with Daddy.

Abishai discovered the steering wheels at the playground!

Kid quotes: Justin, "Summer is finally retreating! (his reaction to the drop in temperature today).  Abishai is the first person in our family to have a birthday each year and he has an "A" in his name, so even his name is first!"  Yes, Justin is the one who likes patterns and order.

Keturah, "(to Dad who asked about a 100 ft measuring tape use) No, I don't need a 100 ft measuring tape to measure my leg but Uncle Aaron (or Uncle PM, my brother) does!"

And one more thing, Abishai can step up and step down on a small sidewalk to driveway without assistance!  Growing up too fast!