Thanksgiving 2017

We had a great Thanksgiving holiday this year.  It's probably my most favorite time of the year.


We always go to my parent's house for Thanksgiving after our school's program.  We left on Saturday morning and headed towards Elizabethtown.  There is always a lot of people in that small cabin, but thankfully we are able to fit them all in somehow.


This year was special because my Grandma and Uncle was coming for a visit.  I hadn't seen them since my Grandpa died.  I can't even remember how long ago that was.  At least 5 or 6 years, I would guess.


We had great food as always.  No one could critique anything.  We usually all find at least one dish that turns out nasty or someone tried something new.  This year everything was delicious so we didn't have the chance to hurt anyone's feelings.  And yes, sometimes its my dish that gets picked on.  I'll post some pictures that was taken. 


We stayed all night with Melissa and my kids loved staying there.  Of course, she has a dog and the Disney Channel.  We got up the next morning and Titus had a really bad sore throat.  Instead of going to church, we decided to go back home and get him to the doctor.  He ended up having strep and that spread through our whole family pretty quickly.

Food Line can get crazy real quick!!

Sad we were missing Jacob in this picture.

Titus and his tradition of eating a turkey leg.

When will she learn? Mom is gonna find her anyway when it's time to clean up!!

Amelia "hugging" Mabel.

  Unfortunately, on the actual Thanksgiving Day, I didn't take any pictures.  Maynard probably did, but I didn't.  We were happy to have Tara and Rueban with us.  I did all the cooking and everything turned out pretty good!  I even fixed our neighbor a plate to send over.  He's a pretty rough looking guy and has a bad reputation around our neighborhood. I just felt like I needed to do that.  Maynard and Tara took it over and he was thankful.

London Christian Academy's Annual Thanksgiving Program 2017

I love love love this time of year!!!  I worked at LCA last year, but still didn't realize all the hard work that was put into this program.  Like I probably said the same thing last year, but man oh man!  It's not just tough on the staff who help put on the program, but the students have to work so hard.  Practice is not just a break for them.  They still have to keep all their work caught up so it's added work to their day.  It's all totally worth it, but it just makes me even more proud of them.


This year the program was about the story of Queen Esther.  Josiah played the part of a Susan.  He was a "Boy, named Sue!"  Titus got to be Hamaan.  He made a great Hamaan too.  This was his first big speaking part.  He was so nervous, but he done great.  Amelia had a small speaking part of Rahab, and then she had a small solo.  She was so excited to have a solo.


I'll just post a few pics and let them tell the story.  I'm slowly trying to get caught back up on my blogs.

Titus 10th Birthday

We are always so busy around Titus' Birthday.  It started out with first going to a fall festival party at a friends house the weekend before his birthday. They played tons of games and lots of prizes.  My kids seriously had a blast!!

Then the following weekend we decided to go to our Downtown Boo Fest party.  We had never been because we don't typically celebrate Halloween.  Josiah was out of town at a basketball game with his school and Titus and Amelia were pouty.  We decided to go ahead and check it out.  Just get the kids some candy and then head home.

Amelia loved meeting these princesses.  It was hard for her to choose which one she wanted a picture with.  She chose Rapunzel because they had the same dress on.


When we first got there they wanted to ride the fire truck ladder.

Maynard rode with them and I stood in the street trying to get a good picture.


The next day a friend sent this to me with the verse "Be sure your sins will find you out!" Ha Ha

This was a picture on Laurel County's facebook page and no doubt the newspaper as well!!!  I got a good laugh though.  It's fine though.  Everything was free and they got tons of treats and we only seen a few scary looking costumes.  It was mainly just young families.


So Saturday morning it was cool and rainy.  Titus had asked to go to The Tree Top Adventures.  It's an obstacle course with rope climbing and zip lines.  Maynard took the boys and Amelia and I did some birthday shopping for Titus.  She was not too happy that she didn't get to go, but I knew she wouldn't be able to do it.


We stopped by to watch them for awhile.  It was freezing and wet.  Josiah struggled and had to be rescued down.  Titus was almost done when he decided he was tired and didn't want to do it anymore either.  He had to be helped down too.  They want to try again, but wait for a prettier day to see if they do better.  All I got was a short clip video because it was raining.  I'm sure Maynard got pictures, but once again I forgot to check.


After the Tree Top Adventure it was time for our church fall party.  We had it at an inflatable bouncy house this year.  I am so glad we did.  It made less work for everyone and actually saved us money.  We had a good turnout and everyone enjoyed themselves.


Titus' actual birthday was on a Tuesday. 


He woke up to a few presents.

He got Nike socks, Nike shirts, and a new pair of......you guessed it.  Nike's!!!!!!!


He took honeybuns to school to share with his class.


After school we ate supper at Captain D's.


We went home and he wanted to bake his own cake.  He was so proud!!!

We are so proud of Titus.  He is such a hard worker.  One thing I've noticed in this past year is that this boy sure loves his Dad!!!  He wants to be near his Dad at all times.  Whatever Maynard is working on then that's what he wants to do.  If Maynard is interested in something then that is what Titus is interested in.  I'm glad Maynard finally has a fan.  Ha Ha

Jr Convention 2017

Our school hosts Jr Convention and our younger kids, ages 9-12 love it!!!  They get to compete against other schools in all kinds of different events.  Last year was my kids first year participating.  This year they understood more of what to expect and were even more excited.  This would be Josiah's last year to compete and he wanted to do as much as possible. 


It was a full day at our local 4-H camp and we had beautiful weather.  I stayed pretty busy helping in the concession stand and working with the middle school students for kitchen duty.  I didn't get many pictures.


Weeks leading up to convention we had lots of practice for the ones participating in singing and public speaking.  I was asked to help lead the group bible speaking.  We put expression and actions while quoting Daniel chapter 3:1-18.  It was a lot of fun, but a lot of pressure too.  They ended up doing great and I was really proud of them.  I have tried so hard to get their video of them practicing uploaded, but I'm having technical difficulties.  Maybe check my You-tube channel later to see if I uploaded it there.


Here they are practicing in the classroom one day.

 

Here is what my boys placed in:


Josiah
Male solo 2nd place  He sang "Chain Breaker"
Large ensemble 1st place  His school sang "I Choose Christ"
Group Bible Speaking 1st place They quoted and acted out Daniel Chapter 3:1-18
Social Studies research on the American Flag 3rd place
He wrote a poem called "Waves" 2nd Place
He participated in shot put and won 3rd place
He received 6th place in the Pace Bowl which is academic knowledge type questions
He won 1st place in the Bible Bowl competition
He did a group Radio Program broadcast and wont 1st place
He received a participation award for competing


Titus
1st group bible speaking
1st Large group ensemble
1st Radio program
1st Bible Bowl
Participation award
Titus mainly competed in sports and that was hard to win with so many participants.  he barely missed the basketball award.  He will try again next year.  Wait and see!!!!


Josiah won't get to participate next year and Amelia is 5 days short of getting to participate.  She is so disappointed and especially because her bestie will get too.  ha ha

Josiah's 12th Birthday

This is our last year for not having a teen in the house.  Lord help us!!  Not sure if I'm ready for this.


Josiah has had a camp out for the last 3 years at our house.  Of course we have moved and he was upset about not getting to have his regular party like always.  We hadn't sold our house yet so we agreed to go ahead and have his party there anyway.  The house was empty.  We did have running water and electricity so that was good.  The boys decided to sleep in the living room instead of sleeping bags.  Somehow in the move we got rid of our tents.  His birthday wasn't until the following Wednesday so we had his party on Friday, September 15th.  Once again Maynard took most of the pictures and I always forget to get pictures off of him before I work on my blog.  I'm in this funk where I haven't been wanting to take many pictures.  He invited a few of his friends over from school.  He didn't have as big of a turnout as usual, but I tried to explain to him that his friends are growing up and are in to different things now.  He still had a good party with lots of fun.  They of course played in the woods for most of the time.  Then they wrestled.  I HATE wrestling.  Like for real.  It makes me so nervous that they are really going to get into a real fight eventually.  They ate hot dogs and roasted marshmallows over the fire.  When it got dark they played hide and go seek in the dark.  They loved playing that.

We set up an air mattress to sleep on.  It looked so comfortable.  Until the middle of the night.  The air leaked out of it.  I decided it was more comfortable to sleep on the floor and Amelia slept right on on the half deflated air mattress.

The boys finally went to sleep way up in the night.


We woke up pretty early and I fixed pancakes and sausage links on my griddle.  Something about a hot breakfast tastes so good after camping.

All the kiddos headed home and then we headed to the house for a much needed nap.


On Josiah's actual birthday we went to King's Donuts and brought donuts to share with his class.  Then after school he wanted to have his Birthday dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings.  After that we had church.  My kids are not fans of having birthdays on church nights.  Ha Ha

We ordered him shoes for his birthday online and they ended up being fakes.  He was so disappointed, but we made it up to him later so stay tuned for that!!!!


Now the countdown was on for Titus' birthday!!!!!

Solar Eclipse 2017

On August 21, 2017, we were all excited about the Solar Eclipse.  Most schools canceled classes for the day, but our school was on a regular schedule.  Our principal decided that if the student had the correct eyewear and with their parent's consent, then they could go outside and view the different stages of the eclipse. 


Josiah was scared to death of going blind and was NOT interested in going outside at all.  My friend Heather works for an eye doctor and she hooked me up with some extra glasses.  Amelia and Titus were excited about going out.  I explained that they absolutely had to only look at the sun with those glasses on.


As the day went by and the excitement grew, Josiah decided he did want to go out.  So we borrowed Titus' glasses and he went out briefly.


I won't even pretend to understand exactly what it meant, but something that only happens so many years and causes the sun to cover the moon.  In some states they had total eclipse where it went completely dark.  Where we live, it was only partial, but it still got dark looking.  It was a very neat experience and I was glad my children were allowed to experience it.

 

Back to School

I'm not even going to apologize for just now blogging about my kid's first day of school while they're currently on Christmas break.  Ha ha


August 14, 2017 was London Christian Academy's first day of school.  My kids were excited like always. 


Last year I worked part-time at school in Kindergarten and middle school.  This year I was asked to work full-time in Middle school.  I always thought that I would love working in Kindergarten, but honestly I really didn't.  I loved the kids, but it sure was draining and I was only in their class about 2 hrs a day.  Middle school I loved.  I thought I would hate it, but didn't.  I've been out of school for 21 years so I'm a bit rusty, but have loved the challenge of learning things again.  Math has never been my strong point.  I can help them with Math quite a bit, but I have a hard time explaining how I got the right answer, so I'm not much help to them.  Sometimes they ask for help and I'm clueless how to help.  English, however, is my subject.  I have always loved English.




This year's school picture looks a little different since we moved to a new house, but we still had keep the tradition going.

Josiah is in his 2nd year of Middle school.  He is in the 6th grade.  Brother Kirk Schooley is his teacher.

Titus is in 4th grade and Sister Lisa Schooley is his teacher.  Can you believe I will have him in Middle School next year???  Help, me Lord!!!

Amelia is in the 2nd grade and Joanna Bowman is her teacher.

My kids love school and I am so thankful for that.  They are all 3 smart kids and make good grades.  They do great at memorizing their bible scripture portions and that makes me happy.  I have always loved that my kids are blessed to go to a Christian school.  Now that I'm working there I feel even more blessed.  I see all the good that goes into them and I don't take that for granted.


We love LCA and so thankful for Godly teachers who sacrifice daily for them.