Time Marches On...

Let’s start back a couple weeks ago…we had some snow, icy conditions on Monday and Jackson’s track practice did end up being canceled. He picked up the younger boys at school and I picked them up in the front parking lot. I also had Ellie and Lauren to take them to practice. I saw boys piling into the car and doors closed and we were off. As we pull out into the bus lane, someone informs me that Jackson is not in the car and I look in the rearview mirror to see him standing in the middle of the parking lot with his arms out, wondering where I was going. I just assumed he got in the car as the doors were closing. I guess he didn’t want to climb over Lauren and was going to the other side. Thankfully, Leah was right behind me and picked him up and took him home while I took the girls to practice. When I called her, she answered laughing saying how funny it was from their vantage point to see Jackson holding onto the door handle and then walking behind the car 😊.

That evening, Ellie had dance and I worked on prepping for my bible study breakfast the next morning. Andrew cleared the driveway for me twice that afternoon and evening to make sure it was cleared for everyone Tuesday. Jackson helped him out the second time. Then he took the kids to school Tuesday morning so that I could finish getting everything ready. I had made a ham breakfast casserole and hashbrown casserole earlier and finished up a sausage breakfast casserole and overnight sticky buns that morning and got them all cooking. I bought muffins and cut up some fruit to finish it out. I set out the grateful bracelets I bought for everyone and set them out in muslin bags that I used printable heat transfer vinyl to put part of 1 Thessalonians 5:18 on-“Give thinks in everything.” And a neat coincidence was that that verse was part of my morning devotional. We had some extra girls show up and some old ones that hadn’t been around in a while. It was a great morning and it went really well. We quickly discussed the study options I had sent out to everyone and decided to do Univited.

The snow was forecast called for some more bad weather, so some schools were letting out early and canceling events. Ellie’s game for the evening ended up being canceled which we were bummed about. And it actually ended up not getting too bad until later that night. She was so excited that since her game was canceled she got to go to dance. Actually, it was good she got to go because they were performing at the high school basketball game that Friday and she needed the practice since she had missed several classes. Wednesday brought a swim workout and the pool was pretty busy for the yucky weather. Then it was back home for a ride. I was excited to finish the twins’ and Lincoln valentines. They are a multistep process, but not too hard. And they really like them.

That night I took the twins and Lincoln to basketball practice. The twins were able to practice with a different team since their team practice time didn’t work with out schedule. And it was nice to have them practice at the same time. The next night we had more basketball as Ellie played Brashear. It was not a good game as our main point guard (and scorer) was out sick and Brashear had some really good players. Plus, their coach wouldn’t let down and just let them run up the score. Ellie remained tough though and didn’t give up.

Friday started our busy weekend. I had a long bike ride and was able to get most of my reading done for small group. Then I made some cookies to take to my parents since we had family coming in for the weekend. We went over to my parents early Friday evening and Andy and his family were already there. We had some dinner before going to high school girls basketball game for Ellie to perform her jazz dance during their half-time. Briley joined us. Ellie was pretty nervous about not being sure about her dance, but she did a wonderful job. We stayed for the full game and the girls won, which was great for them because they have had a rough season.

After the game, we went back to my parents where Lissy, Brady and Charlotte had arrived along with Kaitlin and her family. We ended up staying until around 10:30 just visiting and playing. Briley came to our house for a sleepover and it wasn’t too exciting since we got home so late. I had an early morning long run planned, so it was straight to bed for everyone. Since the twins had their ballgame at 8 on Saturday, I had to be on the treadmill by 5:30 to get my run in and get ready before the game. We had a busy day, so I knew I wouldn’t get it in another time. The twins had their game followed by Lincoln’s at 9.

We immediately went from the basketball games to the middle school for the first K-Classic. They had three different games for 2-person teams to play and it was just for 1^st-5^th graders. They didn’t have too many there for their first one, but the kids had a lot of fun and Miles and Bennett were even able to join in. Ellie and Briley had teamed up and Bella showed up to join them and ended up teaming up with Kate. Lincoln and Alex were a team and they let us have a 3-person team with Brady, Baylor and Owen. It was a great way to spend a couple hours on a cold Saturday and let the kids burn off some energy.

Next up was Atticus’ birthday party at my parents’ house. It was nice and low-key with some Pagliai’s pizza, presents and some cake and ice cream. As we were finishing that up, my dad received a phone call of sad news. My godfather, my cousin, TC’s husband, Mitch passed away. He had been cutting firewood with Brian at his land near Clarence and went down. The ambulance actually brought him to Kirksville, but there was nothing they could do. My parents went over to the hospital to be with Brian until his mom could get there. While they were, my dad received another phone call that Howard Hickman had passed away too. Back at home, we still needed to celebrate Owen’s birthday with a trip to the bowling alley. Jackson had left with Andrew, so he didn’t join in on the bowling. It was a pretty entertaining game and Baylor was in the lead for most of it. He loved it and had some victory celebrations after successful bowls. But Ellie came back in the end and won and Baylor was a bit disappointed about it.

We went back to my parents for a little bit afterwards and then I rushed home to get ready for the Mary Immaculate Sweetheart dinner that night. Andrew and I hardly ever get dressed up to go out, so we had to get a picture.

We took Jackson by my parents’ house and picked up the younger boys to take them to Mary Immaculate for their free babysitting. Ellie, Briley and Bella were in charge of Sadie and Annie at my parents’ house with Jackson kind of in charge of all of them. Although, when we got to the dinner, Michelle said her boys were playing video games at her house if Jackson wanted to head that way, which he did. Once we got sat down for dinner we started getting multiple phone calls from the girls saying that Annie peed on the couch and they couldn’t get Sadie to quit crying and go to sleep. So we did get to enjoy some time together before Sara and Ryan decided to leave and check on everything. After dinner and a little entertainment, they started doing drawings for different prizes and I was surprised to hear my name called out. I wasn’t sure what the prize was until someone informed me it was 4 tickets to a Cardinal’s game. Fun, fun. It was a nice night out with my family-thanks Mom & Dad!

After the dinner, we picked up the younger boys at Mary Immaculate and then went to get Ellie and Jackson. All except Jackson decided to stay at my parents for a sleepover and I picked them up the next morning and hung out until everyone one started heading home. We went home and recovered from the busy weekend by catching up on laundry and the like. Then it was back to school the next day and Mondays mean I help in the classrooms in the morning.  While I was there, I had to get a picture of Lincoln as an old man and his top ten list of what he wants to do before he turns 100.

Then after school, Jackson had track and Ellie had basketball practice and dance later that evening. Tuesday morning I had the first official bible study of the semester…a little late start. But it did seem to work better for everyone. We had some new girls join us and the conversation went pretty well. I’m hopeful that we have a pretty good study over the next several weeks. We didn’t finish up until around 10:40, so I wasn’t able to make the TriFAHL meeting, but went to work finishing up everyone’s Valentine presents. And Andrew brought home my Valentine’s present early-some roses and chocolate-covered strawberries-yummy. That evening we traveled to Brashear for Ellie’s basketball game. She wasn’t too excited about it considering how their last game against Brasher went. They didn’t play their starters as much, but still a decent amount, so it wasn’t quite as bad as the game before. I think Ellie did let the intimidation get the best of her and wasn’t quite as aggressive as she usually is.

Wednesday was Valentine’s day. I got a swim in after I dropped the kids off and then went straight back to the Primary School to help with the twins’ party with my wet hair and goggle eyes. I am trying some new goggles that I think help with the marks though. They had a couple fun activities that included decorating a heart with stickers and paper crafts while having one of each of their hands tied together and they could only use their outside hands. Then there were some fun minute-to-win-it games.

Once I got home, I quickly made some Valentine sugar cookies, before heading to lunch with Andrew, back home to ice the cookies and then back to the school to help take the twins’ class to the FFA petting zoo at the Vo-Tech. They wouldn’t actually pet anything, but they did enjoy looking at the different animals…and most of them were babies and cute.

After we got back from that, I immediately headed to Lincoln’s class to help with his party where I was in charge of the snack. They had a pretty low-key party with a snack table, a reading station, craft station and bingo station. It was almost time for school to be out when we were done, so I picked up the twins early from their class, met Jackson out in the commons and then made our way over to pick up Ellie. She didn’t have her party until the next day since they had their science fair that day.

When we got home, the kids got to open their Valentine mail boxes and I had movie tickets, some candy and a bible verse card in them.

Then I got busy making dinner since the twins and Lincoln still had basketball practice that night. The next day, I did a swim and then had just gotten on the treadmill when the phone rang and it was from the school. I got off the treadmill wondering who was sick or did someone get in trouble. It was Megan at the Primary School and she was actually calling to let me know she had Bennett there for a positive behavior referral. His teacher referred him for doing such a good job in writer’s workshop. She put him on the phone with me, but he didn’t have too much to say 😊.

Jackson wasn’t supposed to have track that afternoon, but since it was nice, they said if kids wanted to come to the track after school, the coach would be there. I was impressed that Jackson wanted to do it. He seems to be enjoying it so far and wanting to improve. So that was his last conditioning until practice starts in a week. That night, he went to small group and Ellie didn’t have a ballgame, but we did get to go by her school to see her science fair project which her team placed third place with. Andrew had started feeling sick, so he stayed at home.

Also, Ellie’s team was invited to attend the high school girls’ game, stand with the team during starting line-up, sit behind the team and have pizza with them afterwards. They had a rough game, so the after part was a little awkward, I think. The pizza wasn’t there right away, so they waited with them in the locker room and talked a bit until it showed up. Then they told them the pizza was in the hallway and kicked them out of the locker room 😊. The girls had fun though.

The next day was pretty busy. Andrew took Jackson to his last football weights session.

I got on the bike as soon as I got home from dropping the kids off at school since I had a 1 hour 45 minute ride followed by a 15 minute run. Then I quickly got ready and headed to Ellie’s school to listen to her virtual trip presentation for Christchurch, New Zealand. She did a great job-really informative and didn’t seem nervous at all. 10 minutes later I was out of there. Since it didn’t take as long as I thought it might, I was able to run to Hibbetts to make a return and fill up the car before heading to the Primary school to eat lunch with the twins. Earlier in the week, Miles got to call me as a reward, but I was swimming and he left a message asking if I could eat lunch with him. Since they both had such a great week, I told them I would eat lunch with both of them. So, I packed my lunch that morning and joined them. They were very excited. We talked about all sorts of stuff before it was time for them to head back to the classroom. But I would see them again in just a couple hours for their reading presentation. Andrew had a trial in Princeton that day, but thankfully got back just in time to attend too. They read one of their how-to books they had been working on and read some other books from their library. Miles’ how-to book was “How to Sneak” and Bennett’s was “How to Play Basketball”. They did a wonderful job and were very proud of their work.

We finished up a little before the end of school, so Andrew went to pick up Ellie while we got Lincoln from his room, met up with Jackson and got to head home a little early. But before we did, they were making their end-of-the-week announcements and we found out that Bennett was the Caught Being Good Winner for Kindergarten boys. So when we went to the office to sign them all out, he got to get his picture with the trophy.

Andrew was still feeling pretty yucky that night, but made a point to get to Howard’s visitation. We went by after dropping Ellie off at swim team and it was packed and we knew it would take a couple hours to get through the line. So, we came home, I made dinner and we went back towards the end of the visitation. Lisa and the rest of them were doing really well considering and Andrew just wanted to make sure they knew how much he thought of Howard and how helpful he was while Andrew was starting out on his own. Then we made our way back home and Andrew was so ready for bed. He was just miserable.

The next morning I was up early to get my long run in before we had to leave for Cameron for Mitch’s funeral. Andrew took his truck separately and dropped it off in New Cambria, then got in our car. We thankfully made it to the funeral in good time and it was nice to see family again. But also so sad…I just felt horrible for the family. We had to leave right after the funeral, but I was thankful we were able to quickly see Brian as we were heading out of the church. We headed back to Kirksville, dropped Andrew off at his truck so he could go put out hay for his cows. As we got close to Macon, I did get pulled over. I was going faster than normal because I wanted to make sure I got Ellie back in time to dance for the Truman men’s basketball half-time. Thankfully, I didn’t get a ticket. We got home, rushed in to get changed and then headed to Pershing. We were luck and got a close parking spot, Ellie found the dancers and we found some seats to catch the first part of the men’s game. They also danced at the women’s game, but we skipped out on that one because of the funeral. Lincoln spotted Ty and took off to hang out with him and his friends while the twins moaned that they didn’t get to go. The game was pretty good for the 1^st half of the 1^st half, but then the other team started to pull away. Ellie did a great job dancing though. We stuck around for a little while after the half before heading home.

Once we got home, Andrew got home soon after and then I snuck out to wash and fill up the car. That evening, Ellie and I had a night out to watch the Golden Dragon Acrobats at Baldwin. The show started at 7:30, but we heard it was a sold-out show, so we thought going at 6:30 would be good. It was already pretty crowded when we got there and they didn’t open the doors to the auditorium until 7, so we stood in line for a while. We got decent seats once they opened the doors and my parents showed up a little while after, having just got back into town. Ellie absolutely loved the show and said it was the best thing she had ever seen in Kirksville. It was pretty neat and the tricks they did were pretty amazing. One trick had a guy that ended up stacking 6 chairs on top of a stand and he did different handstands on them while he reached almost to the top of the auditorium.

The next morning, Andrew went to the office early and brought home donuts for all of us just a little before Jackson, Ellie, Lincoln and I headed out to meet up with a group to head to Columbia to watch the Mizzou Women’s basketball game. Some of Ellie’s teammates and parents, along with my parents met up with us at the Health and Fitness Center parking lot. My parents actually let me drive and our first stop was Shakespeare’s for some lunch before the game. Soon after we got there, Lincoln said he didn’t feel well and I moved him along to the bathrooms. The girls was the closet, so I took him in there and he proceeded to vomit. I was hoping it was just car sickness since he sat in the back and played on his Kindle. But he got sick again and my dad said he would take him out to the car and then they went to get some Zofran. A little while later, he was feeling much better and was thankfully good the rest of the day. The girls all had fun together eating pizza before we decided to head to Mizzou Arena. We decided we should get there kind of early for several reasons-we found out after getting our tickets that they were letting teams in free, they were trying to set an attendance record and the first 2000 got a free t-shirt. The parking lots were full and there were lines out the doors when we got there. We didn’t get any shirts, but we eventually found some seats halfway together. The atmosphere was exciting and they did set an attendance record with 11,092. It was a such a fun game and I’m glad we got to go. They played Tennessee, who was ranked 11 while Mizzou was ranked 13. Missouri got ahead, but then struggled in the third quarter. It was such a tight game the last quarter, but Mizzou pulled it out in the end. It was one of the best games we have seen. The only bummer was trying to get out of the parking lot-it took forever.

Back home, Andrew and twins were waiting for us. I had started some pulled pork in the crockpot before we left that morning, so I finished it up and we had dinner and a relaxed night after a busy weekend.