The Kelsey's

Well, what have we been doing with our 2012? The first month of the year is over already. Time is flying.

I have been trying to journal on Bible readings each day this year. I did pretty good for a while, but started tripping up at the end of the month. I’m going to get back on the ball. You can see how I did at 2012bible.posterous.com. As usual I have way more plans in my head than things going on. This month has actually been relatively quiet.

Laura came downstairs and announced that today she officially feels old. Her birthday isn’t until next month though. But she just saw pictures on Facebook of the little boy that she watched in day care at Hillcrest. He just posted up photos of his first child. Generations just keep on coming.

The boys have been busy facing a little bit of illness, playing video games, watching videos, and doing some homeschooling to balance it all out. The weather has been wildly sporadic, so there hasn’t been much in the way of snowball fights or sledding or anything.

Here’s Hannah’s report for this month:
Well…. honestly not that much happened in January. It was mostly spent getting back into the swing of school. Luckily I’ve managed to keep all A’s in my grades this month. We’ve had some school activities here at Sunnydale such as our annual Junk Game where you bring the most random stuff from your room and they call out something. Like they may call out pencils, or slippers, or test permits, or union college pens, or rubix cubes or clorox wipes. The Juniors won the game because their class is so big. The Seniors came in second, Sophomores in third, and Freshman in fourth. The rest of January was spent with baskeball games, music tours, and getting everyone ready for their mission trips to India, Africa, or Joplin. Also an epidemic of strep throat has broken out in the boy’s dorm here at school, but so far none of the girls have been affected.

I’ve been doing a lot more sleeping lately. It’s late. We have our Dave Ramsey budget for February done, and I’ve even produced this post as a bonus – so I can head off to bed without a smidge of guilt.

Typically we don’t make a big to-do over most of our holidays. Things seem pretty much status quo for most of the day. However Laura usually cooks up a special meal. Independence Day (for us, that would be the 4th of July…) was no different. We had veggie hot dogs and burgers.

We don’t shoot off our own fireworks, but this year Laura got a box of “safe” fireworks like Snap-n-Pops or the box said “Snap-its” or something like that. Basically black powder wrapped in wax paper. When you throw them on the ground they pop. We also had the little plastic bottles where you pulled the string and they would pop and throw trash on the floor. We went out in the afternoon and littered all over our patio.

Nathan was very apprehensive at first, he wanted to be sure I was sitting next to him. Even at a young age, children understand the concept of a “human shield”. But as he saw that none of his siblings were loosing life or limb, he ventured out and with mom’s coaxing he threw down on some Snap-its.

As we were finishing up we were wishing each other a “Happy Independence Day”, but for him the syllables just didn’t seem to fit together. He listened to what we were saying but the words just seemed foreign. He shouted out “Happy…” and now he was in trouble. Everyone was listening and he hadn’t figured out what that next word was. So his mind was racing and suddenly inspiration struck: “… Popper Day!” That got a big laugh.

And so with one good laugh, that was the phrase of the day. “Happy Popper Day!”

Until the evening fireworks. I’ve posted about previous 4th of July celebrations. We settled in on our little hill to watch 3-5 different township displays. We get to see more variety and we aren’t close enough to scare the children. About half way through, Hannah had mentioned or was discussing with Nathan about the “Grand Finally”. So with each explosion of light (and a little sound…) he would exclaim, “There it is! The Grand Finally!” followed with “Are we done?” or “Let’s go now.” It was worth it to stick it out, because with the Grand Finally in full swing his face lit up so much that Joshua was having us look at Nathan’s face instead of the fireworks display. The grand finally was truly grand.

We then took our bug-bitten bodies home and tried to get to sleep with the hooligan’s in the field on the other side of the creek firing off their home cooked displays into the wee hours. Indeed, a cause for celebration.

Here is a short (1 minute long) video of my car’s predicament. I suppose I shared in it too.

This was from my phone, imagine if I would’ve had my actual video camera with me?

As the new year dawns, we’re all at home. We didn’t travel anywhere for the holidays. Hannah has been home from academy for a couple of weeks now. And like a New Year’s in the recent past, we’ve had a flu-like bug floating around in the air. Nathan got it first, then Caleb, Joshua, and I’ve been doing battle with it for about a week now. Hannah and Laura have evaded the effects.

We had an opportunity to meet Hannah’s first boyfriend who visited with his family at our church on New Year’s Day. I didn’t get to talk with him for more than 20-30 seconds. It was communion which is always hectic.

Come Monday we will all be back into the standard routine. I’ll be back at work. I’ve been at the same client for two years as of January 12th. That’s a long time based on some of the contracts I’ve had in recent years. And the boys will be back in home school.

This weekend does start a 40 day season of prayer at church, and that will keep us busy right up into mid-February.

As always, always on the move, and more news as it happens. We look forward to sharing as 2011 rolls along.

Hey, I had something else I wanted to blog about – but I’ll share that next week.  For today I’ll just drop this rhyme on y’all.

Oh, and since I’m sharin’ videos – this is a family favorite … appropriate for the day.  Peace Out ‘Yo.

I just wanted to show you a few pics that we’ve taken over the last little while. These first few are from Nathan’s birthday. A real rarity – I’m actually in this one!

Here he is checking out a gift.

He’s happy – but it’s not really his birthday yet…

Once the candles were blown – then it was really his birthday.

A couple of weeks later it was time to go do the “egg thing” for Easter. This year we added reading from John 23 & 24 to get the real story…

We also have video of Hannah’s birthday, Nathan’s birthday, and even some Easter footage … but the time to transfer all that stuff around is just too long. So these will have to tide you over until then.

Of course it ain’t over yet. But this weekend is as frenetic as our weekends are ‘wont to be.’ We have been off in all directions. Hannah attended a teen honors weekend away at the camp. She headed off on Friday before I got home from work, so we said our good-byes on Thursday night. We haven’t heard from her since (as far as I know).

Now even if she would’ve been leaving later on Friday, I wouldn’t have seen her. Why, because last Sunday I got a call from the pastor of a sister church. He said, “Hey, you remember that meeting back last November where we compared calendars and this coming weekend you scheduled for a Peacemaker series at the church?” “Oh, sure, I’ll be ready.” Then I got busy planning and preparing. And when Friday came around, I got off work I ran through Taco Bell and had dinner in the car as I dashed home. I got changed, gathered all my stuff and headed off with Joshua. Caleb was going to go, but there was a last minute change of heart. The kids have flashbacks of loooong days sitting around out of town while the folks taught peacemaking. Caleb wasn’t ready for anything go. But Joshua faithfully came along to take some video footage. The idea was to video the next day too, but that was just too much to ask.

So I spent all day yesterday speaking – well for 6-7 hours or so. My voice actually feels a little scratchy (I have never lost my voice…) and for some reason all the standing had all my feet really hurting. So when I got home I just crashed. Saturday night is usually my one late night of the week – but not last night. I think in my half-sleepiness I saw Nathan for a few minutes. And I’ve seen Caleb in passing and while he was passed out on the couch or in his bed. Scattered.

Today, I’ve committed to helping deliver fruit which will take me through noon. The rest of the day will be spent trying to pull it all together to get ready for another week of working / schooling / living.

I wonder how many weekends we have like this in a given year? How about you, do you ever feel like the pieces of your life are scattered all over the place?

Laura was laying down with Nathan who was being pouty. He declared, “I’m crying.”

“Well where are your tears?” Laura responded.

Nathan proceeded to lick his fingers and wipe them down his cheeks, “Now I’m sad.”

Where do they learn such drama?

Your kids know you better than you know yourself.

I was sitting at my computer yesterday. Nathan was sitting next to me using my laptop. He was browsing the NickJr web site. The site played their jingle, “Nick Jr. is just for me.”

I sang that back to him, I turned to him and said, “Nick Jr. is just for me.”
“No, Dad, Nick Jr. is just for me, you’ve got Fox,” he flatly replied.
Then he repeated for emphasis, “Nick Jr. is just for me.”

I could say that he’s developing a bit of a selfish streak, but that would be just skirting the issue.

He knows where to find Dad. He’s checking out the news on Fox. Or when he gets frustrated that I’m “getting into his business” too much stretch out his arm and point and say, “Daddy, you go to your computer.”

Ah, banished to a life in front of a monitor. Harrumph, some guys have all the luck.

Here is how we like to celebrate Independence Day. This is a little tradition brought about by necessity. Since we’ve had small children for over a decade, it seems that someone is always uncomfortable with the loud fireworks displays. But fireworks beyond what you can light in your yard have been a part of my 4th since the Music Man band and VP fair of the mid 80′s. So we’ve found a compromise. We normally head out around 9:20 or 9:30 for Steak-N-Shake. We order milkshakes and sit on a hill and watch 3-4 different displays: Hazelwood, Florissant, and Maryland Heights. All from a kid friendly distance. We get there just in time for the big finally. Forget the warm-ups, we just want to be dazzled. (Hannah discovered this year that we weren’t there from the beginning and was complaining that Mommy and Daddy had been tricking the kids!  The jig is up!)  That’s just about enough time to finish off the shake and get in the car and go home. Mission accomplished: total celebration in about 1 hour. You couldn’t do better if you produced it for reality TV!

This year was a little different. We were invited to visit with some friends who happened to live about a mile from a Steak-N-Shake… how convenient! So we parked at the destination and headed out on foot.

Here’s a view from the back of the pack.

Notice that Dad wore a long sleeve shirt? Some folks just don’t know how to check the weather…
Hmm – looks like Mommy and Hannah were lallygagging.

As we were passing by the school, we noticed that they had buses running as shuttles down to the fireworks display. Being homeschooled, our kids have never been on “the big yellow bus” that I’ve personally logged the equivalent of more than a few months on. Gotta capture this for posterity.

Hannah just looks like one of the kids from Jr. high (or middle school these days).

Unfortunately the bus couldn’t go down the street we needed so we drove past our destination and had to walk back. When we got out, there were about 20 people waiting to get on. But Dad had to take pictures anyway, what a dork.

Hannah said, “No press!” and Nathan couldn’t quite make that big step at the bottom.

Caleb is always ready to contemplate the significance of the moment though.

We got to our friends’ house and spent some time visiting and eating some of the food that was piled up around the place.  There was plenty for all.  I had a big heap of cherries that were yummy. When it was dark and fireworks were getting ready, we walked back and ordered our shakes. By the time we laid out our blanket, some rain started to sprinkle down. “It’s only a sprinkle, Dad.” Hannah informed me. I said, “When it’s coming down pretty good, I’ll remind you that you said ‘just a sprinkle’.” By the time the fireworks started a decent rain was coming down. Hannah volunteered to slip down to the van and get the cool golf umbrella that Laura got me for my birthday a year or two ago. The hill was so wet that she could barely walk back up with flip flops in the mud.

Laura and Nathan had retreated to the van. Joshua was melting as his legs were getting soaked – but with Daddy’s big umbrella we could mostly stay under it.

I tried to get an arms length shot while laying along the side of the blanket. Who needs fireworks pictures when you can see fireworks observers!

Hey, I just found a post from last year’s 4th of July! The more things change, the more they stay the same. I guess we’re pretty boring after all.