March Marches On

Random Ramblings:

1. Last weekend Josiah, Autumn, and I along with our church's quiz teams/coaches and many other area teams traveled to Ohio for an invitational.  There were a total of 50 Teams + Staff (Quiz Masters, Time Keepers, Score Keepers, Judges) traveling from our area.  We took 7 coach busses.  Each team stayed with a host family.  We had lots of fun.  And I was really tired when it was all over.  :-)  We left at 7:00am in here and arrived out there around 6:30pm on Friday.  Then Sunday we arrived home around 10:30 pm.
2. I'm reading a book called "Adoptive Parent Intentional Parent" by Stacey Manning.  (website:  www.tohavehope.com)  It's very good!
3. Right now Randy, Josiah, Zachary and one of Randy's friends are in Kentucky at the Mid American Truck Show.  Their exciting moments today included meeting Jimmie Johnson (NASCAR) and one of the hosts from the USA version of Top Gear (not sure if the kids have seen that show or not).
4. I discovered a Dee Henderson book at the library that I had not read the other week (Undetected).  Which prompted me to a Dee Henderson marathon.  I'm working at reading through all of her other books...particularly the ones that are not available at our library.  I have one left on my Kindle (which I had forgotten I had) and I read the 5 I requested from the library...so I need to request the few that I haven't been through in the past few weeks.  Reading them a subsequent time never takes as long as the first time.
5. The annual Transport For Christ Dinner Concert is this weekend. 
6. Chocolate is good.
7. Today I went to a Ladies Meeting at a local church.  One of my friends was speaking.  So I called up another friend who goes to that church and tagged along with her.  I was blessed to hear God's words through her...she challenged us, when going through difficult times, to 1) Look for what God is showing us about Himself and 2) Look for what God is showing us about ourselves.  She reminded us that life is like a train track with the parallel lines...there are good things happening and their are bad things happening.  Focusing on the tough stuff gets us out of balance.  In the hard times, look for the good running parallel. 
8. I took 4 kids to the dentist today.  No cavities.  BUT...it's time to proceed with braces for Autumn.  So this summer she's getting the work up and the consult and we'll probably have braces by the fall.  Josiah is almost finished with his.
9. The weather was warm and muggy this afternoon.  And we had a lovely thunderstorm tonight.
10. When I was outside I could look across the sky and see Snow Geese migrating.

Good night...

St. Patrick's Day

Typically I try to do something for supper that reflects St. Patrick's Day (despite having no Irish roots).  Something green, perhaps, or some food like potatoes or something.  At the last minute, today, I threw some things together.  I'm afraid my efforts were less than successful.

Green Drink - I bought a lemon-lime drink and added sherbet.  I accidentally got "Mt. Chill"...which has caffeine and is yellow instead of clear.  And the store did not have lime sherbet so I bought rainbow.  Let's just say it was not a lovely green color.

Irish Soda Bread - while some years I've made this, I bought it this year.  No one else would even try it.  (Perhaps because of the raisins?)

Regular Rolls - These were successful...but didn't have much to do with the day.

Potato Soup - Mixed Reviews.  At least one refused to even eat it.  But that one shouldn't have dairy so perhaps okay...except then he filled up on bread...and he really shouldn't have wheat either.  My kids love Cheeseburger Soup...but Potato Soup is not as exciting.  But I do enjoy it now and then.

Dessert - Well, we never got that far...everyone was finished eating.j

Well, I'm being paged...

Bible Quizzing

The local Bible Quizzing league came to a close this weekend with a tournament on Sunday.  In the afternoon, the 50 or so teams were divided into groups of 6 or 7 teams.  Each team quizzed the others in their section once.  The top 3 teams (total of 24 teams) of each group then quizzed in a single elimination tournament in the evening.  Our team (Josiah & Autumn and 4 others with Randy coaching them) came in second in our group.  We then quizzed a 3rd place team in the evening round 1.  We won and became one of the top 16 teams.  We then lost by 20 points to the team that went on to win the entire tournament.  The kids did great!

Next weekend the teams go out to Ohio for an invitational tournament...then the year will be officially over.  This year they quizzed on the book of Mark and Acts 1-5.  Next year they will quiz on the remainder of the book of Acts.

Wait...

how am I going to blog more often if I keep forgetting to blog?

The snow is melting...the mud is appearing.  It's much easier to clean up snow puddles than mud from the kitchen floor.

There are tiny green sprouts from bulbs planted in the flowerbeds.  And nice green weeds that look as robust as they did last fall when I neglected to weed them before it got cold.

The garden seeds I ordered came in the mail today.

The line (from a children's song) "out came the sun and dried up all the rain" kept going through my mind today.  We certainly could use some sunshine to dry out the ground.  We saw it briefly today, but mostly clouds.

So far this has been a "resume normal schedule" week for the most part.  Most of us have been sick at some point in the past couple of weeks.  I was sick Friday and Saturday.  Between that and the time change I'm still pretty tired.  Randy was sick Monday.  But no one stayed home from school because they were sick and there were no delays or cancellations from snow.

This week's various appointments:  Violin, Speech Therapy, Occupational Therapy, Physical Therapy, Other Therapy, Pediatric Gastroenterology (attempt #4 or so), Coffee/Play Group, Homeschool Co-Op.

This past Sunday was the last regular season quiz for our Bible Quizzers.  Our church has 4 teams.  2 of them placed 3rd (or 3rd & 4th...not sure how it's officially ranked).  But all 4 of our teams placed high.  We have a local tournament this weekend and next weekend is an invitational tournament out of state.  Then it's all over until next year.  This year they studied the book of Mark and Acts 1-5.  Next year they will be studying the balance of Acts.

Life marches on...

March

"In Like a Lion, Out Like a Lamb".  I remember my 2nd grade teacher made a big deal about that.  :-)

So, my goal of having February have more posts than January did not work so well...I ended up with less.  So we'll try again.  Perhaps March can have at least as many as one of those months, and perhaps as many as the two combined.

I really can't believe it's March already!  We do have another busy month ahead of us.  The two oldest kids wrap up the Bible Quizzing season this month.  Final "Regular Season" matches this Sunday.  Local tournament the following Sunday.  And the big tournament that includes teams from Ohio, Virginia, and PA will be the weekend after that.  The Transport for Christ Dinner concert that we are involved with and the Mid-America Truck Show (Randy goes to that every couple of years or so) are at the end of the month.

Around here we've had lots of cold weather...as is normal for January and February...but colder for longer than normal.  The kids have done more ice-skating than in any year I can remember.  We've had snow on the ground for so long that I can't remember when I last saw the ground.  We may get more ice/snow later this week.

Micah went for his kindergarten testing today.  My baby's growing up....

I've had a kid home sick a lot since Christmas and today was no exception.  1 stayed home, 1 went but ended up coming home.

Mark's follow-up appointment with Dr. D (gastroenterologist) had to be rescheduled again.  I guess that's what happens when you go to a popular doctor.  His developmental evaluation also got rescheduled due to the doctor being sick so we'll wait awhile again.  He is doing great in the Life Skills class.  I've seen such improvement since the switch.

I took these photos on Saturday...just blessed my heart looking outside and seeing the boys looking so contented...