A Few Bits and Pieces

I told myself I'd take a break and get caught up on other things (like finishing the Wyoming trip photo book from last year), but while I'm here on the blog anyway . . .

Gabby enjoyed her first day of work; she said her trainer was pretty cool (even let her carry some pens across the room to the other desk all by herself :) She said she didn't get lost once (ha!) and everything went well. Brennen's first question when she arrived home, "Did you get fired?" Lol. Nope, and the next day Caelan taught the entire time and Gabby was left to figure out her new job solo! She was EXHAUSTED afterwards, but very excited to open her very own first checking account for those paychecks which will start rolling in the middle of next month. In fact, the girls worked an extra day this week due to short staffing. So cool that they can do this together and for a business we love to support!



Caelan continues to work on modifying her choir dress; Natasha continues to earn her floor space in our home :)




Brennen found a surprising selection of shoes at Target . . .





And we had fun gifting the K kids with fishin' poles and foam play mat tiles. Love how the boys immediately turned an empty box in the hallway into a fishing boat for two. Pure imagination!!

Artastic

Today I finished up the extraordinarily long process of getting all the schoolwork sorted, filed, graded, and recorded into the computer. Yay, third quarter! (Whew!) But, while I was at it, I asked the kids to clean out their art bag. We still try to get to art lessons at least a couple of times each month, though our regular weekly attendance has become a thing of the past. I discovered, they've been making some bright, colorful, and sometimes funny watercolor pieces of art, so I thought I'd share a selection . . . an online gallery if you will . . .

Caelan






Gabby





Brennen







Graysen





(I'm told there might be some controversy as to the identity of the artist who painted the family portrait--I'm going off of whose pile it was in after I specifically asked them to organize their art by artist . . . so if this is actually Gabby's instead of Brennen's as Caelan suggests, well, we'll just have to see the results when they read this blog post later :)

A Gala Event

Hey look, it's us with our new good friends! A couple weeks ago, we received a text inviting us to "the gala." This text was quickly followed by another text, from the above pictured, saying, "Pastor D told us to text you and pressure you guys into saying yes, you're coming right???!!" Ha!

The purpose of this annual gala is to raise money for a children's village in Rwanda that our church closely partners with, in fact, a couple in our church founded it not so many years ago. They saw the conditions of the orphanages, they saw the hunger and abuse of the children there, and decided they would try to do something for the estimated 6,000 orphan children in this country alone.

Many people in our church have personal relationships with kids who they sponsor, many others have visited these kids and have fallen in love with everything about this ministry. We heard, last night, from a young man whose parents were one of each tribe--that soon went to war against each other. He experienced the genocide, and it was horrific. But he found hope in Jesus through the efforts of this new "family." He's a college student in the United States now, his main goal is to help the birth family who rejected him. Powerful!

The evening began with Buck at work and me trying to figure out the timing for getting "fancy." I feel like the self-hairstyling efforts looked better in person than in photos, but here is my dramatic piano-teacher from France look, hee hee :)


I arranged for a friend to meet at our house and for our pastor and his wife to pick the two of us up, so we could ride to the event together. Our kids were so excited to see the fancy that they were standing by the windows just hoping for a glimpse of dresses. When Pastor D stepped out of the car to open the doors for us, he got a collective, "OOOooh, a suit!" Ha! (We teach in jeans at our church :)

We arrived super early (sometimes I'm too good of an organizer :) and looked through the items for silent auction. Now this was a $100/plate event. Our church had purchased a table that needed to be filled with guests, hence our invite. The silent auction items were fantastic, but not in the budget giving or otherwise, right now. I was excited to later learn that the centerpieces, which at the base were beautifully woven Rwandan baskets, were available for purchase (you'll see mine at the end of this post--my new good friend said it was the prettiest one there; we looked pretty silly touring all the dinner tables checking out their centerpieces for buying options :)

Buck arrived, looking handsome and dapper. He got several compliments from the other guys on his stylishness--especially the vest. I have to say, he was the best looking guy a the whole event! It was good to see him laughing and having fun, because it has been a really (really) rough week being back to work fulltime and not having his time off requests (for church, youth group, etc.) honored at all. Okay, I'm not going to dwell on that though, because he had a good night at the gala :)

It really was fun to compare dresses and hairstyle accomplishments and woes leading up to the gala with the other ladies. It was really fun to see all of our usual mom crowd looking so elegant and glamorous for an evening! We had a great time taking pictures and talking about how unusual it was to be dressed up and out with friends. Quite the celebration!




Many of these pictures I borrowed from facebook, so I can't make them too big without them getting pixelly, but you get the idea--we took a lot of pictures :)




The husband of a photographer is well-coached in taking photos of ladies from flattering angles. Poor Pastor D went in at shoulder height and got reprimanded by every woman in the line up, lol!



After the interview and reveal of the new logo, everyone was invited to walk through a (recreation) Rwandan street and take yet another photo. We ended up at the dinner tables, practically shoulder-to-shoulder and with solidarity swearing off of Keto for the evening. You can't imagine how funny it was to see adults eating fluffy, white bread for the first time in months--almost everyone at the table is avoiding bread for some reason or another. Buck misses it most of all. Pastor D even went to another table and begged a second roll so Buck could continue enjoying the white bread experience :) 







And if you think we were excited for bread, you should have seen everyone bouncing in their chairs like kindergartners when dessert was announced! Ice cream with citrus caramel sauce and donuts--there was so much sugar you could feel it crunch between your teeth. 

I sincerely hope that the event raised an incredible amount of money for the future plans in Rwanda--which include foster homes, a larger school, and even a church plant! We hope to go visit in person in the coming year or two, so we can be a part of the beautiful story being woven between our country and theirs. It was a very unique (that's an inside joke :) opportunity to see what God's doing to heal a long hurt, while at the same time fellowshipping and enjoying the company of our friends. God is good! 



Before I go, it was really cool that our Crew was encouraging and excited about Buck and I attending this fancy gala. They were helpful in selecting outfits and accessories and hair style options. They kept the laundry moving while we were gone, made themselves dinner, and the house looked good when we got home. It is such a huge blessing that they are responsible enough for us to on a very rare occasion attend something so lengthy as this event. And they were excited to see us when we returned home, exhausted, but grateful :)

Exciting Karate Update

So the kids' karate instructor messaged me earlier this week and said, "I need to talk to you guys." I responded that we were on our way to lessons, and we'd see him soon. It turns out, they are in major need of both teaching and front desk help. They were hoping Caelan could get out on the mat and help teach full classes, but she needed to be in the Leadership program (which is an extra monthly, uniform, and weapons expense). She's wanted to be in Leadership FOREVER--years, but it was so not in the budget. But God, in His awesome way, worked it out that Caelan is now officially promoted to the Leadership program and is already teaching classes, filling a need for the karate school and not affecting our budget--at all.

Caelan's first Leadership training class

Even cooler, because she's now teaching, that leaves an opening for the front desk job she's been taking care of for the past nine months or so at the karate school. That means that Gabby now has her official first job! W-2's and everything! Because they are doing separate tasks, the girls can even work the SAME hours (can I get a hallelujah?!) which doesn't affect our super full schedule in any way at all. 

We are so grateful--first that the girls have the kind of personalities and work ethic that their karate school finds so valuable that they can be offered something like this, and second that their assistance is worth the generous kindness of the school owners to make it happen. Such great experience for both girls!

Gabby filling out her first employment paperwork!

And on top of that, although a sad event brought it about, Caelan has also been promoted to full time patch sew-er-on-er for the entire school (because the older woman who did this before passed away suddenly).

Such a whirlwind of unexpected blessings for the girls; we're all pretty excited for them :)

Don't Hem Me In

I wonder where that expression comes from? Perhaps a seamstress whose neck ached from bending over a tiny needle trying to make a seam invisible on a fancy pair of dress pants from the discount clearance store? Maybe. That was my experience, ha!



1. Step one--buy unhemmed pants that are approximately six inches too long, compare with current dress pant collection length, pin. Have husband try on said pants, pin again.

2. Watch youtube video and read 12-step process for hemming a man's dress pant "professionally."

3. Match the thread and do something like this on the inside of the pant leg . . .



. . . which ends up looking something like THIS on the outside of the pant leg . . .



. . . which for sure isn't going to look right (because the "seamstress" was too worried about cutting the finished unfinished edge to actually remove any fabric, so this very non-invisible line would hit at mid calf range, instead of at the typical cuff elevation--not ideal).

4. Step four--take out everything you've done and start over, this time catching the "one or two threads" on the box pattern of the pant fabric in hopes that it will be more invisible-r (that's a word if I hyphenate it :)



. . . which ends up looking like this on the outside . . .



. . . which I think is better. We'll see at the gala if the lighting works for unprofessionally tailored pants to not be too noticeable :) And the good news is, if Buck has a growth spurt, I'll still be able to let these pants out and he can keep wearing them until he's approximately 6 feet 7 inches tall! :)

Cardboard Artillery

This kid amazes me with his ability to shape cardboard into toys! Some of these have moving/working parts, like pump action and actual catapult power. I wonder how God will use this construction interest and ability in his future?

Visitors

When you have chickens, and friends, and a convenient place to stop on a long road trip--you get visitors! :) The day after we gained three new chicks (our baby chick count is seven, BTW, which matches our outside chicken count), my friend from church and her three kiddos came to have a legit homeschool field trip to the farm (okay, maybe not totally legit, but not bad for preschool :)



Graysen is quite the chicken tourism conductor--he released the outdoor chickens so the kids (after meeting, holding, and petting the indoor chicks) could see the birds in action. He also caught a big chicken for the kids to meet. He even helped the kids gather eggs (since he forgot to the day before). I'd say overall, it was a very successful chicken outing :) The little guy kept shouting, "CHICKEN!!!!" and then giggling wildly. It was pretty awesome :)



Fast forward two days, and G$ was giving another farm tour to my college friend's two- and three-year-olds. They arrived last night on their first family road trip to visit family, and thankfully for us, friends, along the way. We've hosted Brad and Adrienne once before, shortly after they were married. Adrienne and I were in college Bible study together, so we've been friends a long time! They work with athletes in the mountains, so it was fun to catch up on the work they're doing and the plans they have moving forward--and to meet their babies! Their little boy talked in whispers, so everything seemed extra secretive and dramatic. The two would hold hands when they were unsure of something (like a giant, furry dog or a group of unfamiliar faces smiling at them :)




Graysen quickly became their buddy, he even helped with putting on shoes duty :)





It was a short visit, but we enjoyed breakfast together and then headed to see the model trains (their son's greatest love right now) at the mall. Adrienne and I had a few extra minutes to talk while little Miss B explored the children's play area. Hopefully it won't be another five years before our families connect again!

I arrived home to find the two big kids still playing with the Winnie the Pooh blocks we'd pulled from storage for our mini guests. Piglet had just arrived on a mule cart with important news for the king, so it was a pretty dramatic moment. Their castle was quite a bit more structurally sound and had more impressive color coordination and decorative appeal than their work a decade ago. And much like toddlers they were so enthusiastic in their play, I couldn't get a good picture of them sitting still! Ha!