Non-restful weekend

This was the weekend of the Overbrook City Wide Garage sales.  This might not seem like a holiday, but if you have ever lived in a small town during garage sale day, it sort of becomes almost a festival type atmosphere.  The 4-H usually has a garage sale, and they usually make a small fortune off of selling donated amazingness.  The garage sale committee chair people were Landrie and Quincy.  Of course, during the set up time, the school planned a band concert!  

Preston's 8th grade band, and Quincy's 7th grade band both sounded phenomenal.  Always impressive!  

We are sad that Mr. Jewesome is leaving though.  The kids honored him.  He is such a talented musician and such a kind soul, it is a huge loss to our program.   Hopefully he will have a lot of luck in his next endeavor.  

Friday was also the orientation day for those students who will be changing buildings next year.  Harper will go to Carbondale, Preston will go to the high school.  Neither Preston nor Harper had much to say about it.  I did get this picture from the school counselor (who happens to also be my cousin) saying she is NOT ready for this!  :)  Frankly, neither am I!

Luckily, there are a lot of good people in the 4-H club, and they covered the set up shift beautifully!  The kids all seemed to have fun during the garage sale, and the kids cleared over $1500.  I always wonder, and then we count the money and I realize all over again it is worth doing!

Plus, the kids added to their wardrobes!!

Saturday evening, Quincy informed me she is making real strides toward calming this  down.  Based on the grumpy noises I was hearing, I am not sure Quilling agrees!  

Sunday, after church, we stopped off so the kids could check on their chicks.  Some are going to be 4-H projects, some are going to be dinner!  All are pretty dang cute currently!  

Preston and I ran to Topeka to get groceries and chicken food, and he wanted to use his Wendy's gift card he got for Easter.  He was so excited about it!

Sunday night, Harper had ball practice and the girls had a cooking meeting. They made brownies and they were amazing!  I got a huge kick out of Quincy jumping in to Harper's practice and helping.  Harper has moved up a level, and now will have kid pitchers.  Who is the best person to put behind the plate when a kid is learning to pitch?  Quincy of course.  Or some other kid who doesn't care if she gets hit with a wild pitch! 

The weekend always disappears on me!

a big ole photo dump

Whew!  That is the most appropriate word I can come up with to describe this week.  We made it though by the skin of our teeth, and I am still relatively sane.  Don't be a hater - I said relatively! 

I have had my patience tried a lot this week.  Things don't always go according to my plan, and when things get off track, it makes me agitated.  There is always a bright spot though, and this little baby girl is definitely good for boosting morale!  I thank God daily for this blessing in our lives!

We have officially reached the time of the school year where classroom learning is done, the kids are done, the teachers are done and all that lays between them actually being done and summer break are a few measly days.  We also threw in the summer activities, so the kids are tired, over it, and hard to get out of bed in the morning.  I know I am not alone, mostly because I hear the kids on the bus talking about how their lives are going right now, and so that makes me feel better!  :)   Trying to keep everyone motivated to actually cross the finish line is taking some massive effort currently!

One thing that is going on, in my understanding, is that the State of Kansas has mandated that kids in public schools will participate in some sort of community service.  Each grade has taken time to do their community service this year.  I have seen kids raking leaves, fixing things around town, picking up trash, painting and numerous other projects.  I am a huge supporter of getting kids to do community service, however I am not sure how I feel about them taking educational time away to do it.  Kind of feels like with the other things they have mandated, it eats into their 'testing time.'  I just really sit on the fence on this issue.   Needless to say, no matter what my feelings are on it, the kids are meeting the challenge.  This week, the 8th grade class came over to Overbrook and helped the city with several projects.  I also had these photos sent to me by 2 different teachers.  Apparently, in addition to community service, Preston and some of his friends were feeling nostalgic and wanted to do a photo shoot.  I had to save these somewhere.  This is the place!  I will need them in a few years when they are graduating from high school!  

Preston really does have some amazingly awesome friends and classmates.  I enjoy them! 

Yesterday, Preston and Quincy had a track meet at Rossville.  I got to drive them, so I was able to catch a lot of their events.  Quincy did shot and discus.  Yesterday was the first time I got to watch her throw shot.  She did great! 

Preston did high jump, long jump and 4X400 meter relay.  I caught up with him doing high jump.  He is getting pretty good at it!  I missed his long jumping because I was clear across the track watching Quincy.  He did not place in either of those two events.  

His relay team did not have a good day, or at least not as good as usual.  Preston did pass a runner, and was right in front of me when he did, so I got a good picture of him!  It was a long day, and I think we all got sunburned.  I am glad I got to go though, because I did get to visit with an old friend, and I had a chance to watch my kids while getting paid!  Win win!

This weekend is not going to be any less crazy than the week was, so despite all of our need for some down time, it just isn't going to happen.  Hurry up summer break!

Easter 2019

We had a really fun Easter Sunday!  All of the kids were home, and although I never took my 'annual Easter Sunday, we are all cleaned up before mass picture,' I was happy that everyone could be together!  

We had a great Easter dinner, egg hunt, and kite flying day!  It was insanely windy, so the kite flying was really good!

And you see that the 20+ crowd is out there hunting eggs?  Grandma made sure to get them involved by hiding money eggs.  She knows how to motivate young adults! 

I am so thankful for days like these!  Love my people!