A week in Review

Since I haven't posted in a week, and don't have any one specific thing to write about right now, I thought I'd just go over this past week of events and fill you in. It hasn't been a real busy, crazy week, but neither has it been uneventful....are there ever any uneventful weeks at our house? I think not! =)

Tuesday was the busiest day for me by far. I had several errands to run in Hot Springs in the morning - mostly banking items on behalf of both Chad and Kendrick, as well as Matthew. While I did that, Monica handled things here at home, including doing her school work, supervising Logan's school work, and keeping an eye on Alana and Jesse. Zach went to work with Matthew that day. Right after lunch we had to go to Rapid City and run several errands up there. Thanks again for the Lord's provision and being able to purchase some necessary items=) The main reason for our trip was a dentist appointment for Monica which was the last thing on our to do list. I sat in the truck with the little 3 while we waited for her....I watched the time tick by....30 minutes was what I was hoping for, 40 creeped by, 45, 50, 55! Finally we were able to head home! I pulled in the drive way at about 6:10, rushed to get the kids and groceries out of the truck, said "Hi" and "Bye" to Matthew, and left at about 6:20 on the 15 minute trip BACK into town for my 6:30 ladies Bible study.....AHH! I realize many of you have days like this all the time, but it just seems to take longer to do everything the higher quota of car seats you have in your vehicle!

Here are some leftover face-painting pictures from last Monday....

Wednesday was April Fool's Day...a big event at the Chamberland household. Honestly - it was a little annoying. I received several in-house phone calls that each time I would answer a certain blond teenager would burst out into hilarious laughter, I received a note saying a certain other teenager had run away and then heard pre-recorded cries for help coming from a hidden speaker in the pantry....A certain 6-year old played a prank on his father when he replaced the last of the milk in the jug with water...sigh...I'm glad 04-01-09 is behind us=) That evening was also church and since Matthew got home late from work and Alana was still sick that day, we stayed home from prayer meeting and sent the pranksters in to AWANA. We had a nice relaxing evening just the 4 of us and even had nice enough weather to go out for a walk.

And this face just seemed to go with the April Fools theme....
Thursday was one of those days that you use to recover from earlier on in the week. Alana was finally better and I had no need to go anywhere so I stayed home and pretended to get caught up on chores, laundry, etc. I think the biggest accomplishment was making a batch of homemade rolls to have for sloppy joes that evening - they were sooo good! No, wait! That wasn't the biggest accomplishment of the day....Matthew and I were collecting all the things we needed to have with us for a meeting I was going to have this week with a very willing, while very busy, Holly Friesen. She is a missionary in our church who is here finishing up her Nurse Practitioner degree while raising the rest of her support to go to the Ukraine. She had agreed to help us on our long quest for a prayer card. A while ago Tarin, my friend in Custer, took some GREAT pictures of our family. She really knows what she's doing with her camera and we had some beautiful shots....the down side was we had 7 people which greatly diminishes your chances of getting them ALL looking in the right direction and making the right face all at the right time! But I'm rambling - what I was going to say is Matthew found a program and was able to figure out lots of things and actually come up with some that we were both pleased with! SO, we actually have a prayer card pretty much ready to be printed! I will post more on that at another time.

Friday Monica and I were the ones with the busy schedule. Matthew, thankfully, was able to stay home for a while in the morning while she and I headed into town. We each had to get our licenses updated. She was at the point of being able to go from her 'restricted' one to a regular 'under 21' license. All she had to do was take the vision test and she was done, which she was able to pass without her glasses as her vision has improved over the past year! Mine, on the other hand, was a bit more interesting=) Several weeks ago Matthew was stopped and given a ticket for an expired license...I admit, I gloated a bit since I'd actually reminded him earlier on in the year that his expired on his birthday (last January 19th) but he hadn't checked it. Well, if I was a betting woman, I would have bet big $ on the fact that mine expired on my birthday later this year in November. I was wrong! As it turns our mine was exactly 5 months overdue which meant I had to re-take the written test....thankfully, I passed=)

And here's Monica with another one of her recent accomplishments....

Saturday we woke up to a blizzard and an early morning phone call - my favorite! The people in charge of the ACT testing called to say that the test had been canceled. Monica was scheduled for it a while ago and I was preparing to post something about it on that day, but I think it will take place next week - I'm sure she'd appreciate your prayers! And now back to the weather. It was really cold and really windy which made for a loooong day inside. We were all going a little stir crazy by lunchtime and kept scolding ourselves over and over for being such wimps after one day of being stuck inside. We played games, watched a movie (The Railway Children) all together, I made cookies, some of the kids did crafts, and the day dragged on....Surprisingly, the ones that seemed the least affected were the youngest two that are used to days on end with the same routine of being here at home and entertaining themselves. It was the older 2 boys that were chomping at the bit! Finally, late afternoon the winds settled a bit and Zach convinced Logan to go outside. They actually had lots of fun in the huge drifts and came in every once in a while for a warm drink, only to head back out again! Alana, who is quite adept at entertaining herself, found a warmer activity - reading the phone book....=) She actually did this and sang along, as well.
Sunday was quite different than our usual ones. We left the house shortly after 8 am and returned eight hours later just after 4 pm - the kids were absolutely wiped out. We had the regular morning services, followed by a potluck, followed by a follow up meeting to a church assessment that has been taking place over the last few weeks (just for us all to have a bit of a gauge as to where we are at as a church body), and then I had choir practice for next Easter Sunday. Monica watched several kids during the meeting and, for a change, she said that our youngest three were the best behaved of all=) That makes my mother's heart smile...and sigh in relief! Once we finally got home we enjoyed a lazy evening together and then sent the youngest three to bed early while Monica went back into town for youth group and Zach stayed up late and watched a movie with Daddy. And thus the week started all over again....

And for those of you who hung in this long to read my ramblings, I'll share a great story of what has happened so far today. Jesse was in the chair at the breakfast table and he put his foot down between the seat and the back of the chair and I COULD NOT get it out. He started to cry and get a little panicky...any time I'd move it or try and pull it out he'd really cry, like it hurt quite a bit. So, finally I called Matthew, who fortunately is at work here in Buffalo Gap, and he came home. After unscrewing the padded seat bottom and removing that from the chair his foot slid right out! He was so happy - he stood right at his Daddy's side as the chair was put back together. Finally he just hugged his leg, looked up at him, and said "You're my friend, Daddy!"