Teen Number Two

Caroline started the week out spending the day at our church's Winter Retreat (for 4th and 5th graders).  Her table leader, Kayla, is the girls' junior high/high school minister.  Caroline was very happy to get her and said she was not only an excellent teacher, but an ah-maaazing person to boot.  When Josiah & Henry found out Caroline had Kayla, they were quite happy and interested and wanted to know what Kayla had said about them.  She just said that Caroline had a "Cockrell" face so she knew her immediately.  Kayla told me she had been praying for Caroline through all of September so it was nice to put a face to a name.  They had teaching sessions about creation throughout the day with free time, snacks, and lunch sprinkled in-between.  During one break, Caroline tried cornhole.  She did cartwheels with another girl.  She had a very good time overall.  

Mid-week we went to dinner at Henry's friend's house.  The Richardsons wanted to have us over before we moved and we were glad to make it.  This mom enjoys cooking.  The food was quite good.  She made homemade minestrone soup as well as an authentic Italian chicken, sausage, & pasta dish.  They said we'd have to do it again soon and that sounded good to us.  Eat amazing food?  We'll be there.  We all drove up to church afterwards and the boys had a service project that evening.  They packaged rice and beans for a local ministry.  There seemed to be some shenanigans going on with the boys because in Josiah's group some kids didn't seal their Ziploc bags and the beans spilled over.    Despite emphatically asking the 'sealers' to seal properly, their problem did not abate.  

Towards the latter part of the week, Henry celebrated his 13th birthday.  Our second teenager!  It was on a CC day, so originally he said he didn't want to open his gifts until the following day.  That changed when he walked downstairs and beheld their glory.  He then found time to open them all.  Josiah gifted him Shrek socks and V-bucks.  Caroline game him a hug - an act of love that can never be forgotten. As always he was blessed with gifts from cousins and grandparents -  Lego kits and Escape games (which he cannot wait to try if we ever get a day with a little downtime!).  He got a giant mouse pad that takes up nearly his entire desk, which is just right for the gamer in him.    

For breakfast, he went hearty, and we had bacon and eggs.  Since he'd be at CC for lunch, we picked up sushi to bring along.  Henry goes for the real deal now with sushi - always picking the raw fish varieties.  

Henry had signed up to give the devotional at CC that morning.  He spoke on the Parable of the Talents - a rich man, who was going off to travel, gave one servant 5 talents, another 2, another 1.  (A talent is a year's wages.)  After some time, he came back to settle the accounts.  The first two servants had doubled their money for the rich man, the third had buried the one talent and had nothing more to show for it.  Henry encouraged everyone that no matter how much you are given, or not given, to make the most with what you've got.  

Birthday dinner was to be Olive Garden, but we are dead to the world after our CC days, so we put it off until the weekend.  When we did make it to Olive Garden, Henry did his model pose to show off his shrimp fettucine...and the cheekbone.  It's all about the cheekbone.  So then we all tried our hand at the cheekbone pose.  We were so full from the salad and breadsticks, that we took most of our food home.  Our waiter asked why we were tapping out so early.

Birthday dessert was the tuxedo chocolate mousse cake.  Costco can make a mean mousse cake.

Henry spent his free time on Friday and Saturday putting together his big Lego kit.  This time he got the Bookstore to add to his Cityscape.  He also got a coffee shop that he plans to work on this week.  

The Legoing was taking longer because of the verbing this weekend.  He went to a Latin Verb Workshop for a good bit of the day on Saturday.  The first part of it was mostly review for him, so he wasn't sure he should have gone, but the second half gave him some good information about how to find the verb parts and endings and how to conjugate them.  

While Henry was verbing, Josiah was cheering on his friends at their last basketball game.  This was against the same team where the fight broke out a few weeks back.  Since that time, the coach and several kids got kicked out of the league because of the fight.  Their team had the minimum number of players and Josiah's friends were able to score a big win against them.  With the playoff games on weeknights, Josiah's cheering days may be coming to an end.  

At CC, Caroline's class learned about Roy Lichtenstein and painted in the pop art style.  She chose Brad Ward, which is her go-to name this year.  'Brad' came from the brads they used to put their body parts together last semester.  'Ward' came from a YouTuber video.  

We finished out our weekend with Caring for Katy.  This is the one weekend each year that our church closes and they go into the community to do service projects.  This year, our group was at the Neighborhood Kidz Club.  We were here in 2018 because I have a picture of little Caroline standing at table height.  This time around Josiah, Caroline, and I brushed weatherproofing paint on an outside stairwell.  Henry, who barely let me put the car in park, ran out to his group of friends.  His LifeGroup friends were there, so he had a great time doing landscaping work with them.  Every time they needed the wheelbarrow, there would inevitably be a boy in it on the way to get more dirt.  When we finished painting, we also did some weeding and mulching.  Josiah planted 3 shrubs and he and Caroline both planted little flowers.  We finished out our time preparing snack bags for the ministry there.  16 animal crackers per bag.  Quite a few made it into the kids' mouths as well.  Except Caroline.  She doesn't like animal crackers.

Since Caring for Katy always incites me to get my own yard in order, we came home and mowed, edged, blew, and raked our front yard.  By the end, we were quite tired.  

Benson has spent hours upon hours outside this week.  The weather has been amazing.  The only thing he wants to do is hang out in the backyard.  Our usual tactics for getting him inside have not been working.  He just looks at us like, Yeah, not coming in right now, thanks for asking.  

So starts another week.  All three kids are halfway done with the CC semester, so time has been flying by.  We need time on our side, too, because I have packed only one box.  I didn't even finish it - it's unsealed because I'm sure I can find something else to fit in it.