Around Here Week 38: 09/14-20

 A glimpse into what it is like to live in our home just this moment. 

selfie cred: Aunt Kitty

photo cred: Stacy B

photo cred: Michael O'Ship

photo cred: Michael O'Ship

photo cred: Stacy B

photo cred: Jenn V

Intentional Outdoor Hours: 496+ hours (of 1000)
The babies and I took Osa for a little walk and did some acorn hunting. The kids found and wanted to carry home 100+ acorns (of course) so all our shirts and pockets were full by the time we made it back! The leaves are all changing and with no rain for so many weeks, I'm actually getting a little worried that fall is going to zip right on by before we even get to October!?!

Reading and finishing Listen to your Heart by Kacie West. It was cute (YA) and I was glad to read it and tell Gemma about it since she bought it for me for my birthday. I took it in to my classroom library in case I have students who would like to read it. I started Carrie Soto is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid and I'm already loving it. 

Listening to Story of my Life by Lucy Score and enjoying dinner with the book club at El Jalisco this week. I didn't finish the book yet by the meeting but we were still able to do quite a bit of chatting about this book and other books too. Grateful to have an adult night out and I am still going to finish the book even though the meeting has come and gone! 

First week of Sunday school. Gemma is in her second year of confirmation classes (she will be confirmed in the spring!) and the other four youngest are all in their grade level classes. Thank you to all the wonderful teachers and mentors at St. Davids - we are so blessed to have you. 

Moving the goat house and cleaning out the pasture on Sunday. Brandon, Pappy, Grey, and Rusty spent most of Sunday down at the farm cleaning, clearing, and moving stuff. It needed done in a pretty serious way and I know B is relieved to have it done. Osa spent some time at the house while they worked on the farm, so I got her brushed and took her for a nice long walk. She got to get introduced to the kitties and it went well so far - although the kitties are still a little hesitant around her because he does still have a lot of pup in her (she'll be 3 years old in October). 

Getting small sparks of joy from using nail stickers that are fall themed. The stickers only last about 5 days, but for those few days I really feel like a fancy, festive girl with my nails.  It's the little things, hah! 

Haircuts from Lamont for all the fellas. Always grateful to see and hang out with Mont and have all my guys looking fresh and handsome afterwards! 

Sneaking in some one-on-one time with Gemma after dark when we went over to the school to practice her big kick. I pulled the car up close enough to shine the headlights on the net and she practiced her big kick (thank you Coach Mowry for teaching her) and I filmed so she could see how it looked. We only stayed for about 40 minutes, but it was nice to just be the two of us. 

School Picture day for everyone this week! Even me! 

An orthodontist check up for Rusty to see how that tooth is moving up there. In December, he had two teeth removed (an extra tooth had grown and was stopping his adult front tooth from coming down). The x-ray at this appointment showed that his adult tooth is making progress albeit awfully slow process. Rust still has a lot of baby teeth, so the ortho said as long we are good with it, it needs some more time. He is confident that it will come down the whole way on it's own. So yay for the good appointment, but holy cow - we are all anxious for this front tooth to finally make an appearance!

An early birthday sleepover with Aunt Kitty for Violet. They went to the JH girls volleyball game and then spent the evening together at Aunt Kitty's house doing all of Violet's favorite activities (like face masks and nails and art'ing) but Violet's favorite activity of all is one-on-one time (especially with Aunt Kitty) so it was basically the greatest thing ever. She got to school on time in the morning and it was the perfect start to Violet's birthday celebrations!  

Astonished on Saturday when we discovered four little chickies! Those roosters left their legacy before they departed because unbeknownest to us - one of the hens had been sitting on eggs for the past three weeks in the second goat pasture! When the boys were clearing out the main pasture on Saturday, they heard a hen in the second pasture squawking when the goats went in there. They didn't think much of it because then the goats just kept away from her...and then on Saturday, up through the fence comes a momma hen and four little chickies! What a good momma taking care of those eggs all those days and nights! There are so many predators at our house though (Osa!! fox, hawks, our kitties, etc) that we moved the four babies into the brooder in the basement to keep them safe until they grow big enough to be moved into the coop. 

Day date with B when just the two of us drove out to Bedford to pick up our bulk order of chicken and beef from Fisher's Country Store. We stopped and had lunch at Horn O'Plenty in Bedford and then picked up 80 lbs of chicken breast and 40 lbs of ground beef! That also meant coming home and cutting up and separating all the beef into 2lb freezer bags for future meals. All the kids helped packing and carrying to the deep freezer. The bags of chicken looked freezable, so we put them right into the freezer...but we learned the hard way that we should have separated them because they have frozen so solid which makes prepping meals really difficult. Ugh. I hate learning lessons the hard way, but alas - here we are. 

Time with friends and family. Violet had a playdate with Giada at our house. Grey worked as "security" detail at a little girl's birthday party with Gabe! Pappy came over to continue work on the retaining wall and have dinner with us on Sunday. I got to visit with Kate who stopped by to catch Gemma's soccer game in Altoona (thank you! love you!!) 

Most weeks I honestly feel like I am living in a dystopian novel but that has historical relevance and scarily familiar parallels. Please, read books. literally any book. 

Teaching during Homecoming week at my school. At the elementary school we learned about our first country (Venezuela) and added details like Angel Falls and the vaqueros of Los Llanos into our pasaportes. Spanish Expo worked on their geography week and Spanish 1 learned how to conjugate SER and worked on sentences and adjective agreements. Spanish 2 got restaurant vocab and started watching the movie Canela (that movie is a hit every year!) On Friday, I utilized the JH student council babysitting offer on our early dismissal at school. Red and Olive had a great time playing in the gym and enjoying snackies donated by the parents (we brought fruit snacks) while I finished out my time without students. The kids have already asked when the next "babysitting day" is again!

Sporting with three Minors football practices for Rusty. Violet had two soccer practices, one cheer practice, and watergirl'ed for the Varsity football game. Gemma had two soccer practices and two JH soccer games and she asst trained at the Varsity football game. Grey had an open gym for basketball, Varsity football team dinner and film, four practices, and a game on Friday at Portage. We put in the order for Grey's Letterman jacket this week (!!) and I attended the football booster meeting. 

Making crockpot pork chops over mashed potatoes, homemade crunchwrap supremes, burgers with Pappy while I was at book club, chicken teriyaki rice bowls, copycat Olive Garden chicken over pasta, and Philly cheesesteak sammies. I made a double batch of pumpkin chocolate chip cookies too. 

Around Here Week 37: 09/07-13

 A glimpse into what it is like to live in our home just this moment. 

selfie cred: Gemma

photo cred: Stacy B

photo cred: Stacy B

Intentional Outdoor Hours: 483+ hours (of 1000)
Lots of time on the sidelines this week at fall sports games and the weather continues to be beautiful (although we could actually use some rain. It literally has not rained in months?!) On Saturday night, our whole family - even the two kitties came with us!- took a flashlight hike on the "treestand" path after dark. We laughed and tried to scare each other and were spooked by the kitties darting out from the tree line the whole time. Reddy tried to run as fast as he could on all fours and Grey and Brandon recounted stories that were a little bit spooky walking into the woods before dawn to get to tree stands. Olive reached up and held my hand and said, "We have a great family" and I said, "we do, huh, baby?" And for that little walk, I was really in the present (which is so terribly, humiliatingly rare for me). I am so very grateful for this big family of weirdos that go along with their momma's ideas like flashlight walks in our jammies. 

Reading Listen to your Heart by Kacie West. Very cute.

Listening to Story of my Life by Lucy Score. Classic Lucy Score which is bringing me laughs and joy. It is a good pickmeup - she is good at writing those small town grumpy yet kindhearted men that become everyone's next book boyfriends. 

Shocked that the babies slept for 13 hours on Monday. They fell asleep on the ride home after Gemma's soccer game and continued to sleep the whole way until the morning! I tried to wake them up multiple times to eat or get changed, but they were not having it. So we got them changed for bed and let them sleep until the morning. They were starving in the morning (hhaha) and they ate breakfast in the car on the way and then said that they ate school breakfast too! I'm very glad they caught up on some sleep - poor things still adjusting to our new routines (me too!)

Actually everyone is operating at pretty much half-asleep this week. Gemma fell asleep on the sidelines of the youth games on Saturday - like zonked. I went an entire day with two completely different earrings in and not one person said anything until Gemma around 5:30p at the end of her soccer game gave me a hug and said, "Why do you have two earrings in?" 

Helping Violet get her elementary student council stuff finished for the upcoming election. She finished her proposal, got her signatures, and finished her posters for the hallway this week. She did a great job and she got selected on Friday as a student council member. Another thing to her plate this year (my little busy bee). This year in fifth grade - she plays the flute, is a member of student council, is on reading competition, is on the scrabble team, cheers for the Majors football team, will play youth basketball, plays on Sparks soccer (indoor Dec-March) and travel (March-June), and will play AYSO U12 soccer. And then she will be promoted to the sixth grade at the end of the year and will go up to the big school next year which honestly feels so jarring to me that I cannot yet think about that. Not my Violet yet; it cannot be that she will be in middle school next year.  

Retaining wall project got started this week. Pappy spent some of the school days at our house digging away the rotted and old railroad ties of our retaining wall. The kids are thrilled to have a dirt hill to 'slide down.' The project doesn't really have an end date or even completion ideas yet - but since we had the digger borrowed from cousin Butter, it was go time! Thank you Pappy! 

3 roosters were culled from the flock this week - thank goodness. They had started to chase and scare Olive when she went down to get the eggs and one even chased Violet up through the yard. They have been terrorizing us with the crowing (at all hours of the day and night) and they have been hanging out on the back porch and stealing Bullet's food and water. Enough was enough and my wonderfully good husband took care of the situation (thank you, B). I swear you could see relief on the hens faces. hah! We did discover later this week that we have a teenage rooster yet (good grief?!) He's not annoying yet and maybe it will be good to have him around? Time will tell - he lives to see another day. 

Laughing because Olive is a real hoot these days and she says the most hilarious stuff. We read The Three Little Pigs recently so at random times she says things like, "Those bees are going to sting in you in your chinny chin chin." She also busts out in ballads from Zombies 4 with full facial expressions at random moments. 

Attending Rusty and Violet's open house at the elementary school this week. B was like - do you have to go? you've been so many times?! and I told him my rationale for going (even though I'm exhausted and would so much rather stay home and prep for the next school day) is yes, I have been to the fifth grade open house twice now, but never because it was Violet in fifth grade. And I've been to the third grade one three times now, but never because it was Rusty in third grade. So I keep my work clothes on for a full 14+ hour day and see their writing and artwork in the hallways and listen to their teachers give the overview like I've never heard it before (xxox love you educators!) and the kids feel proud and glad that I was there. 

Visiting my friend Renee's new location for her book store Laurel & Leaf. Her new store is beautiful - she spent most of the summer renovating and designing the space. It is so open and bright and everything a bookstore of my dreams looks like. Gosh, I am so proud and thankful to know her. Red and Olive were thrilled to stop by - all my kids love going to Ms Renees bookshop!. The babies picked out slime and I picked out Carrie Soto is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid.

Saying thank you to first responders as is our tradition on Sept. 11. My classrooms all wrote thank you cards for our school resource officers. The kids took thank you cards to their resource officers too. Violet had to interview someone about their memories of 9/11/01 and she got to interview our neighbor and former state police officer Mr. Buncich who was one of the actual first responders to the Flight 93 crash (only a few miles from where we live). She got to hear about his day and see photos that he has. What a gift it is to know and love so many first responders who choose to be brave everyday. 

So sad we live in a time of awful violence. I was disheartened to hear that before Grey even got home from school he had seen the video of a murder online. I gave him a hug and said, "Please don't watch that. You don't need to watch the video." and he kind of laughed it off and was like, "It's not a big deal." and that's exactly the thing....it IS a big deal to watch someone be killed. It is actually and to have it run again and again and again does something to our humanity. I know, because I refuse to look away at the devastation that is happening to the Palestinian people. It harms my well being (I know it does!) but I will not look away, I will be a witness and I will continue to hold them in my heart and speak out for them despite being one tiny person. 

Teaching for the first full five day week and we made it (although everyone was a little tired by the end of it). My elementary students went over beginning of year procedures, we signed thank you cards for our resource officers in honor of Sept.11, and we made some pasaportes to prepare for our year learning about Spanish speaking countries. Spanish Expo started the geography week and Spanish 1 continued practicing colors, days of the week, and took their first vocabulary test. Spanish 2 practiced their food vocab and target structures through writing, reading, and unscrambling post-its. For mental health Thursday, we did a little exercise where the kids wrote down any worries they were carrying (after the awful week of violent news) and then also wrote post-its about how they find peace when they are worried: going outside, spending time with friends, playing their sport, listening to music, etc. 

Sporting with three Minors football practices for Rusty and then his first game (he played tight end, cornerback, and QB2). Violet had one cheer practice, two soccer practices, cheered at the Majors football game on Saturday, and watergirl'ed at the Varsity football game on Friday. Gemma had three soccer practices and two JH soccer games, and asst trained at the Varsity football game. Grey got another sports massage and cupping from Miss Emma of Peak Performance Therapy. Grey and Coach Daddy had team dinner and film, four football practices, and a home game on Friday night vs. United Valley. I reminded soccer families about our fundraiser as team mom, got our youth league fundraiser sold and turned in, (thank you family and friends who purchase fundraiser tickets from us every season - we appreciate you!) and I made Team Dinner on Sunday for the Varsity football team and coaches.

Making kielbasa and tortellini on the Blackstone, bbq chicken sammies, sheet pan chicken fajitas, pork roast with gravy over egg noodles, take out pizza, spaghetti with meat sauce, and smash burgers. For team dinner on Sunday: I made12lbs of sloppy joe meat (no leftovers!!!), baked beans, corn on the cob, watermelon, pasta salad (my mom made a giant 4 lbs of pasta bowl - thank you Abba!), cowboy cookies, mini zucchini bread loaves, and strawberry shortcake sheet cake. The vibe I was going for was the last picnic of the summer! For dessert at home, I made another sheet pan strawberry shortcake because everyone is obsessed and was mad they didn't get any from team dinner.