Around Here Week 8: 02/21-27

Monday, March 8, 2021

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























Intentional Outdoor Hours: 3+ hours (of 1000)
I finally scored some solid outdoor time this week when after so much winter, we had a few days that perked up (Wednesday was in the 50s!) B and I took the kids and dogs on a long walk on Saturday and we shrugged off the mud puddle jumping and fake animal printing in the snow with no gloves. We all needed to get out of the house so badly! 

Reading and finishing Charming as a Verb by Ben Philippe. It was a really sweet story and had only one part that my students and I were like - whhhhhhhyyyyy?! After I finished, I started reading our second Project Lit book, Like a Love Story by Abdi Nazemian

Singing happy birthday to our birthday neighbors; Gem and Pappy on Sunday. (their birthdays are back to back). Gigi and Pap stopped on Sunday to drop off Gemma's birthday gift - a dirt bike and helmet! and we got to sing to the two of them like has been tradition for the past nine years. 

Having a family dinner at the dining room table full of laughter, smiles, and silliness. It was wonderful and reminded me of this youtube video and made me so grateful for this life and this moment with these babes of ours.

Hearing baby girl's heartbeat which always sounds beautiful at our 27 week appointment. We have made it to the two week appointment mark, which definitely feels crazy that we are making it through this pregnancy so quickly. Don't get me wrong - the heartburn rarely lets me forget (hah), but I've found if I don't eat after 6p, the heartburn is okay. Also, ice cream doesn't give me heartburn - so there's that. LOL. 

Proud of Violet who is really plowing through school and learning with confidence and enthusiasm. Her reading has been incredible and she has been so good about getting her homework done and staying organized.

Confirming that Rust has aged out of free services from the state for speech and instead of paying for a speech therapist, I've been doing some research to do some practicing on our own at home. I found a great youtube channel (Peachie Speechie) that we started with one of his biggest struggles: beginning s-blend sounds. We watched the videos and he loved how we all were cheering him on and the hand motions help him really focus on the sounds. He is doing great on most of the s-blend starters, except /sw/ and /sl/ which are the hardest for him. We still have a long way to go, and I'm trying to take notes on all the sounds he skips out on (his main problem, he just skips on letter sounds in words). He also can't do /f/ or /v/ and occasionally drops ending sounds too.  We will get there Rustman! (not going to lie though, it will be a little sad to lose those "Rusty words" like leap (sleep), and dyelet (violet). 

Agreeing to a "mental health day" for Grey on Friday so he could go to Yellowcreek with B and Uncle Jonny for fishing. Grey came home from baseball practice on Thursday night all like, "hi mom, how are you? do you need anything? did you see I got my study island all done? can I make you a cup of tea?" and I was like...."Grey - what do you want?" HAH. He has been working hard in school and helping more with normal chores around the house and there's nothing better for his soul and brain and heart than a day on the creek fishing - so it was an easy yes. (but don't tell him that). 

Stressing about the delayed delivery of our junior class/prom fundraiser cookie dough! It had three days of delays and now it's scheduled to arrive on Monday instead (fingers crossed?!) But it's been several days of rescheduling and sending out communications to parents and staff to organize the huge order we have coming in. 

Celebrating a former basketball player of Brandon's who had his senior night this week at CV. B was so touched that Aiden called to ask if he would attend his senior night basketball game on one of his extra tickets and Grey was so pumped to get to come too (as he always looked up to him when he was just a little kid for Coach Daddy back at the start of Aiden's career). Congrats Aiden - we are so proud of you!

Getting a couple hugs in with our sweetest, cutest besties Tessa and Tristan when Uncle Jonny brought them in to see Grey's basketball game on Saturday. The kids were so happy to see them and have been nonstop asking since then when we will get to see them again!

Missing Grey as he had another sleepover this weekend! This time he stayed at his cousin Caleb's house (thank you Heather!) Between sports and fishing and sleepover requests, I feel like I never see this kid! Ugh, he's growing up and I'm the one having growing pains (waaaah)

Getting a hair cut and thinning out for Gem. She is like me (in so many ways) that once her hair gets to a certain length; all we do is pull it in a ponytail. Her hair is so thick too that it is a relief to get it thinned at her trim appointments. She got about 4 inches taken off and she loves it - it looks adorable. Thank you Mandy! 

Hauling in the mini playground for Red. Brandon has been rolling his eyes about my request to bring it in from the goat pasture (where it was snow covered and iced in for the past few weeks) but it was loose enough on Saturday that we got it cleaned up and brought into the living room. Red was overjoyed and screams in happily when he stands on the platform like he's the captain of a ship. He is working on going down the slide (took a couple headers though) and all the kids actually love this darn thing - they do front flips over the slide arch. We bought this mini playground for Greyson's first birthday (almost 11 years ago!) and it has been so beloved and used over the years - even as they are waaaaay to grown for it; and even our goat 'kids' have used it! Well worth the money and it has held up! 

Winter sporting with playoffs and the championship game for Gemma's basketball team! They worked really hard to win their playoff game and then lost in the 'ship to a really strong (and tall!) team. It was such a great game and they worked hard and learned so much this year. Grey had a basketball practice, one game and one indoor baseball practice. He got an awesome day on the snowboarding slopes with the Conn Twins which made him so happy (and tired - thank goodness for the virtual snow day they had on Monday!) 

Teaching for the first full week of school with no weather issues in weeks! I taught the first two chapters of their next novel Brandon Brown Quiere un Perro to Spanish 1 after we did some pre-reading prediction writing. Spanish 2 continues to work their way through Esperanza including a Chronological half-way point quiz. Spanish 3 finished McFarland, USA and then started working on their movie review in past tense posters. Spanish 4 continued working with the first two parts of El Que Se Enoja fable. 

Making ground beef tacos over baked potatoes, shredded chicken parm over noodles, church picnic chicken (a family favorite), swedish meatballs and mashed potatoes, and frozen fish sticks. We brought home some hot&ready pizzas for dinner one night too. I used up some brown bananas for banana bread breakfast and both Rust and Violet had snack duty on the same day! 

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