A glimpse into what it is like to live in our home just this last jam-packed week of summer before we pump the brakes to prepare for back-to-school!
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| photo taken and edited by Grey |
Intentional Outdoor Hours: 378+ hours (of 1000)
Up 22 hours this week with beautiful summer days - rain and sunshine mixed throughout and lots of trying to squeeze in some summer fun before the school year creeps up on us.
Reading up about preK curriculums. I'm really liking The 5 Senses Literature Lessons and The Little Oak Learning curriculums. Not super intense but just enough to keep Rusty and I on our toes all year to make sure he is all good to go for kindergarten next year. And still reading Sing Unburied Sing by Jesmyn Ward.
Celebrating my momma's birthday! We headed over to my parents' house for a cookout to celebrate Abba. What a blessing it is to still have her here to celebrate - especially after that terrible car accident earlier this summer. How drastically things can change in a moment; we are so close to the line every day - such a reminder to hug and love your people all the time.
Anxiously awaiting the arrival of my first nephew. Come on baby!
Cleaning and organizing my classroom for the teacher who will be using it this year. Gosh, going through all my stuff and remembering how fun it is to teach all my units and novels was kind of breaking my heart - not gonna lie. But then one little smile from Olive or a smirk from Red or a hug from Rust brings me back to knowing that being home this year is exactly the right thing I need to do for me and for my family. I had a short in-person chat with the Spanish teacher too and then a call to answer some other lingering questions she had - but I turned everything I have over to her and told her to run with it, or blaze her own path. Whatever she chooses to do this year is exactly right!
Framing out the back porch. It's official that we are going to frame out one side of the back porch to create a semi-room (hah). I asked for really big windows though that we can shutter if we need. Our hope is that it will block the weather (the rain/wind/snow almost always blows in from that direction) and that we can eventually make it an outdoor living room type area (fireplace, tv, coziness). Thank you to Pappy who helped B work out the measurements and window framing.
Appreciating the benefits of having a kid who has been enlightened to truth of the tooth fairy. A few weeks ago when Grey was on his tooth pulling spree (lol), the tooth fairy forgot to come and I met him that morning at his bed and was like, "Dude, did the tooth fairy come?" and he was like "no." and I said "do you know why?" and he smiled and I was like, "yeah, because it's me." So we worked out a deal that if he didn't tell his siblings (or even HINT at the truth) he could help me be the tooth fairy. And after Violet lost 2 teeth on Sunday, he came up to our room that night around 11:30p and was like, "ready to report for my tooth fairy duty" and I was like YAASSSSS, because I literally had already forgotten about the teeth! He is desperate to know what we do with the teeth: I told him we plant them and they turn into tooth fairy money trees and Brandon told him that we eat them (LOL, he doesn't believe either of us but is finding our lies funny at least)…we have to maintain a little bit of mystery/magic, right?
Camping with the Conns...well kind of. Huge shout out to Becky and Dan who braved the sleepout on Monday night. The kids and I headed over on Tuesday afternoon after several downpours (bless you Conns!) and hung out for the day. Everyone had a blast swimming, cooking over the fire, playing limbo in the rain (hah!), hiding and seeking, and riding bikes. But the forecast only called for more rain and that is zero amounts of fun and 100% amounts of wet everything...so all the adults voted for packing up on Tuesday afternoon instead of attempting to campout at the Que that night. Since the boys (Grey & friends) were promised another night camping - they all came to our house to sleep in our backyard instead. (hahah, they don't mind sleeping in the damp!) The boys stayed over and then woke up first thing to set up the tarp for rundown slip 'n slide (Studer house tradition).
Mini Road tripping to visit my friend JP and her family for a sleepover. After several years of a summer sleepover, JP and I got it scheduled for this year in between all our fall practices and her family's move to their lake house. The kids had an absolute blast playing fooseball, fishing on the lake, and playing with the Dads in a hilarious game of PIG on the mini basketball hoop. It was awesome catching up with Jess and all the food and snacks were perfect. Best hosts ever - the kids can't wait to visit again and Violet has been practicing fooseball at home in hopes she can finally beat Kate! (hahah! thank you JP!)
Attending our Uzelac family reunion on Saturday. The kids love seeing all their cousins and doing all the things they remember as traditions for the reunion: the homerun derby, the kids' parade, the money tree, Bingo, the basket raffle, and karaoke.
Sporting with practices and team photos this week. Violet had two practices, Grey had two practices, and Gem had one practice. Each of the kids had one practice cancelled due to the crazy rain storm we got this week.
Making hot dogs and cheddar brats on the grill, honey garlic chicken in the instant pot, shredded BBQ chicken for sandwiches, and buffalo chicken dip with veggie dippers. I also whipped up some pumpkin bars with cream cheese icing for my mum's birthday cake
Things I did with our zucchini: grilled zucchini for a side dish at Abba's birthday picnic, zucchini cookies that I turned into gobs with cream cheese icing for our family reunion. I gave 4 zucchinis to my friend JP when we visited and I included 2 zucchinis in our raffle basket that was harvest themed for the family reunion.
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