Around Here Week 16: 04/17-23

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

Intentional Outdoor Hours: 73+ hours (of 1000)
A beautiful Easter day followed up with an actual snow storm for two days, and then the temps creeped back up to a sudden burst of summer weather on Friday and Saturday. We soaked it up for everything it was worth and snagged 12 hours just between those two days for a total of 14 hours for the whole week. We had our first fire of the spring/summer season and pulled out the smore supplies which made all the kiddos happy - Olive had her first smore of her life and she was properly pleases (and a sticky mess). 

Reading Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood

Celebrating Easter. The bunny visited us and the kids enjoyed lots of chocolate for breakfast and searched high and low through the house for some hidden eggs. We had Easter brunch at our aunt Kuma's house with all our Studer family. I brought some games for the kids to play and the food was delicious. The biggest cousins set up an egg hunt for the little kids and Reddy loved finding his eggs and even Livy got to "find" her eggs with the help of Daddy. 

Losing seven chickens in one day! We left for our aunt's house on Easter and after we returned home about four hours, a fox had taken seven of our chickens. That is the most we have ever lost in a single day, we were so heartbroken and defeated. Included were our oldest chicken and SusieQ, who would follow us around like a pup and try to get into the house and cars to be near us. Brandon and Gemma worked on putting up the electric fence all around the coop to try to keep the chickens safe - now if we can just get them to stay within the electric fence and goat pasture instead of trying to free range throughout the whole yard! 

Happy to have three fresh-cut boys in the house. B took Grey and Rust to Ambitious Cuts for haircuts and they always come back looking so cleaned up and great. Rustman requested a batman symbol cut out of his hair this time and Lamont is so incredible that he just pulled up a pic on his phone and did it for Rusty! He is the best - if you are local, you should be checking out Ambitious Cuts! 

Scheduling well check ups which in the spring always has me laughing. It takes a long time since we have four kids with birthdays in the springtime. It takes several minutes and lots of confirming that we got all the kids squared away. (sorry for anyone who might have been on hold that whole time!) Big family hack: if at all possible, schedule double appointments (2 kids back to back) for doc visits because it's already impossible to get out the door, so the fewer trips the better.

So touched when Gemma's teacher gave her a name card and lanyard as the official/unofficial fourth grade student assistant. Mrs. Dail is moving into a different career next week and she has been such a blessing to Gemma this year. We are so happy for you Amber (sad for us, hah!) Gem felt so special to be recognized and I got teary-eyed when the photos were sent to me that afternoon. How grateful we are for our school and educators who love our kids so well and polish them so they shine.

Zoom meeting with the Backpack Project as part of the advisory board. Always inspiring to meet with local people working towards making this community a better place!  

Tending to the baby chickies and duckies. While they are in the house, they are so much work - cleaning their tubs, feeding and watering, giving the duckies time to swim. On the days that were sunny and warm this week, we transported them outside for awhile so that they could explore, peck around for bugs, and try to acclimate to the outdoors. Reddy is so sweet with the baby birds and loves picking them up and showing them to Olive and Wells. 

Embracing my very favorite part of spring and increased outdoor time - SLEEPY KIDS. 

Registering Grey for his hunter safety course! Since he's 12 now, as long as he finished his hunter safety course he can hunt solo this year (he's so pumped). He's registered for the June 4 date at the Que gun & rod club (local friends!) and Pappy is going with him because the course was started long after he was already a young adult hunting on his own. Never taken it, but willing to go with our boy at 63 years old! (thanks Pappy!) 

Finalizing the paperwork to opt out the kids from the PSSA which start next week. 

Facetiming with my best friends who met half way for a fun girls weekend. I am so happy they got together and loved chatting and laughing with them via facetime. (Love you!!) They are always so generous and sweet despite us being in different stages of motherhood (their kids are 5+ years while I am stretch from tween to diaper babies!) Looking forward to planning a big 40th birthday trip!

Playdating at our house with the Stephens girls. Such a fun night while the kids ran and played and soaped up the entire trampoline to slide all over laughing hysterically while B, Mal, and I got to hang out on the porch talking and laughing. So grateful for our friendship, still going strong since 7th grade!

Wishing Grey and B good luck on Saturday for Mentored Youth Turkey hunting day. They spent the morning and afternoon at Uncle Jonny's house trying to get a bird. Grey did take a shot but missed (bummer) but they just like spending time with each other best of all - so it was a good day for those three knuckleheads. 

Deciding on new windows and after some heated negotiations, B got it down to an contract that we can figure out. We really do need new windows - but like all homeowners (especially those with lots of kids and animals) we also have a lot of projects that need to get done. So we had to figure out the number we could work within and still be able to manage other projects that we are hoping to get done this year (the back porch, siding!, doors! and farm projects). So very thankful for B who has a backbone when it comes to negotiations because I'm am too trusting and think everyone is always going to just come with a fair price and a good heart (LOL, NEVER trust me in a sales negotiation #sendbackup)

Sporting with almost nothing because all the fields (soccer and baseball) were covered in snow, rain, or mud all week. The kids were pretty bummed about it. On Saturday, we got soccer pictures though and Gemma worked with her basketball team to pick up litter at the Quemahoming dam in honor of Earth day. (Thank you Coach Ang for always organizing kind and fun projects that promote team bonding!)

Making taco pasta, spaghetti and meat sauce, teriyaki chicken over rice, sloppy joes, hot deli sammies and haluski, and frozen locally made stromboli for the kids. For Easter brunch, we brought along sugar cookies and five dozen of eggs. 

Keto check-in  Down another 2.2 lbs and still going strong; feeling great and clear headed (my favorite Keto perk). At Easter brunch we got to eat all the eggs, ham, bacon, and berries that our hearts desired (bummer on skipping the pastries and pies though! The Easter bunny did drop off some 85% chocolate bars in our basket though, but we still really missed the Cadbury mini eggs - our favorite Easter treat!) We also ate this week: keto broccoli and cheese soup (it was honestly delicious), fathead bagels, spicy shrimp over salad, keto egg roll-in-a-bowl (one of our new favs!), cheesy chicken, broccoli, and rice casserole, wedge salads, keto Philly cheese steak bowls, and kielbasa and cabbage.