A glimpse into what it is like to live in our home in this whirlwind of a week.
 |
| photo cred: B |
 |
| photo cred: Onara C |
 |
| photo cred: Shannon L |
 |
| selfie cred: B |
 |
| photo cred: Shannon L |
 |
| photo cred: Jenilee L |
Intentional Outdoor Hours: 613+ hours (of 1000)
The three youngest and I took the tree stand walk around the yard just to get out in the fresh air on Sunday. It was sunny but still chilly, but low wind so I was brave, hah. We found a headless rabbit (probably a hawk) and lots of footprints in the snow (bunnies, deer, birds).
Reading and finishing Hang the Moon by Jeannette Walls and really enjoying it. It was not fast paced at all, but just a good overall story and heroine and I always am so fascinated to learn about the early 20th century; pre-great depression era (ie. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, my favorite book ever).
Listening to The Measure by Nikki Erlick and liking it a lot!
Marco the elf: he wrote funny potty-themed version of Christmas tunes on our toilet paper in the downstairs bathroom (example: "Last Christmas I gave you my fart"), made a Christmas tree design out of post it notes on our back door window, he built a MagnaTile castle, he had a sleepover with the action figures in socks under the tree, he got stuck in a booby trap, and playing cards with action figures.
Christmas movies watched: none! to many things happening this week
Happy fishermen! Since we had to last minute cancel our steelhead fishing trip to Erie last week, the boys (Brandon, Grey, Pappy, and Jonny) all made arrangements to go to Yellowcreek on Sunday to fish for trout instead. B took a crockpot of hot sausage for sammies and they spent the day fishing to their hearts' purest content.
Dropping off Jillian the Pilot to get patched back up again after I ran over the well water pipe. That means Lucille the Studermobile (aka our 12 passenger van) has been running all around this week in place of our vehicle. My sweet husband elected to drive Lucille around and I took the truck since I have a longer commute- bless him. xxo
Two orthodontist appointments this week. Grey got his official retainers and Gemma got brackets on the back teeth and updated her bands to light blue (so cute!)
Three Christmas Concerts this week! First, Gemma had her middle school chorus concert (her favorite song: Winter Fantasy), Then Rusty had his Grade 2-3 Christmas concert (his favorite song: Snowman on the Lawn) and finally Violet had her Grade 4-5 Christmas concert (her favorite song: All I Want for Christmas is You)
Smiling about the era we still get to enjoy with imaginative little kids in the house. My dinner table still hosts the most incredible guests who can spare only a few minutes to eat with us. We have princesses in bright colored high heels (aka "tippy tappies") that take a break from ruling their kingdom. Two spies who pull down their mask and lay down their swords to break bread with us. Sometimes its a mother of 12 children - usually one of her babies laying face down on the table next to her plate. Sometimes it is explorer boys who have found their way back to the dinner table from a lost land of zombies and monsters, their backpacks loaded down with weapons, ropes, and hand-drawn maps. How thankful I am to meet these characters of themselves that show up my kitchen table for a few quick bites - a little time out before they head back into the land of make believe.
Still battling coughs around here, we just cannot shake these coughs and it is really getting annoying.
Fun with friends this week. Violet got to visit the giant Johnstown Christmas Tree downtown with Evaley and the Cables (thank you!) Gemma and Peyton had their annual cookie dessert day at the Lasure house (thank you Jennilee for letting them take over your kitchen!), Violet got to host a sleepover with Bria at our house. Best of all Uncle Juice brought a pizza party to our house (him and four different pizza place options!)
Setting up our new living room! Our new couch arrived on Saturday morning! Before the delivery truck came, we had everyone helping to move the last two couches to the basement den, sweep, mop, and clear a delivery pathway. Everything looks beautiful, although we have to pick up our ottoman on Tuesday (it was accidently left off the delivery order). B and Pappy got the tv and sound bar mounted on the wall too - so it really feels like a real living room. I love 'momma's reading chair' (a swivel yellow chair) and the Christmas tree obviously gives it all an elevated cozy vibe.
Feeling so grateful for the living room and basement den; it took almost FOURTEEN years to get to this point that we felt comfortable enough to have a proper living room. It's been fourteen years of babies and baby equipment (playpens, swings, and bouncers) taking up space, and toddlers wrecking all the things...but we have made it to our youngest being three AND having a separate space that they can eat on a couch and jump and play (the basement den). All of my kids can go to the bathroom by themselves, they can dress themselves, every child is capable of a real, meaningfully helpful chore. I am living in a vastly different familial landscape than ever before. It finally feels relatively safe and realistic to have a space that is properly grown up cozy. If you are in thick of raising little babies and toddlers. And if you are overwhelmed that there is so much stuff and so much mess and so much broken - GIRL, you are good. you are exactly in the right development of family life!! It will come, but right now you are getting through the physically exhausting, extra equipment demanding, and the tiny human relying and learning stage....it is absolute chaos. You are good. Keep hanging on momma - you will get there, but it takes its good 'ole time.
Teaching the elementary students about Jose Feliciano (writer/singer of Feliz Navidad) and we did color by number Navidad themed papers to practice Spanish color words. I got a new group of 8th graders in Spanish expo. Spanish 1 finished the capibara novel (!yay!) and took the book final. Spanish 2 finished up Somos Unit 12 including their Bolsa presentations and started watching The 33 Movie. I took some time on Wednesday night to tutor a local student in Spanish. We met at the Thomahawk and we went over some verb conjugation, made some manipulatives to practice sentence creation, and I made her some graphic organizers to hopefully help during her online Spanish class.
Sporting with one swim practice for Rusty (his cough is still making it hard to swim without cough breaks). Violet had one basketball practice and Gemma had three basketball practices, a shoot around with the Varsity team, and two basketball games. Grey had two basketball practices, a a shoot around, two regular season games, and then two games at the Mt Cat tournament at UPJ. I signed up to provide snack for the Jr High girls at their away game on Thursday and I got my assignments for concession stand duty for the Varsity boys basketball boosters.
Making pork roast with sauerkraut in the crockpot, taco pasta, a pizza party from Uncle Juice (thank you!), copycat Olive Garden chicken over pasta, cowboy ground beef over roasted potatoes, pierogies & kielbasa, For sweets, I made chocolate/ pumpkin muffins for Sunday breakfast and a double batch of peanut butter, oatmeal, chocolate chip cookies.
No Comments Yet, Leave Yours!