Around Here 44: 10/26 -11/01

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

photo cred: CT Football

pan de muertos cred: my student Itzel and her family

photo cred: Stacy B

photo cred: Michael O'Ship

photo cred: Michael O'Ship

photo cred: Daily American

video cred: Coach Joel R

photo cred: Deanna M

photo cred: KP

Intentional Outdoor Hours: 563+ hours (of 1000)
We harvested our potato buckets and got quite a few of them! Not an overabundance but exactly the right amount to roast for dinner one night. They tasted amazing and now we are hooked! Potato buckets for the win! 

Reading The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

Listening to My Friends by Fredrick Backman and liking the story a lot! Not a huge fan of the style of writing though (not new for this author - I've felt this way before for his other books).  

Hosting spooky lunch at our house and marveling over the incredible snacks that Heather made to share with us. That girl is so good at making spooky snacks that some of them we had trouble eating because it looked so realistic (hahhah!!) We ate delicious food (even if some were legit spooky!), played a fun nerf game, and laughed and laughed. Thank you Heather for treating us to such a fun afternoon. You are honestly incredible and we love you so much!! My zero! 

Red Ribbon week at all the schools - so dress up days everyday! Red and Olive also had bounce house day at their school on Thursday and they were so excited about it! Then we ended the school week with Fall / Halloween parties at the elementary schools. Reddy and Olive had mini parties with snacks and Rusty & Violet had their fall fest parties including the costume parade and fun games from the PTA (a huge thank you to all the parents who organize, plan, and oversee all the fun stuff for our kiddos! You are appreciated!!)

Excited for my little sister, Kayla, who had the grand opening of her new coffee shop (she is one of 4 owners) downtown. They have been working so hard to get it ready and I know it is a big relief to finally have the day arrive where they open their doors and welcome in the community. So many locals have been waiting for this day and I am so proud to be able to say she is our Aunt Kitty. Congrats to all the ladies down at Moon & Mug. Check out their awesome website (bravo, Aunt Kitty!) and if you are a local - please go visit and be dazzled! 

Updating the November fridge calendar and feeling (like always) that I can't believe we are at the end of the year...Time? hello? 

Thankful for my little artist girl who was willing to take on the project of gluing googly eyes and bat wings to 24 brownies for the babies' class snack. God bless that Violet girl...only then to get the reminder message from the pre-k teachers that snacks needed to be dairy / egg/ nut free....LOL. oops - we saved all the bat brownies to hand out at the football game to the trainers and Rowdies (student section) instead. 

Going viral...I guess? I don't understand social media apparently because my 'Guess the brother' football video we made after last week's game with Grey and some of the football players and Olive took off on Tik Tok and Instagram and I'm so confused why anyone but our local community even cares about it. I mean, great, but also like wtf? Over 2million+ views on Instagram and 375k on Tik Tok (insanity) And so many likes and comments which I don't understand at all. I watch those 'guess the husband and dad' videos and smile and try to guess in my mind, but I never comment - let alone screenshot the video and add photos to the comments (!), or go to someone's profile and screenshot from there to prove that I'm right. I literally cannot understand and even though 99% of the comments are sweet and happy - of course the less than 1% crappy people make me feel super self conscious (even though the trolls get roasted in the comments by nice people) but still. I don't know - all very weird and I'm looking forward to a time when I'm not getting 100+ notifications when I log in to my accounts. I do not have the mental and emotional bandwidth for this kind of attention. 

Trick or treat night! Our whole family including Osa and Violet's friend Evaley headed out in Lucille the Studermobile to the Huffman's house for our annual tradition of Trick or Treat night. All the kids and some parents head out and then when everyone gets too chilly or have bags too full of candy - we head back for food and company at the Huffman's (thank you for hosting Pam and Larry!) Grey was Sully, Reddy was Mike Wazowski, and Olive was Boo from Monsters Inc. Gemma was Wendy Peffercorn and her friend Cooper was Squints (this about the fourth year they've done a pair costume - so sweet!)Violet was Daphne and Evaley was Velma from Scooby Doo. Rusty was a spooky pumpkin face that pumped fake blood through the ribcage! Uchie, Kev, and the fella nephew boys joined us, along with our friends Jake, Mo, and their sweet baby, Wesley! It was actually pretty chilly, so we held in as long as the little kids wanted to. Osa did great and got about a million pets! 

Grey. My biggest baby, I don't care how big you get, or how good at sports you get, or how handsome you get. You are still my little boy and my heart has tiny fractures all through it because I cannot believe I get to be your momma. You are a real actual freak of an athlete and when I looked at dad this week and said, "What am I supposed to do?" he said like it was obvious or something - "enjoy it?" I'm going to try to just enjoy it (and not be worried all the time if your body can take the work you put it through and not be stressed if I'm doing enough to support you in all the pressure you have as only a 15year old kid). But just know, Booboo, that I know that you are a freak of an athlete but I would be proud and love you even if you weren't. You are more than just a great athlete, baby - the biggest challenge of being your mom is to make sure you know that you are also a million other awesome things, the athlete thing is just the one that gets the most attention from everyone else.

Another round of antibiotics for the babies. Double ear infection for Olive and Strep Throat for Red. Reddy needed picked up early from school on Friday with a high fever and sore throat (prompting another visit to the peds which confirmed strep). Yeesh, the first round of public school will do that to ya! Hahhaa, if we aren't immune from everything after this year, I'll be shocked. We have germs from the Red and Olive's elementary school, germs from my elementary school and high school, germs from Violet and Rusty's elementary building, germs from Grey and Gemma's high school, and germs from Daddy and Grey's football team.

Time with friends and family:  Rusty had a playdate and steak dinner at Liam's house (lucky!!), Violet got to attend a Halloween party with her friend Evaley and then went to UrbanAir indoor trampoline park for Kendall's birthday party. Gemma and her friends went to the movies to see Regretting You (she loved it!) and then went to a party at Evelyn's house on Saturday night. 

The script for our current state of society is truly coming straight out of a dystopian novel: my local community reporting places available if you are facing food scarcity, local grocery stores offering double payment if you'll cash in your pennies, murders in the sea with no justification, arrests and kidnappings in the streets with no due process, the propaganda off the absolute rails on social media. I.have.read.this.book.before. Also, despite the "ceasefire" there are still babies and civilians being killed in Gaza. 

Teaching and still watching Coco in the elementary school and we had a bulletin board ofrenda posted and the kids were really proud and sweet about writing down the people (and pets!) they are thinking about for Day of the Dead. I got a new batch of 8th graders for the Spanish Expo to start the new marking period. Spanish 1 had a 'backwards' spelling test (I spell the word in Spanish and they had to write it letter by letter). Then they learned about Día de Muertos and we started watching The Book of Life. I taught the class to make tissue paper flowers (they could make them for bonus) and the kids went crazy over it and made about 200 flowers (used up all my tissue paper?!) I literally had a student say, "No seriously, thank you so much for teaching us how to make these). My goal for my classroom is for it to just get progressively more psychotic as the year goes on - and with all these flowers up now, I am well on my way! jajaja! Spanish 2 read chapters 5-13 of El Silbon (finishing the book) and even did reader's theater which had us all laughing because everyone was invested in their costumes. I also had my first book club meeting with our in school staff for Act 48 hours. We are reading Social Emotional Learning.

Sporting with the Majors championship game that Violet cheered at on Sunday - officially closing out cheer season for that girl. She still had to watergirl at the football game on Friday night too. Gemma had two basketball shoot arounds and then asst trainer at the Varsity football game. Brandon and Grey had team dinner (at Tollgate!) and film, four practices, and then the D5 playoff game at home vs. Windber (we won! on to the D5 championship game next week!) I got Grey and Gemma recertified with the winter sports paperwork online and also confirmed Gemma's participating in the winter indoor soccer league with her Gators team. 

Coach's wife brag (you've been warned). THIS MAN. The pride and gratitude that I have that my good and decent husband is the coach of this football team is more than I can ever find words for. In three years, this team went from 0-10 to 500 to a district championship game!! That wasn't all B of course, that was so many things - the off season weight room, the time and talent of all our coaches (so many of them volunteers), the players working on their individual skills and their team togetherness, the leadership of our seniors and captains, the community support including the band and cheerleaders, the booster leadership and all the players' parents, and every single time they got back up after being knocked to the ground. But...I'm going to say it was B too, because if my man can do anything, he can lead. He has a way of getting people to remain calm under pressure and BELIEVE. He believes so much that you can't help but believe too. And heart and grit will go a long way to motivate towards a common goal.  THIS MAN. I cannot believe I get to be married to him. Good Lord. I'm just over here living the Tami Taylor dreams of my life. Gah dayum Coach Studer. Dibs forever.

Making roasted potatoes (that we harvested from our potato buckets!) and crack chicken sammies on Hawaiian rolls, homemade strombolis (I made 4!), white chicken chili, take out wings to celebrate the playoff win (!) and we had a leftover fridge clean-out night. I also made two loaves of banana bread and rice krispie treats this week. 

Around Here Week 43: 10/19-25

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

photo cred: St Davids Youth

photo cred: Shannon L

selfie cred: B

video still

photo cred: Jacinda F

Reddy's best buddy Dawson (senior football player)

photo cred: Stacy B

photo cred: Stacy B

Intentional Outdoor Hours: 556+ hours (of 1000) 
The weather was beautiful on Sunday and I took the long walk up past the water tower and around the neighborhood at the top. But later in the week, we were starting to feel that winter chill in the air - we all wore beanies to the football game on Friday night. By the end of the game, my toes were absolutely numb. Oh no, don't leave me yet fall! 

Reading The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson and having our book club meeting about it. It was a fun evening with delicious girl dinner (I brought cookies). I still have a little bit to read before finishing - so I'll be working on that before I move on to another book. I get to pick the next book for that book club, and I chose When Things are Alive They Hum by Hannah Bent

Smiling at church on Sunday when the three little kids sang at mass and then Violet and Gemma volunteered at the Spaghetti Dinner fundraiser after church. 

Bandaging up Rusty's face after he slammed his eyebrow off the trampoline metal while playing football with Reddy. He was pretty tough about it and pretty pleased with the cool scar he will probably have from it. Yeesh. It happened right as we were getting ready to head out for the soccer end of season banquet where I am bringing dessert and snacks and a team captain (naturally). As I'm trying to get his face under control and Olive is passed out on the couch from the start of a sickness, my friend and fellow soccer booster member Shannon texted, "I know all about Studer Time, and we are still good here, but are you on your way?" LOL. thankful for people who know us and STILL love us. xxox

Studer Time - we are NEVER on time. never have been in our entire lives - especially now that we have all these kids and animals. If you are familiar with Studer time, you know we are going to be 10-15 mins late guaranteed. Maybe some of us won't have shoes on when we get there so you smile and give us grace about it, maybe you've prepared for this by telling me the time you need me to be there is actually a half hour earlier than everyone else, maybe you're a coach or teammate who has received the text from me "WE ARE COMING IN HOT but we will be there in time for the start of the game!" maybe you send me a text an hour or two ahead of time to give me a gentle reminder (thank you for all of those things!) But we do show up with the freaking party of this big family and we are generally loaded down with food and drinks...so I can do some things but not everything! (and my everything means be there on time...sorry!) LOL

Wishing a very happy birthday to my favorite person. B turned 41 this week. He got a surprise day off of work for his birthday because Olive was too sick to go to school. They went to the pediatrician and spent the day in their sweatpants (kind of the best birthday). Then he had football practice, but we were able to drop off donuts at football practice for all the team after they sang a beautiful rendition of Happy Birthday to Coach (hahha). I made him cake mix chocolate chip cookies for home but he had a board meeting and it was getting so late at night - I had all the kids get around the table and I was videotaping them singing happy birthday because it was bedtime. At the third line of the song - B hustling through the door saying, "I made it just in time!" It was such perfect timing, I honestly have tears in my eyes every time I rewatch the video! 

So grateful for the sweetest, most generous gift to Gemma this week from our cousin Becky. She stopped by our house one night this week to give Gemma her camera that she's had for 8+ years and never got around to using it. She heard about Gemma's interest in photography (and her internships this summer with Bridge Perspective) and told me earlier in the fall that she wanted to give her camera to Gemma. Gem was blown away and so excited - she took it to the district playoff boys soccer game and got some great photos already. The gift was so thoughtful and generous - Becky said the only payment she wants is that Gemma will have to take her family photos for the rest of eternity - hah! Gem said she would be honored to do that! 

Olive on antibiotics for the start of pneumonia. She missed two days of school this week (thank you Abba and Chum for keeping her one of the days!) 

Haircuts for all the fellas - God bless Lamont who always takes such good care of helping my boys look as handsome as possible. We love you Mont! 

Celebrating Violet's birthday with an 11 Challenge theme. She invited friends over from 11a-11p (!!) to complete 11 tasks for her 11th birthday. It was a long day, but a great one and all the kids were very sweet and funny. We first took a long hike to the big boulders on the Laurel Ridge trail where Aunt Uch and the nephews met us in the parking lot after for water and pizza (haha, THANK YOU, we were all starving, it was perfect timing!) Then the rest of the party was at our house! They played games, bobbed for apples, learned a tik tok dance to the Monster Mash, decorated sugar cookies, jumped in leaves, and played cops&robbers in the dark.  Violet had a great day and although it was a long one - it was a good day for me too. 

Time with family and friends: Five of the kids got a day with Abba and Chum on Sunday (thank you!) Rusty went to his friend Westyn's Halloween costume birthday party.  Gemma went to cheer on the UPJ girls' soccer team on Saturday with some teammates (thank you Elle and Coach Mowry!) Grey filmed a clip for his video production class with his group at our house, went to the Burnworth house on Friday night for karaoke with the team (love that), and then to his friend Quinn's birthday party (thank you for the ride home - Becky!) I got to hang out with Coach Mallie at the football game when he came to cheer on the team (thanks Mal!) 

Teaching and watching Coco in the elementary school while we continue to color calaveras and alebrijes. Impossibly, we have made it to the ninth week of school, so there is a lot of grading and gradebook updating that needed done this week. Spanish Expo worked through week 4 including classroom vocab. Spanish 1 finished their weather unit and started learning the Spanish alfabeto - they love playing hot seat and spelling words on mini white boards. The competitiveness in these classes is off the charts. Spanish 2 started their first novel El Silbon, including the pre-novel activities like learning about the legend and listening to Como los Vaqueros (always a fan favorite song!)

Sporting with an end of season pizza party for Rusty and his minors team (thank you coaches and Lindsay!) Violet had one cheer practice. Gemma and Violet both attended the end of season JH soccer banquet (Gem as a player and Violet as a ball runner) and they both were on the sidelines for Friday night as asst trainer (Gem) and watergirl (Vi). Grey and Coach Daddy had team dinner and film on Sunday, four practices, and a home game on Friday night vs. CV. It was the last regular season football game which made it a little bittersweet - we made sure to get all our traditional pictures (Grey and his friends, Grey and Gabe remaking the first grade photo) and the kids all wanted pics with their favorite seniors & players. Olive agreed to make a "Guess the Brother" Tik Tok and we were all cracking up about how she kept going boneless on the boys and then shouting at them, "That's not how you hold a child!" She was really hamming it up on them and had all their families cracking up. How blessed she is (all my kids) to have an entire team of big brothers! Grey got his bi-weekly sports massage from Miss Emma too! I brought donations to the JH soccer banquet, volunteered in the concession stand for the Varsity boys' soccer district playoff game (cheering for both teams since cousin Caleb was the goalie for the opposing team!)

Making cast iron skillet chicken pot pie, meat sauce spaghetti (Brandon's birthday request), sheet pan chicken fajitas, and sloppy joes and shells & cheese. I made chocolate covered pretzels for the soccer banquet and made a double batch of cake mix chocolate chip cookies for Brandon's birthday (and took some to book club too!) For Violet's birthday we ordered out pizza for lunch and then I made a roaster of pork/ hot dogs/ kielbasa/ sauerkraut, shells and cheese, buffalo chicken dip, and sugar cookies with my grandma Helen's boiled icing for the kids to decorate. We also had a hot cocoa bar and smores!