Around Here Week 47: 11/18-11/24

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

 

 

Intentional Outdoor Hours: 524+ hours (of 1000)
Up only an hour this week. bleh. but still beating my time from any year before, so yay..?

Reading Juntos by Ally Condie and really loving the story (the English version is called Matched). Its a perfect fit with all those YA dystopian novels like Hunger Games/Divergent/Delirium/the Giver, etc that I enjoy. The added challenge of reading it in my second language has made it enjoyable and a brain stretch. I've been cataloging new vocab and pushing right along through it. I might have to add to my 100 small things list next year to read a certain number of books in Spanish.

Closing out football and cheer season with the annual banquet. I got to help organize and plan and it was cool to see everything come together. We are so lucky to be a part of a community that loves the kids so much - so many people who pull together to do so much for all the kids.

Enjoying family on Thanksgiving. We got up and spent a few minutes as six in the bed laughing and talking about the days plans before heading downstairs to watch the parade. I was busy making pumpkin roll for the day, when Brandon marches in carrying his buck skull to skin in.the.kitchen. I was all "get that deer head away from my pumpkin roll, you maniac!?" hahha, he went into the dining room instead while the kids huddled around to watch the procedure - geez, happy thanksgiving love this redneck family. We spent the day at two Thanksgiving dinners: Kuma's and Aunt Mar's sharing food and laughs with family and our newest baby cousin Wyatt.

Snapping our family photos with the incredible Tab James of Adliv Collective. It's been a solid two years since we've had our family pictures taken and I was so thankful to get into one of Tab's holiday mini sessions. It was freezing cold out and Grey had a fever of 100+, but we pulled it together and got it done. Tab's photos turned out beautiful, but not sharing here because you'll see them in our upcoming Christmas cards ;)

Decorating for Christmas, including our new pre-lit tree that we bought after the season last year. The kids all helped and were so excited to discover all their favorite holiday trinkets and books. I love listening to the older kids explaining to the younger kids where things go and their memories from last season was. The girls are very into the mistletoe this year (haha, too many Hallmark movies I think) and they try so hard to get me and B to 'accidentally' end up under it just so they can say, "uh oh, you two - look up!" (no seriously, too many Hallmark movies).

Celebrating Chumsgiving (my dad's birthday) with a trip to the Loretto Escape House. It was Dad, Mum, and my first experience with an escape house - and we all had so much fun! We escaped with a little more than 4 minutes remaining (!) and then we had dinner a local bar/restaurant.

Getting slammed with a virus. Grey got it first with a fever on Thanksgiving followed by Gem and then me and the babies. We had fevers, body aches, chills, and weird hallucination type feelings between sleep and awake (It was really strange - like hard to distinguish between what was reality and what was still a dream). B remained accidentally quarantined as he was out of the house for basketball and hunting season prep!

Teaching the last few days before break and hanging on for dear life (haha, the kids are always a little nutty). Spanish 1 continued practicing their school subject vocab including a quiz while Spanish 1 Honors read more of Capibara con Botas. We even had one day of 'the floor is lava' to keep their antsy bodies working productively (they loved it). Spanish 2 worked on their Corridas de Torros vocab and Spanish 2 Honors got their words and pre-work for our next up novel: Tumba by Mira Canion. Spanish 3 Honors finished up the imperfect super 7 and we celebrated break with a Friendsgiving meal together.

Making korean beef and green beans over rice, chicken and cheese taquitos, and B made a cajun turkey breast for our own 'turkey' Thanskgiving weekend. I made two pumpkin rolls to share our dinners. I have been feeling so unmotivated to cook - even with meal plans in place. I know it's a normal phase, but ugh. I want to get out of the rut!

Around Here Week 46: 11/11-11/17

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

Intentional Outdoor Hours:  523+ hours (of 1000)
We finally got to rake up a big pile of leaves for the kids on Sunday when it wasn't too cold (or rainy). And then the storm came to town and dumped snow and rain on us for two solid days. The kids got out for many hours sled riding and playing around in the snow, but I stayed indoors #lame.

Reading Juntos by Ally Condie (the Spanish version of her book Matched). I also spent three hours of my snow day taking the Practice Spanish Praxis test finally. I have had so much test anxiety building up about this that I had nearly scared myself out of even taking the practice test (!?) It was so much better that I did though - even just to get a feel for the format. I also realized that 11 years out of school has weakened my test taking stamina something fierce. I feel better about knowing some things I should polish up on before the test and have a plan in place now. Thanks to B for keeping the kids away from me - in the same house!- for three hours (that's a feat!)

Thinking about and feeling grateful for all the servicemen and women that we know and love on Veteran's Day. I had the babies paint paper plates like poppy flowers while Grey read to the kids from one of our Veteran's day books.

Feeling worried and then getting better news. Please continue to keep our family in your prayers as the next month or two will be challenging. My students were very thoughtful and surprised me with this posterboard sized 'thinking of you' card signed by them and staff members. We all feel stronger to be surrounded by positive vibes and prayers. (thank you!!)

Chopping Rusty's bangs one morning completely thoughtlessly and then laughing hysterically for 2 whole minutes because the second I let his hair go, they zinged right up super short and all jagged. o.mi.gosh. it was hilarious (and so carelessly dumb). He still looks cute as heck, but I can't stop giggling when I think about doing that - what in the world did I think was going to happen ?!

Researching about cold weather chickens as we get our girls ready for the colder months. We bought an extra waterer so that we can swap them out between morning and night because our biggest issue (as is all winter chicken owners understand) is that their water freezes. We've been collecting eggs more frequently, switching out their water, and leaving the door open so that they can decide if they want to venture out or not (they usually do!)

Kissing Coach Daddy a metaphorical goodbye kiss as the varsity basketball season officially started on Friday. He had his first Midnight Madness basketball sleepover camp this year and it went great.  #seeyainFebruarybabe

Being okay with videogames since it meant 'family time' while Grey played Fortnite squads with our cousin Adam over the Xbox and headsets. Adam is a year older than me and I had to tell the both of them (my son and my older cousin) when it was time for an Xbox break (hahah). Grey had a great time though and thinks that Adam is basically the coolest dude ever and learned firsthand how much more fun it is to play with a friend who has your back.

Teaching only three half days this week as we had a snow/ice day and a two hour delay on Friday! Spanish 1 reviewed complete sentences using the verb Ser and go school subject vocab words. Spanish 1 Honors started reading Capibara con Botas chapters 1-4. We played the write-draw-pass game which is always a favorite. I say, "Some of us are artists...and some of us have other talents" #jaja Spanish 2 started the Somos 5 Unit and got some Bullfighting vocab words while Spanish 2 Honors worked all week on their short Spanish spooky stories with their partners. I held mini-consultations with them and it gave me an opportunity to make sure they had a cohesive plot and used vocab and verbs that we have learned. Spanish 3 continued their Imperfecto verb learning with more personal interviews.

Making 3 ingredient pumpkin/chocolate muffins for a snack on the snow day and then blueberry muffins for breakfast on Saturday. I made chicken and gravy over mashed potatoes, tomato soup & grilled cheese sandwiches, crescent wrapped hot dogs, and easy hashbrown potato and cheese soup with 4 ingredient cheddar beer bread (so yum and so easy!)

Around Here Week 45: 11/04-11/10

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

photo cred: Gemma Rose

Intentional Outdoor Hours: 521+ hours (of 1000)
We got out for a few walks, but other that, it's been pretty cold and wet around here. Also, daylight savings time has taken us all for a loop this week. I love the sun up when I am leaving for work in the morning - it has done wonders for helping me get moving in the morning, but it is pitch dark around here by about 5:45p. The kids run outside as soon as they get home and only get about an hour outside before it's getting dark (or they're too cold). Grey was like "What is going on, Mom - it's not even 6:30p and it looks like the middle of the night!" Only up a little more than one hour this week!

Reading and finishing The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas. Then I started reading Juntos because my Spanish Praxis is coming up this month and I'm seriously starting to sweat with test anxiety. eek! send good thoughts please.

Watching Grey participate at church as an altar server for the first time. He was pretty nervous but he had some great 'teachers' in Jeremy and Julian (long time altar servers). He said it definitely made church go faster and he'd like to do it every week. (hah).

Panicking over our first ever scare with lice nits. We got the call from daycare this week that it was going around and that Violet had a few nits in her hair. Obviously, I became immediately itchy myself (hahhaa, I know you're scratching your head right now too!) and quickly spiraled into crazy momma land of clean.and.kill.all.the.things. I meticulously searched through my family's heads and thought that maybe (?) Gemma had a few nits too (did she? did my eyes start crossing and I imagined it?) so I treated Violet, Gemma, and myself just to be sure. All the boys looked perfectly fine - which made sense to me; if anyone is snuggled up too close; it's us three girls. Then it was throwing all.the.things in the wash (bedsheets, stuffed animals, etc), and lint rolling carseats and couches, and putting brushes and hair ties in the freezer...ya know, all things I definitely had time and energy to add to my chore list. LOL. In any case, we've moved on from that little scare all clear and fine - but even just writing about it, I'm itchy again.  waaaah. #liceparanoiaforever

Opening an art instagram account for our resident artist: Violet Mary. I have been repeating that she's a real live artist since the girl could hold a paintbrush/crayon - I've even taken in some of her pieces to show our high school art teacher (haha, #crazymomma)  Each day she comes home from preschool with these crayon drawings, but one this week really blew me away with the movement and the intentional choices. Like, I screamed aloud. So I opened an account for her and I've been daydreaming about her someday running it herself and sharing her creations. I want to support her but it feels like it's bigger than me. I will keep encouraging and sharing and try to learn more about art.

High fiving our kids for good report cards. They both did good and Grey worked hard enough this second half of the marking period to pull all his grades up to make the honor roll. He was so relieved (no more xbox ban!) but also commented that he understood how much work it took to dig out of that whole of bad grades. Let's hope it sticks so he just keeps 'em up from the start!

Serving breakfast for our local veteran's at my school's annual Veteran's day breakfast and assembly. The elementary school kids made adorable and thoughtful placements and posters while our high school student council helped volunteer - but it is our teaching staff that does all the donations, cooking, and serving. I loved walking around filling coffee cups and chatting up the veteran's who come from the community or who are long ago alumni of our high school.  Our chickens even helped prepare for the breakfast; I washed 5 dozen eggs and gave our home ec department another 4 dozen to wash for the morning #chickenswhogiveback (LOL)

Feeling grateful to nature as B got his buck for archery season. He scored an eight point on a very cold and windy morning and then about a half mile of dragging it out of the woods uphill. He was grateful to get it done so that now he can just take Grey for rifle season (Grey was pretty pumped about that too, hah). I'm pretty happy to have a stocked freezer now, as we were fresh out of deer meat.

Giving the kids a little special time. The sweet skips (Gem & Rust) got a sleepover at Abba & Chum's house on Friday night while the wild skips (Booboo & Vially) got to choose a friend and went to the Tomahawk Hockey game on Saturday night with their momma.

Teaching and reviewing everything from Unit 2 with the Spanish 1 students and giving them their Unit Test this week. Spanish 1 Honors learned all about Ecuador and capybaras to prepare for their first Spanish novel: El Capibara con Botas. Spanish 2 finally got their day of the dead catch up by watching Coco and reading some comprehensible input in a Coco article. Spanish 2 Honors learned more about writing their own Spanish spooky stories (next week!) while Spanish 3 Honors dipped their first two into Spanish past tense (!) I'm starting with Imperfect tense (is that weird?) and we'll go from there. I'm using Mis Clases Locas Super 7 Imperfect verb unit and we're doing personal interviews. We also announced our painted calavera winner from our collaboration unit and it was an art student: Scotty!

Making chicken and vegetable casserole, chicken and fries for the kids, flatbread pizza, and chicken wings in the air fryer. For the first part of the week, Brandon and I were doing that wacky 3 day 'military diet' detox which basically is meant to starve your self while eating really weird combinations of foods. It was mostly an experimental effort to remind ourselves to be conscious while eating (hah) and be more intentional as we move into the holiday season. Over the three days, I lost a little over 4lbs and B lost about 8lbs. Moving forward we're going to try to make better choices and just be aware to keep us from snack, snack, snacking all day on this Halloween candy.