Vially Mary at four.

our dearest Peanut Vially Girl,
you are four and so proud to be. You never seemed to go through that wacky terrible twos and threes stage (thank you) but four seems to have brought a little sassiness to your soul. You still have enough sweetness to offset it though because it only takes one stern 'momma glance' to get you to apologize and ask how to fix it.

You are such a little cherub Vially with those cheeks that still are so full and precious and that sweet heart so full of joy and playfulness. You are learning to write your name at preschool and can help with chores around the house. You can get your own cup of water & ice from the fridge and clean up your whole room - including making the bed - all by yourself. You are really starting to be a big girl, my va-vi.

You are still my little squishem though and I get asked all the time if you and Rusty are twins, what with you two being nearly the same height and with your white blonde hair. Plus, the two of you run around together wrecking everything like little cannon balls. Everyone refers to you two as 'the babies' and you still don't seem to mind.  You and Rusty have such a sweet relationship in which you care for him because technically you're the big sis - but you also play together and get into mischief. Gemma brings out the girly in you; the two of you playing mommas & girlfriends together toting babydolls and bags stuffed to the brim with who knows what. I swear you girls change your clothes six times a day and make me dizzy with laundry. Grey dials up the silly in you and you will do anything and everything to make him laugh. You get sent to actual timeout for being too silly sometimes, especially when you and Grey are winding each other up into a frenzy of goofiness. I love to see all the different shades your siblings can bring out in you and how you can reflect the personality everyone in our family needs.

You are totally a weak spot for Dad (and you know it) and he could never yell at you. He still says almost daily, "can you even believe something as cute as Violet exists?" oh sheesh, he's in trouble. You are still my 'easiest' kid, you've always just gone along with whatever we need to do with the littlest complaining. You are an expert dishwasher-emptier (gosh, thank you baby girl) and will attempt to do just about any helpful task - you like surprising us by leading us to the area of the house you fixed up with our eyes closed and making a big reveal of it.  You wake up so nicely in the morning and rarely ever need to be told twice -which is such a relief because it feels like I have to repeat myself 700 times to your big bro and sis.

You like reading books, playing babies or barbies, painting/coloring, and putting puzzles together. You never complain about getting your hair fixed and you prefer to have 'panda ears' (two bun pigtails on top of your head) or 'bunny ears' (two high half-up pigtails). You still use lasterday when you talk about things that happened yesterday and you've even expanded to include lasternight, and laster week. This summer you called it bikini (zucchini) and asked if I could make bikini bread for breakfast because you loved it.

Your best friends at school are Grady, Cassidy, and Hunter and you love having worksheets for 'homework.' You call your backpack:  "packpack" you like to know ahead of time what I packed in your lunchbox and you like being the "gaboose" in the line. Your favorite movies include Mamma Mia, The Greatest Showman, the Sandlot, and Tremors (lol). You have a stuffed puppy that you sleep with (you got it from Kuma for your birthday). Every night, you ask, "can you read your book on my floor while I go to sleep?"

You are still an artist in your soul and I am so fascinated by your artwork and creativity in coloring and painting. It is so intentional and abstract, I worry about not supporting your talents enough. You can draw stick figures and people, but you almost never do. Your drawings are always colorful and fantastical. I wish I understood more about art, but I am just an admirer of brilliant minds; and you my darling, have a brilliantly creative and artistic mind. I can't wait to see how you'll give everyone new visions of the world with your pictures.

Greyson asked you to color the other day while he watched so he could see 'how a real artist works' and when he asked you how you know what to do you said, "I don't know, my brain turns off and my hands just do it." I made you an art account on Instagram to share your work and I followed a few artists' pages. Sometimes we scroll through and look at them together and you press the heart button for the pictures you like. I love how it allows you to see other peoples' creations (some of them that remind me so much of your artwork) and how you respond with, "Oh wow! That's a nice one!" like you really know and understand - maybe you do? I don't, but I'm going to keep learning and trying.

My vially girl.
you are so clever and sweet and precious
you have the power to make everyone smile
i am so grateful to get to be your momma
my darling little peanut.
we will be loving and squeezing you forever.
even if you stay a small squishem always
and even if you do end up finally getting big
forever and ever
momma.

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!)