Around Here 52: 12/22-12/28/19

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

  

   

Intentional Outdoor Hours:  630 hours and 38 minutes (of 1000) - final count for 2019!
Calling the numbers for the year and despite not getting to the 1000 hours (again, ugh) I did earn over 100 hours more than last year. I'm proud of that fact and know that my kids about doubled my time for themselves (truthfully). Somehow keeping myself accountable allows me to realistically gauge the kids' time outside and it feels good to know that we're doing 'okay.' on the screentime vs. outdoor time for them in today's world - at least balanced for them. I would encourage (so much!) you to read about 1000 hours outside challenge and consider it for 2020 for your kiddos (or you!)

Reading not too much of anything, but I did share on my @senorastuder insta the full book count for the year. I read 27 books this year, many of which were YA suggestions from my students (and such easy, quick, interesting reads! How grateful I am that our young people have such incredible stories and characters to read in today's world!)

Having a little Christmas party in our Sunday school class using these I Spy worksheets. If you don't know about these from Paper Trail Designs, you must get yourself some printed! They are such a hit in our house and they have different themes for parts of the year. I love them and so do kids!

Celebrating 20 years of kissing this handsome bearded man I call my hubs. Our first kiss was 12/23/99 after our Christmas formal dance (my junior year and his freshman year!) It was the most perfect first kiss and I can to.this.day still summon the feeling of electricity that passed between our lips. It feels like a completely different lifetime and yet somehow like two seconds ago too. I don't understand time (if there's anything I know, I know it's that time baffles me) and I am daily astonished that I get to share this life with the cutest boy I have ever known.

Visiting my midwife for a check up and all seems to be good under the hood. Studerbabe5 is 24 weeks and kicking and swimming around like a little crazy man (he kicked the sonogram wand, hah!) After my appointment, I was able to snag a quick lunch with my sisters! We ran into family friends, Bob & Pam, who surprised us with picking up our lunch tab (thank you so much! you are so thoughtful!) and then I was able to do one last sweep for gifts before Santa.

Baking all the cookies like a crazy person (haha, in hindsight I'm all like - girrrrrrl, what is wrong with you?) In a last minute holiday frenzy of holly jolly, including Christmas even morning (!?), we made cherry thumbprints, sugar cookies, and pretzel/kiss/m&m bites.

Singing happy birthday to baby Jesus three different times this week!

Putting the girls' hair in rags like my grandma taught me so that they'd have ringlets for Christmas eve mass. I also used her recipes for sugar cookies and boiled icing and it felt like she was with me through this busy week. My grandma also had five kids, so I feel myself regularly leaning towards her in my prayers and it feels so nice to be able to do the things she taught me with my own babes.

Saying goodbye to Marco our elf, until next year little buddy!

All the Christmasing. We delivered cookies to our neighbors before heading out to Christmas Eve mass (Rusty slept almost the whole time!) Abba, Chum, and Aunt Kitty came to our house after mass for snacks, reindeer food in the yard and opening jammies tradition. We only stayed up until about 1a finishing gifts as Aunt Kitty stayed the whole time and helped (I love you! thank you!) Christmas morning started at 6am with the kids anxious to go downstairs. Then it was playing and slowly getting ready before we had Christmas lunch at Gigi & Pappy's house. Christmas early evening was spent at Aunt Dar's house with our Adams cousins and the day after Christmas was spent at Abba & Chum's house with Kitty, Uch, Kevin, and Lady with a quick stop at our Hagerich cousins' house.

Getting knocked down flat on my butt by a virus. Like, couldn't get out of bed Friday or Saturday. The virus included fever, chills, sinus congestion, and a terrible cough that would not let up (my deepest empathy goes out to people who suffer from asthma; it was an awful realization of how scary it is to not be able to catch your breath!) Of course, with this pregnant belly - it also meant peeing my pants every.stinking.cough which had me also cursing under my breath the entire time.

Bunking the girls' beds which made them very happy! The kids had a 'camp out' in the girls' room

Winter Sporting with just three basketball practices for Grey this week - no games for the holiday! We are also in full blown kitchen basketball mode and I send a prayer out DAILY for all the mommas raising athletes. Oh Lord, raising an athlete is relentless movement and sound, I just don't know how else to explain it. (I often think of this nike commercial that always makes me feel for the mommas). I guess I could say no balls in the house, but that would punish all of us (he's teasing if he's not practicing). So, instead... it's the sound of constant dribbling, it's tennis balls getting thrown and caught against walls, it's soccer balls being nutmeg'ed between your legs while you cook dinner, it's 'watch this move' a thousand times a day, it's somehow finding yourself in the middle of a game you didn't know you were part of, it's cups spilled because a ball hit it, it's water bottles everywhere and nowhere when you need them, it's sweaty jerseys and socks (dear Lord, the socks), it's basketball hightops, and baseball spikes, which are different from football spikes, and it's the favorite compression shirt that needs to be found at the bottom of the hamper. It's your planner mapped out with practices and game schedules, it's a negotiation for showers after games and practices, it's knowing teammates, and thanking coaches (and their wives), and registration fees, and game admissions, and concession stands, and the year by sports seasons. Mommas of athletes, I see you; I send you patience and hearts of steel.

Teaching nothing, we're on break!

Making mini meatball subs, banana bread, bbq chicken in the crockpot, and about a thousand mugs of little noodle soup. For Christmas eve at our house, I made maple brussel sprouts, buffalo chicken dip, jalapeno cheese ball, fried potato pancakes, and we had a shrimp platter.

Around Here 51: 12/15-21

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

Intentional Outdoor Hours:   629+ hours (of 1000)
yeah, same hours. I don't want to talk about it (ha). We did get a little bit of snow this week which had the kids happy and suited up to be outside.

Reading The Astonishing Color After by Emily X.R. Pan. and The Girl in the Red Coat by Kate Hamer still - slow and steady (and barely because of holiday madness). We had our Project Lit meeting on Friday at school and discussed The Both Die at the End and The Hate U Give. The discussion was great and then we watched The Hate U Give movie and the kids loved it (me too!)

Cherishing our Sunday breakfast at Mimi's house tradition. Usually just Brandon and the babies get to go while the big kids and I are at Sunday school, but this week the heat wasn't working in the church hall, so classes were unexpectedly cancelled. Our whole family got to spend Sunday morning at Mimi's eating her world famous (hah, it is to us!) breakfast and catching up with her before church.

Organizing my planner like a crazy person since it was dress up week at both the kids' school and my school, winter parties for the big kids, little kids, my students, and Brandon's work gift exchange/luncheon, 7 teacher gifts for all the kids, and oh ya know - regular holiday craziness like Marco the Elf and less than 10 days until Santa arrives. I just kept telling myself to take it one day at a time, one foot in front of the other. Massive apologies to all the people who haven't heard back from me via text, email, or phone calls for this entire month. It's been legit survival mode for me and this baby.

Figuring out a solution for our Christmas cards by enlisting the help of our resident artist, Violet. We opted for postcards with illustrations and a message this year and with the help of the kids- we got everything stamped, addressed, minimally colored and sent off in time for (most) people to get them before Christmas day!

Being inspired, as always, by the board members of You in Flood City at our quarterly meeting. We met at Franklin Street bar & grill - so the food and company were both great and had us all excited about the upcoming year.

Happy for Gemmi as she got to have a sleepover with her bestie, Sophia. (thank you Kate!) They swam in the hot tub, made sugar cookies, did all the girl talking possible, and stayed up until 1am! Best night ever!

Chaperoning the winter formal with B on Friday night while Miss Hannah watched three of the kids and Gemma had a sleepover with Sophia (which included hot tub swims & sugar cookie making! so fun - thank you Kate!) The winter dance went great and all the students had so much fun on the dancefloor. All the adults were cracking up because most of the songs that they enjoyed dancing to the best were all songs from our time...um, hello - we're clearly cool still. (LOL). Plus, I was able to book the photographer for the prom date - so check that one off the prom planning list!

Visiting with long time friends the Jurichs who were int own from Virginia. Brandon and Mikey were best friends in high school and it's been such a long time since they got to see each other. Mikey is in the Air Force and he married his high school sweetheart too (hi Shan!) Brandon and the big kids, Coach Hinton and Kam, and the whole Jurich crew got to have lunch together on Saturday afternoon and catch up. (I took the little kids home because I was starting to feel sick with a sore throat and the littles were pretty cranky/tired).

Thanking the neighbors that put up lights and decorations this season that we get to enjoy every time we drive by their house. The kids colored little thank you notes and they were so excited to deliver them and to wish them all a Merry Christmas.

Toasting the shortest day of the year at Uch & Kevin's winter solstice party on Saturday. The kids loved getting to see all their favorite grown ups and play with Lady too. We had great soups, beautiful and delicious snacks, and lots of great conversation. All of our cousins, the Hagerich girls, were in town too (Kara from Arkansas, Morgan from Colorado, and Becca from Florida with the Navy!) So Gemma and Violet were over the moon to see them and sit in laps and get all their attention.

Winter sporting with two practices and four basketball games with the Duke Andrews league this week. Grey woke up on Tuesday with a little bit of a pulled groin and spent the day hobbling around but pulled it together for his game that night (shocking....not) and worked through it. He had some good buddies at school who helped him get around (thank you Reed!) and he was feeling better by Wednesday. Now to get some new shoes for that flat footed kid!

Teaching Mexican Christmas traditions to Spanish 1 (including Pastorelas, Día de los Inocentes, and 3 Reyes Magos). Spanish 2 finished El Silbón de Venezuela, Spanish 2 Honors learned about the Tío Nadal tradition from Cataluna, España and got to try out the theory with our very own caga tío named Jerry. Spanish 3/4 honors finished their Navidad Commerical brackets and celebrated with a mini food day on Thursday. Friday was an activity day - so after the Project Lit book club and movie in the morning, I hosted a Navidad fiesta with my Spanish club that included food brought in by the kids, a white elephant gift exchange, and mini (tossed!) piñatas. I also organized Teacher Pizza day on Friday which was a big hit (and delicious) in place of a potluck because ain't no momma (or dadda) who has time to add another thing to their plate the week before Santa?!

Making taco pasta, orange crockpot chicken over rice, hot dogs and mac&cheese, and pizza from one of my student's fundraisers (we love Mariana's subs & pizza sales!)

Baking Christmas cookies which always seems like the last thing I have time for but makes me feel so happy to pick them out, get the kids to help, and create a spread of cookies to deliver to our neighbors and have on our table for the season. We made Peppermint pinwheels, peanut butter blossoms, christmas bark (saltines, chocolate, and butter/sugar toffee), and snickerdoodles this week - which we froze batches to save for Christmas Eve. Rusty helped me on Saturday whip up a batch of pretzel/hersheykiss/m&m snacks that we all gobble down for Uch's solstice party too!