Thank you November

Thank you November for...

Thank you for

• a great school celebration for Día de los muertos where students created and tried new foods while learning about a cultural holiday.
• a make-up trick or treating day to spend time with family and friends collecting sweets from neighbors. 
• A championship win (and undefeated season!) for Coach Daddy and QB Greyson. What a well deserved and hard practiced season by all players and coaches it was!
• Skilled doctors who can find problems and fix them for those we love
• an evaluation for Gemma with a neuropsychologist to see if we can get to the bottom of her struggles in school and ultimately found that although she has challenges in several spots, her overall scores did not point to any diagnosis which is great but also frustrating.
• A veteran's day breakfast and assembly at school that inspires me every year - but this year especially as my sister, Kayla, came to speak to the student body about her time in the National Guard. She did such a powerful job that students still mention and ask about her. I am so proud to be her big sister. (love you, Kitty).
• pregnant-friendly sushi
• a great partner in End-of-Season banquet planning (thanks Becky for all you did and all the calls you made!) The banquet went off beautifully and a good time and full bellies were had by all. The official close of the football and cheerleading season!
• our first Project Lit book club meeting at school with students to discuss Monster by Walter Dean Myers. We had snacks and great discussion and a mix of students from all different kinds of groups and grades. Oh I love books and how they bring people together. (thanks for organizing and encouraging me to do this, Renee! so grateful to work with you). 
• a perfect cozy birthday weekend getaway at Seven Springs to celebrate my dad (Chum) and his 60th birthday. The kids splashed in the hot tub, we took a walk, we all snuggled with Lady, and enjoyed great food and laughs. 
• a successful fundraiser for our Spanish Club and a few really productive prom committee meetings that finalized the raffle fundraiser and confirmed the venue.
• book club with ladies I love at a new-to-me restaurant that was incredible. 
• our two big kids who have been so kind and generous with helping with the chickens each morning (opening and closing the coop and taking down and bringing up the waterer so that it doesn't freeze). 
• a mini road trip for our family to Hershey to see Jurassic World Live and get an afternoon with our Gilmore cousins that always makes us happy.
• the start of basketball season for Grey and the NOT start of basketball season for Coach Daddy (yay!)
• the sweet melodic sound of the fourth grade recorder concert. (hah, but seriously I loved it and Grey was really proud).
• the ultrasound that told us we are having a baby brother! 
• our midwife (and cousin) who is honest and patient with me with news, questions, and updates about our newest babe as we passed the half way mark this month in pregnancy!
• a thanksgiving day with family that filled our bellies and our hearts
• the opening of rifle season (deer season continues!) I'm not particularly thankful for this, but I know my boys are - so my gratitude extends by proxy
• the arrival of our elf Marco and Christmas decorations lighting up our home and all the guilt-free hot chocolates and Christmas 'kissing' movies a girl can dream of

Thank you October

Thank you October for...

• The leaves and that crisp air. Gosh, October, do you ever bring peace to my soul. 
• the opportunity to see that if I let my students take on more responsibility in clubs, they can and with beautiful success which was the case for all planning and designing of our Spanish Club homecoming float. I was so stressed about getting everything together, but the kids took on the challenge and completely took it off my plate. 
• lots of quality time for Brandon and Greyson as archery season opened and I said goodbye to those two until December (end of deer season). At least they are together and both obsessed no matter how much I miss them and how crazy it makes me. 
• the only show that B and I consistently make time to watch returned to tv and gave us an excuse to make time to watch tv together (The Walking Dead...I know, we're like the last still watching but whatever).
• Nine and half years of our Greyson Rudy Booboo's relentless teasing and silliness.
• a productive and validating meeting with Gemma's teachers about her struggles in reading and appointment schedule with the neuropsycologist to see if Dyslexia is at the root of the problem
• The start of our Sunday school season and getting the chance to teach our own Grey for the next two years
• the sound of our sweet baby cinco's heartbeat at my monthly check up
• the day marking eleven years married to my favorite human on this Earth and the day celebrating the birth of that same person - October, no wonder you are my most treasured month of all. 
• a corn maze with friends on a beautiful fall day
• the success of another community event organized by my little sis who makes me so proud
• the end of regular season football and cheerleading season. It is always sad to say goodbye to all the sweet smiles and hugs from my little first and second grade cheerleaders, but also a sigh of relief to get weeknights and weekends off again after a long, busy season.
• a playoff football win for Coach Daddy and Greyson 
• 38 years of marriage to celebrate for my parents!
• Walmart grocery pick up, I love you. 
• Halloween school parties at the kids schools that make them so happy and the homeroom moms and preschool teachers who do all the planning and organizing (I am so grateful for you!)
• a new mattress for our aching backs and the adjustable base that brings so much happiness that it is borderline bizarre.
• canceling on trick-or-treating when the rain and wind was strong and bobbing for apples in our kitchen with the kids instead laughing and cheering each other on. It ended up being the perfect Halloween evening.
• My real life view of my live-like-the-seasons quote (100 small things) for fall "Notice how the trees do not cling to their leaves. Fall is about releasing the old to make way for the new." 

Around Here Week 48: 11/24-11/30

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

Intentional Outdoor Hours:  682+ hours (of 1000)
I'm guessing its about the same (didn't get more than a few minutes outside a couple days this week) and plus with my phone out of commission, I actually can't tell for sure. I keep all my times recorded in a note on my phone. So I'll update next week!

Reading The Astonishing Color After by Emily X.R. Pan. It is a YA book and one of the Project Lit choices for this year. Our group isn't reading it yet, but I've been interested in it since I snagged it for my classroom this summer. I also stopped by the book store before heading to Verizon on Saturday (because I anticipated the long wait) and picked up The Girl in the Red Coat by Kate Hamer and I'm loving that so far too. Both are based around semi-depressing topics (a mother's suicide and a daughter's disappearance respectively) but they are both well written and have really quick chapters which makes them perfect reads for this season of the year (holidays) and season of my life (pregnant with baby#5)

Inventory'ing the kids' winter clothes. Such a task, but needs done every year to make sure we are ready for sledriding and snow play. We had everything but appropriately fitting snow pants for the two big ones. Abba & Chum came to the rescue there and we are all covered and ready to go for a big snowfall - bring it on, winter!

Laughing about our yard visitor. We have horses and a pony that live on the farm behind our house and the pony has been ducking the fence and walking the path through the woods to our house during the day. He was in the yard when we got home from school the other day and the kids were dyyyyyying laughing. We call him "Poe-nay" and the kids are obsessed even if he's not a huge fan of them and retreats back to his farm at the sight/sound of them. Rusty can't say any /s/ sound within a word - so he keeps shouting out, "Momma, I'm going out to see my little (w)hore" which is terrible but I laugh every darn time.

Finding out we have another BOY coming. Literally shocked. I was completely confident that it was a girl, so was Brandon, so were all the kids. So when the technician said, "it's a boy."I literally responded with, "what?" followed shortly by a baffled, "but they break everything" to Brandon. Still kind of processing this information but excited to meet this new little cannonball. The girls were initially disappointed (mostly because they guessed wrong....#same) but we've all moved into the territory of talking about baby brother with love and excitement in our hearts.

Speaking of baby brother, we've hit the halfway mark! 20 weeks so he's as long as a banana, or a paper airplane, or a pint of beer (hah). We found out at the ultrasound that my placenta is low-lying which means extra precautions and ultrasounds - but all is well right now. I am in the best possible hands with our midwife Meg (who is also our cousin) so I am not concerned. Following orders and being extra mindful as I have a tendency to just operate as close to normal even while growing humans - so this is even more reason to watch more Hallmark movies and relax, right?

Feeling grateful for family, health, and delicious food on Thanksgiving. We watched the parade at home in the morning and I stayed home with the (coughing, feverish) boys while B took the girls in to visit Gigi and Pappy for Thanksgiving breakfast. Then we all headed out to Kuma's house for lunch with the Studer/Gilmore crew. After filling our bellies to the brim, we then made our way to Indiana to my Aunt Mar's house for Thanksgiving dinner with our Adams family. At both places, we played this super easy and hilarious game that had everyone cheering and cracking up.

Switching to Christmas in our home. The kids all helped take down Thanksgiving decor and pull out all the Christmas boxes from the attic. We pulled out all the Christmas books, listened to Christmas music, and flipped the living room furniture all around to make room for the tree. The kids were entirely in charge of decorating the tree and then we had hot chocolate with candy canes. The girls and I are loving the 'Christmas kissing movies' and watched The Holiday Calendar and The Knight Before Christmas (both Netflix). We have pine candles ablaze, Gemma has been practicing Jingle Bells on the piano night and day to prepare for Christmas Eve at our house, and Marco arrived on Saturday evening! Tis the official season!

Bumming that my phone flat died on Thanksgiving. It has been busted in the corner for weeks now, so it's not all that surprising. Just a total bummer since none of the pictures I took Thanksgiving morning/afternoon/early evening saved to my google drive. Which means, I got nothing to show for our holiday celebrating, which really only matters for the yearbook, but still. Aunt Kitty spent the afternoon decorating her tree with the three little kids while I was able to trek to the mall to try to get a replacement on Saturday only to find out that I needed to call the warranty place and wait for them to ship a replacement. So a few more days of 'unavailable' status!

Drinking all the hot drinks all the time. coffee, hot tea, hot chocolate. give me all of them.

Praying for safety for all the hunters - including my husband and oldest son - who spent the day in the woods all Saturday for the first day of rifle season.

Re-reading the quote below from Harlan Miller (on Daddydoinwork) as we move into the holiday season as the twinge of anxiety about all the extras we add to the season starts to settle into my heart. There are lots of things coming up in the planner (Marco the elf returns, school dress up days, school parties, house decorating, traditional get-togethers, cookie baking, all the gift buying, holiday traditions, school concerts, Santa letters and visits, etc, etc, etc) but I'm clinging to this quote like I have in seasons past to remind myself that the years are short and right now magic fills the kids eyes and hearts and it is the luckiest of all gifts to get to be their momma and have a front row seat to this beautiful madness.

"Probably the reason we all go so haywire at Christmastime ...is that we don't quite know how to put our love into words"

Winter sporting with still only one night of basketball practice for Grey!

Teaching only two days! We had a short holiday week and then had our annual Volleyball tournament day on Wednesday for the early out day. I played on the teacher volleyball team and we went 3-0 and were headed into the playoffs before I had to leave a little early to make it to my ultrasound/baby doc appointment. Spanish 1 did a song lyric unscrambling activity and had a vocab quiz, Spanish 2 also listened to a song and worked with lyrics (one of my favs, Como los Vaqueros) and then took a vocab quiz, Spanish 2 Honors learned about the Chilean mining accident and how it compares to our own (close to home) mining accident at the Que and then watched The 33. Spanish 3/4 honors finished their La Llorona inspired short stories and turned them in right before break!

Making 'crispy hot dogs' in the air fryer with some baked maple bacon brussel sprouts for the Steeler game on Sunday. During the week we had orange chicken in the crockpot, Ranch Parmesan baked pork chops, and popcorn shrimp and pierogies.  For Thanksgiving I made two pumpkin rolls (with blue icing for a gender reveal with family) and two egg sausage casseroles for breakfast. We also used left over turkey in a creamy turkey noodle bake for first day of rifle dinner to warm our boys up when they returned home.