Around Here Week 40: 09/30-10/06

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

Intentional Outdoor Hours:  511+ hours (of 1000)
Up 16 hours this week thanks to some (finally!) beautiful fall days! I'm still not totally satisfied with my intentional outdoor choices, almost all of our hours come from activities that we need to be outside for anyway (games, practices, etc) and I'm not choosing myself to spend time outside, especially when I get home from school. I'm still trying to get a handle on chores, homework, and dinner which those three alone have me shaking my head every night at how the hours get swallowed up before bedtime. (let alone adding blogging or reading to the mix yet). I know I'll get there, but this long readjustment is always frustrating.

Reading...I can't even say it again, I'm reading so little that it doesn't even count. But our book club did pick our next book which is The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas (which is also about to be released as a movie!)

Celebrating our Violet with her princess bouncy house party at our house. We lucked out on an absolutely perfect September day (finally!). The bouncy house arrived in the morning (from Hogue's Fun Factory) and kept our kids occupied all morning while I was able to clean and finish the Princess dress cupcake tray. B ran off to Stuver's to pick up mum flower pots for around the house and our family and friends brought delicious food to accompany our hamburger and hot dogs on the grill (thank you!) Violet had a great time with her cousins, friends from school, and her besties Benny, Grady, Hunter, & Chloe. It was such a great day for our peanut.

Fall sporting with practices and an away game at Meyersdale this week. Our flag cheerleaders had the two last run-thrus to paint and it went over surprisingly well (I had my doubts considering 19 first and second graders with paint). It rained (again) on Thursday so B had the minors football team over for game film in our garage (hah!) Our game was on a hot, fall day and the flag cheerleaders did great through the heat and sweating. Our minors boys (Grey's team) experienced their first loss of the season which Grey took kind of rough. Always good practice though to work through those feelings of defeat and disappointment (25 Rules for Moms of Sons).

Enjoying Gemma's full on toothless grin after she lost her other front top tooth! (tooth fairy was on it this time!)

Taking a day off of school after my body just shuts 'er down because I don't know how to relax. Between October and November each year, my body has to do something drastic to get me to take a rest day and it was this week. I got to relax home alone and take care of myself (which included getting some grading done, chatting with my sister, and watching The Shape of Water).

Teaching colors and school supplies in Spanish 1 while Spanish 1 Honors starts in on Somos 1 Unit 2 (corre, camina, ve). Spanish 2 started reading Capibara con Botas and got to play for the first time one of our favorite novel games: Write-Draw-Pass. Spanish 2 Honors finished up Brandon Brown Quiere un Perro and took their end of book test and learned about their RAFT Project that will be due next week after some in-class work days. Spanish 3 Honors is still working through Esperanza and we've made it to Chapter 6 and everyone let out an audible sigh at the end because, ugh, sad (but yay that everyone could understand that it was sad, right?)

Homecoming week at our school this week - so we dressed up for our Haunted Hoco theme before the big pep rally on Friday. It was the high school teacher's turn to put on the show and we showed up for it - all dressed as recognizable spooky characters (I was Pennywise from It! We also had Chucky, Freddie, Jason, and the Purge people!) complete with a Thriller and Kiki dance (hah). Then the Spanish Club participated in the Hoco parade thanks to some parents and awesome Spanish Club kids. I brought Vi and Rust with me on the float and they were kept company the whole time with our Spanish Club President, Ana (aka: Maddie). I even had two students dress up as the Ganga girls from the Señor Wooly music video (JAJAJ, you're amazing Cheyanne & Olivia!) The babies and I stayed for a little bit of the Hoco football game and watched the crowning of the king and queen (Violet wanted to hug all the 'princesses')

Making Italian crockpot chicken and potatoes, taco pasta, order in pizza (on game film night), leftovers, and stromboli.