A glimpse into what it is like to live in our home just this moment.
Intentional Outdoor Hours: 30+ hours (of 1000)
The chickens are laying eggs by the plenty, the daffodils are blooming, and youth mentor fishing day has arrived this week. All clear signs that spring IS HERE! The meatballs are anxious for AYSO soccer season to start, so I had them running some drills in the yard this week to get out their wiggles (passing, dribbling, running laps). I also met Pappy (Brandon's dad) at a playground on Sunday evening while B had a basketball game since the weather was still beautiful and the kids needed to run out their energy. They played tag on the playground, rode their bikes around the parking lot, and ate tons of snacks (first rule of outdoor time: must have snacks).
Reading Balanced and Barefoot by Angela J Hanscom and We Were Liars by E. Lockhart - a borrow from my student Emily (thank you!)
yeah, still seedbabies obsession. Don't mind me.
Impressed with Grey's diy stone oven project. He has a really cool outdoorsmen book that he used last fall to build his own mini stone oven over in the pasture. It stayed up all winter and on Sunday he asked if he could cook hot dogs in the stone oven for lunch. He built his own fire in it, put the hot dogs in a metal pan and actually cooked those things up! He was so proud and it is legit awesome.
de-winterizing (spring'ing?) the farmette. Brandon and Gemma did most of the work (that girl is a helper to the core!) The chicken coop needed cleaning out and the winter siding taken off - the chickens were overjoyed! B moved all the chicken poop to a big future-fertilizer pile in the pasture. He and the kids also put a huge tarp over the area for our future garden to use the 'smother method' to try to kill the weed seeds that are under the ground already before we transplant our seedbabies. B and Gem also organized the shed and discovered the chickens new favorite egg-laying spot (on top of the hay!) Next up is the goat shelter/pen clean out (!!) but that's a really big job that needs a whole day or weekend to tackle!
Singing Happy Half Birthday to Violet who turned six and a half this week!
Starting to get those third trimester bummers. the heartburn of death, the no-clothes-fitting-ever, the middle of the night insomnia, the lower back ache, the ankle/feet swelling at the end of the day. Ya know, all the things that make mommas be able to say "I don't care how this baby has to get out of me - just get.it.out.of.me" yeah - all those bummers. Had a regular check up this week and all is going well in there, so onward we move towards 9 more weeks!
Meeting via Zoom with You in Flood City and feeling inspired as always after our meetings.
Collaborating with other teachers through the district and some administration about plans for next school year. I am so passionate about education and kids and teaching that I literally could talk about it for one million hours.
Juggling both dogs and Red to a vet appointment on Saturday morning by myself (hah, hilarious). Since covid, the dogs haven't been to the vet all year - so I was really grateful to get it checked off the to do list. They both got updated Seresto collars (thank goodness with tick season in full swing!), updated vaccines, and clean bills of health.
Grateful to the end of the Earth for my handsome, patient husband who somehow managed all four biggest kids (plus a cousin) for a sleepover and full day of fishing at camp for Mentor fishing day. There is so much assistance needed for fishing (baiting hooks, untangling lines, scooping fish into nets, un-hooking fish and releasing them, putting waders/boots on and off) it is a big, big job to mentor kids while fishing. But he did all that and even sent me photos in semi-real time and honestly - this man; he is a damn good one. Besides Bud, we had lots of other mentors there too (thank goodness!) My dad, Brandon's dad, Uncle Ray, and cousin Ray and his 3 kiddos spent the whole day Saturday in the creek snagging trout. Grey was at peak happiness (as he tends to be with a wet line) and Rust is our next full-on obsessed fishing kid. At about 7p with the truck fully packed back up, Brandon told Rusty it was time to go and Rusty had already snuck his fishing pole out of the truck bed and answered, "After this one last time, Dad!"
Crossing our fingers that Gem just sprained her ankle and that's it's not another broken bone for her this school year. She was having a great time at Gina's birthday party with her brother and tons of friends ice skating, when she twisted her foot somehow and took a spill. It immediately started swelling and besides it being painful to move, she was also having major worries about having another broken bone. Thankfully, there were some kind, patient parents there (thank you Conns, Hagans, and Stankos!) who kept her company until we were able to pick her up and take her home for major elevation and icing and praying!
Sporting with two baseball practices (outdoors!) for Grey this week. I finalized all the other kids' AYSO soccer registrations and updated my planner with Grey's baseball games when we got the full schedule this week. Spring sports season is going to be in full swing here in a few weeks (hang on to your hats Red and Studerbaby #6!)
Teaching Somos 1 Unit 6 in Spanish 1. We are learning about body parts, created a class story, and even did some horizontal conjugation. Spanish 2 started Somos 1 Unit 13 which included the Chico del Apt 512 class story and a horizontal conjugation too. Spanish 3 read chapters 1-8 of Fiesta Fatal and we got to talk about the secret tunnels under the country borderline and got to play Choose your Chambelán game (always a hit!) Spanish 4 started their book Bananas and read the Prologue to Chapter 4 and finished their vocab quiz.
Making buffalo chicken dip to go with Grey's stone oven cooked hot dogs on Sunday afternoon. This week, we also had sandwiches with shells & cheese (go to kid favorite), meat sauce spaghetti, Italian broccoli soup, ham & cheese sliders on Hawaiian rolls, take out from Smiley's one night (wings, pizza, and grilled chicken salad), and frozen pizza for the kids while Brandon and I tried our first Green Chef home delivery meal kit: Sweet potato sushi bowls. B and I are trying out Green Chef (great coupon code from Instagram!) to give plant-based meals a fair shot. We are carnivores around here, but plant-based diets are very in right now and we watched the trailer for the Netflix documentary Game Changers and have also found ourselves having conversations often about great athletes being vegan (like Tom Brady!) and so we wanted to learn how to cook, what to cook, and how to flavor plant-based meals so it didn't feel like salads every day and holy guacamole, so far - YUMMMM. If you are interested in trying a plant-based diet and want a little kick start in the right direction by using Green Chef - I have a code for you for $55 your first box order! Just click here for the link and code
That picture of your house at night is magic!
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