Around Here Week 17: 04/25-05/01

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

Intentional Outdoor Hours:  73+ hours (of 1000)
What a beautiful weather week we had and we tried to soak up every minute of it outside. We had one day of rained out practices and the kids stayed home and played outside in the rain anyway (hah!). They were spraying each other with the hose (in the rain) while trying to shield themselves using sleds. It was pretty hilarious. While the big kids were all away on Saturday, Rust, Red, and I spent most of the day outside just letting them free range play. We got ice cream, walked out to the secret hideout in the woods, and played for over an hour in our rock dust pile.

Reading Clap When You Land by Karen Acevedo which is our current Project Lit book. So beautifully written like I've come to expect from Acevedo. Just lovely and really enjoying it. 

Prepping the garden by putting up our deer (and Polly) fence. We haven't transferred our seedbabies yet though because frost isn't totally out of the western PA future forecasts yet (Ugh). We also had our new fruit trees and blueberry bushes arrive this week! We are doing more brainstorming and envisioning our Studerbabies farm to it's full potential. We are really eager to continue learning about Permaculture and I can't stop thinking that I want ducks and a pond (haha, Brandon really has patience with me). We also are trying to steer the goaties to the next plot of land we want them to clear out and B and the kids laid wood chips all around the chicken coop to try to keep the chickens out of our landscaping mulch (my biggest complaint about our chickens!) 

Welcoming back a normal (albeit busy) weekly schedule as the two little boys were able to go back to preschool/daycare this week after a two week closure due to a positive case. They even had picture day on Wednesday. I'm anxious to see how the pictures turned out. Rusty informed me that Reddy smiled - hahaha! 

Asking the April full moon (the Pink moon!) to please break my water and bring this baby into the world. Hah (it didn't work...but good grief - the moon can pull the tide of the ocean but have no effect on my water break - come on!) I even tried to jostle her a little loose by mowing on the riding tractor all over our bumpy yard...but yeah, no. She's staying put - coziest uterus ever. 

Making it to the weekly appointment stage. I had a 36 week check in with my midwife (1cm dilated and 70% effaced but she's still not fully down in position) and a non-stress test. Just waddling and waiting and finishing cooking this bun. Ugh, this part is the worsssttt. 

Overwhelmed with appreciation when my mumma spent the whole day at my house on Thursday cleaning top and bottom for us and putting dinner in the oven! What a huge blessing it was to come home and literally have nothing on my to do list - no laundry! no dinner making! no dirty dishes! no vacuuming! I actually took a shower, took a nap (!?!!), ate dinner, and went to bed. Omigosh, it was so amazing. Thank you mum, a million times thank you!

Clapping for my students who put on an incredible performance for the spring musical. They did Oliver! and it was really quite impressive and fun. Our school social worker organized a little girls' night for some of us and we grabbed dinner at a local restaurant first and then went to the musical together. It was such a nice evening. So proud of all my students! 

Sending all three big kids to playdates on Saturday. Violet got a sleepover with Abba and Chum (thank you!), Gem had a sleepover with her friend Zolina (thank you!), and Grey and Brandon spent the day fishing in the Wilmore tournament with their Gilmore cousins. That meant a long slow paced day at home in the sunshine for me and the two little boys which was blissful. 

Sporting with three baseball games for Grey including Opening Day at our home fields. The baseball board did such a great job organizing and making it special, it was a great day! Violet got 1 soccer practice in and then rain cancelled her second practice. Rust had 2 practices and Gem had 3 practices this week. Brandon took Gem for another xray on her bad foot because after about a month there is still some lingering swelling; the xray showed there's no acute fracture but we are to follow up with the ortho dept because maybe some physical therapy will help get that swelling under control. 

Teaching pre-reading activities to Spanish 1 to prepare for reading the graphic novel Billy y las Botas next week. Spanish 2 finished their novel El Ekeko while Spanish 3 continued reading their novel Felipe Alou Chapters 6-8. Spanish 4 started their piñata; they are making a giant Patrick (from Spongebob) and they assembled the balloon base and we started our first layers of paper mache this week. 

Making breakfast for dinner (eggs, sausage, toast), spaghetti, shredded cream cheese chicken tacos, and  chicken and rice bowls. Abba made us meatloaf one night and we ordered in from Thomahawk subs and flatbreads too.