Around Here Week 3: 01/16-22

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

photo credit: Coach Ang

Intentional Outdoor Hours: 4+ hours (of 1000)
A real snowstorm blew through on Sunday afternoon and had us blanketed all of Monday and then even cancelled school on Tuesday! The kids were thrilled and snagged many hours outside sledding and building a massive igloo off the patio. My hours were from farm chores (frozen animal water is my hate language, is that a thing?) I did manage to wrestle Reddy into snow clothes a few times and even Livy spent some time in the snowflakes for her first ever bonafide snowstorm. 

Reading Everything Happens for a Reason by Kate Bowler and Free to Learn by Peter Gray. 

Insta/Facebook detox update: still really grateful for this time and space without them. I had to hop on instagram to message my prom committee once or twice and then hopped right off because it just felt like a wave of stress to see the scroll. I'm out of the loop on everything, but honestly it feels so freeing to take a breather. 

Oof, backing up on laundry. The washer was having issues draining for four days and let me tell you what that does in a family of eight. The literal mountain of dirty clothes and towels stacked up in the laundry room was not pretty, but....

Thankful for my handy husband who did a whole bunch of googling and youtube-searching and drained the washer twice to figure out what the problem with the washer was. He was able to determine that something might have been lodged in the drain fan/motor and when he checked - yep! One of the girls scrunchies had come apart and the fabric was twisted around the motor. He cleared it and it works again like a charm. Lucky girl I am! 

Accepting so graciously a frozen turkey from our church. It really happened in a moment that I needed it. I snuck off to church on Sunday morning while everyone was asleep and in his sermon, our pastor talked about how to have trust that what you need will be provided (the gospel was Jesus turning the water to wine). You can live your life worrying, "how will we make this work? there is not enough?" or you can look around you and notice what is already there and how you can trust and work using the good that is already present in your life. For the last few weeks, we've literally been wondering aloud "how will we make our life work? there is not enough!" we have so many kids, and the animals, and all our bills, and the grocery costs (good grief!) and after mass, I was walking out feeling really great about trying to make my new blog work (looking at what is already good and available in our life and making it work for us and trusting) and then doesn't pastor go ahead on the way out and say, "Hey, I know you have all those mouths to feed at home and we have a frozen turkey that was donated to the church. Would you guys be able to use it?" I immediately teared up and felt like it was such a sign to breathe and know that it's going to be okay. I had just written my first blog post on Team Studer Mom talking about how I want to try to make money blogging "so we can buy meat at the grocery store next week." Gosh, sometimes it's all too much I feel like my heart my tear at the seams. 

So annoyed by the goats. I know it seems funny and cute to stroll up to our house to find the goats hanging around and looking in our windows, but hate ta break it to ya- but goats poop a lot. So all that time they are spending on our porches means goat poop all day every day. B and Gemma are goat poop shoveling champions (thank goodness for them). You cannot look out the side windows without seeing a goat looking in and they've started actually knocking on the door. I literally live at the funny farm. After they slept up on our patio on the -8 degree night instead of in their warm straw-filled safe shed, I'm starting to wonder if there isn't a predator that they are hiding from....so new investigation for the coming week!

Learning so much about the internet, websites, and all the things it takes to be relevant out here in the world wide web. Youtube has been a lifesaver for when I have no clue how to code something or where to place something - don't worry, someone on youtube made a video for dummies for that! (ie. I'm the dummy, hah). I am also eternally grateful to Abby Lawson who has pages and pages of 'click this, then this, the download this...' tutorials on how to start a blog that is monetized and your own. I literally would not have had the courage to take this step with Team Studer Mom if it had not been for her very-easy-to-follow (and free!) walk through (thank you Abby & Donnie!)  

Smiling at our 8month old little Olive princess girl. She's crawling, clapping, and screeching in communication with Red (haha, pterodactyl communication isn't quite my favorite, but its only a phase, right?....right!?). 

Losing all of our fish in the last three weeks. We must have had some kind of bacterial infection infiltrate the tank because ever so slowly, each fish slowed down until they died. It was bizarre and really a bummer since we've had fish in the tank for the past 13 years of marriage. Now we have this 50 gallon empty tank and need to make some decisions. B would like to restock with a bunch of tiny fish and I'd like to just put the tank away for a few years....hmmm, who will be the winner of this round of marriage compromises (hah). 

Zoom meeting with an incredible local organization (The Backpack Project) that I am going to be sitting on their advisory board. It is always inspiring to talk to people who are passionate about doing good and making big plans. 

Grateful that Reddy is getting more comfortable using his baby signs automatically. He consistently signs: help, thank you, milk, bath, all done, more, outside, and stop. And his vocabulary is growing a little bit - he says: mum, dad, moose, poop, hi, hello, bye, booboo, no, yes, shoes, uh oh, ouch, and juice. 

Sporting with basketball season in full effect. Violet had two basketball games, Gemma had one basketball game, two practices, and one exhibition game during the Varsity girls halftime (they even got to warm up and be in the huddle with the Varsity girls!). Grey had three basketball games and a practice. The winter weather cancelled B's basketball game on Sunday night. 

Making chicken wings with homemade sauce, pork roast & banana peppers in the slow cooker, homemade strombolis, salsa crockpot chicken, baked homefries with chili cheese dogs, beef and noodle, Korean ground turkey with green beans over Jasmine rice, buffalo chicken dip and copycat chicken patty sammies with homemade baked fries. On Saturday night, we had baked chicken spaghetti for the kids and chicken, broccoli alfredo bake for me and B. For desserts, I made cowboy cookies and iced oatmeal cookies (Brandon's absolute favorite cookie) and I made confetti muffins on the snow day for breakfast.
         - Because of our super tight budget, I've been looking at my leftovers with a creative eye trying to come up with ways to re-use them to make something new and delicious. Plus, doing all the shelf shopping possible to make use of all the stuff we have already in the pantry and cupboards before automatically thinking of going to the store. It feels good to stretch my kitchen muscles...but also, geez - exhausting.