Around Here Week 48: 11/24-30

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

photo cred: Peyton L

photo cred: Grey

photo cred: B

Intentional Outdoor Hours: 611+ hours (of 1000)
yeesh, cold cold now and I have never claimed to not be a baby when it comes to cold weather. Brandon bought me a heated blanket for our bed and it might be the single greatest gift of my life. I got me some very fuzzy mittens and I'm just getting through it, okay? farm chores are literally the only thing that are keeping me getting any outdoor time. I have ambitions for the new year, but for now I'm going easy on myself. 

Reading Hang the Moon by Jeannette Walls, still a nice slow and relaxed read.

Listening to The Chain by Adrian McKinty still very exciting but ready to get to the conclusion.

Marco the Elf antics: he only just arrived on Saturday. The kids found him in his 'charging box' hanging on the front door handle. 

Christmas movies watched: The Grinch (cartoon version)

Football Boosters fundraising event at Forbes Trail Brewing. Grey volunteered as a cashier for the first part of the day. Uch and the nephews, Kitty & Bryan, and Pappy all joined us for some yummy food, snackies, drinks, and laughter. 

Girls Breakfast and Lunch! I met Heather at Corner Coffee Shoppe for breakfast and it was so nice to sit and eat food that I didn't make or have to clean up (hah). We always have great conversation, so thankful for that girl. The dentist was able to squeeze me in on Wednesday when someone canceled, so I got a teeth cleaning and then randomly called my sis Uch to see if she was available for lunch since I was in the neighborhood of her job. She was! So we had lunch together at Harrigans for more delicious food and great conversation.  

Family Yearbook from 2023-24 is here! She's a beauty and I love her so much! It is a 14 month process to put it all together and 900+ photos, but worth it every year. It brings our whole family so much joy and a flood of memories of all the things we do together and how many people in our lives bring happiness and support to us in all we do. 

Some nephew squeezems with baby Blair. We got to babysit while Kev and Uch got a little date night (and the other two boys were at the movies with Miss Emma - luckiest!) We got to snuggle him and read him books and he is just the sweetest little dumpling. 

Thanksgiving first at Kuma's house with our Studer side of the family. The food was delicious and the kids had a great time playing with their cousins Logan and Ryder. Kuma even had a little game of pin the tail on the turkey! We brought sparkling cider (Rusty's favorite Thanksgiving tradition) and pumpkin roll. It was a beautiful afternoon and we all talked about Gigi when she came to mind. It was our first big holiday without her and mostly right now it feels surreal. There have been holidays in the past that she was sick or in the hospital and we missed her, but knew that as soon as she was well - we would make it up and celebrate with her. So it doesn't feel so odd that she wasn't at Thanksgiving but then when I remember truly why she wasn't there, the bottom of my heart falls out and I feel stunned all over again. Navigating the season will be delicate. sending love and strength to everyone grieving this holiday season - whether your grief is fresh or many years deep. xxo

Hosting Thanksgiving for my side of the family at our house. We kept it simple with turkey sandwiches, haluski, spinach & cheese casserole (from Bab's), roasted sweet potatoes, and pumpkin roll. My parents brought wine, Uchie brought shrimp cocktail and cheese & crackers, and Kitty brought chocolate chip cookies. It was a relaxed Thanksgiving evening while all the little kids zoomed all around and jumped off the windowsill onto the couches LOL. We sang happy birthday to my dad (Chumsgiving!) Before the nephews left, Reddy and Rusty were having baby stroller races with Wells and Heath in them (!!) and it was hilariously dangerous but they were all so trusting of each other - it was honestly blowing my mind. Cousins make the very best friends and memories!!

Ordering our new living room couch and rearranging the room. We have had the couch part of our living room in the front part of the living room since we moved into this house 14 years ago...but with our new couch picked out - we switched the sides of the rooms and it feels both exciting and disorientating (hah). It always is a relief to vacuum, mop, scrub, and purge broken toys (hah) when you move furniture but it will take some getting used to. Gemma and I manhandled two pieces of the furniture downstairs into the basement den (Girl Power!) Our new couch isn't scheduled to be delivered for another 3 weeks, but I like that we are getting comfortable in this new setting first. 

Rifle season! Tis the camo season in full effect now. Grey, B, and Violet spent most of Friday out in the woods scouting out their spots with our Gilmore cousins. Early Saturday morning, Grey, B, and Rusty headed out to the woods with Pappy and the Gilmore cousins. Grey and B both harvested deer on the first day. B got a 7 point and Grey got a spike. Thankful for those fellas filling up our freezer, we definitely will use the meat! Cousin Reid got a deer too, so before they headed out for their annual chicken wings out to eat together - we had three deer hanging in the garage! 

Having a bad tech day. Our brand new tv is stuck on a loop of "Smart Hub is updating please try again" so I can't update any of the streaming apps. I was on the phone with support trying a million things to fix it (no luck yet). Then I dropped my phone and the screen blacked out, still working alarms and can receive calls and texts - but that doesn't help since I can't see anything. Ughhhhhh. 

MAGIC SEASON is upon us! Marco, our elf, arrived on Saturday morning. I made a full calendar of Holly Jolly tasks that are traditions for our family that I am fitting in between practices and games and pageants. Gemma helped me bring down the Christmas tree and get it set up (no decorations yet, but it's up at least!). All the kids helped put up some decorations around the house too. We are stuffing and addressing Christmas cards, compiling my cookie list, and I have my Christmas Budget spreadsheet on fire (LOL) as I try to get all the things done in this very tight window this year between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Sending my love and thoughts to all of you magic makers out there. xxo

Teaching only 2 days this week because of the holiday - good thing because everyone was becoming a little unraveled. My elementary students practiced the phrase "Doy gracias por" and then reviewed all the Spanish words we have learned so far with a game of 'human gimkit' moving around the room. Spanish Expo worked on practicing their classroom objects vocab, Spanish 1 read Chapter 5 in the capibara novel and did a walk around quiz to review. Spanish 2 took their Tumba final book quiz and did great on it - proud of them! 

Sporting with three swim practices for Rusty and one basketball game for Violet. Gemma had a double scrimmage at North Star (vs. NS and Somerset - I knew every person in there! LOL), a home scrimmage, and one practice with team photos. Grey had six basketball practices and team photos too. We all attended the football booster fundraiser at Forbes Trail on Sunday (Grey volunteered and I made pumpkin roll)

Making teriyaki chicken rice bowls, beef tacos, homemade stromboli, hot dogs and cheddar brats with mac&cheese, and baked ravioli. B, Grey, and the hunting crew went out for chicken wings at Tollgate after the first day of rifle. For Thanksgiving I made 2 pumpkin rolls, a turkey, roasted sweet potatoes, spinach & cheese casserole, and haluski. For sweets this week, I made a pumpkin roll for the Football boosters fundraising event at Forbes Trail, a batch of cowboy cookies early in the week, and a double batch of pumpkin chocolate chip cookies for the hunters on Saturday.

Around Here Week 47: 11/17 - 23

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

photo cred: B

photo cred: Jackie F

photo cred: Uncle Juice

Intentional Outdoor Hours: 610+ hours (of 1000)
First snow day of the year! Both my school and the kids' school had an old fashion snow day called. B still had to go into work, but the rest of us spent the day at home and the kids got out to sled ride and tend to the farm for awhile. While the kids were outside, I reorganized the pantry which was a long time item on my to do list! 

Reading Hang the Moon by Jeannette Walls. It's going slow but I do really like the characters and storyline! 

Listening to The Chain by Adrian McKinty and what in the good grief?! I like it, I think...? so much drama and insanity. The author took the writing suggestion of 'kill your darlings' a little too literal and the whole book is basically an exercise in making every single moment a challenge for the main character.

Chore day on a wide open Sunday at our house. B and the kids worked outside (cleaning off the back porch, closing the porch windows, etc). Pappy was in the garage working on electrical, and I was in the house doing load after load of laundry, ironing, and organizing the pantry and fridge. I did a massive clean up of our bedroom too - hanging up clothes in the closet, clearing off dressers...if you are normally dysfunctional like our family (LOL), then clean clothes get tossed over the chairs instead of hanging them up, and dressers become holding stations for whatever is in your hand right this second instead of just putting it in the place it goes. It is a survive each day right now in the blur of raising young kids - so we do what we need to do to get through the days. But it felt good to really go through everything and clean up and clear out - so yay! 

Hooking up the tv in our bedroom which is a winter-only treat. I like to turn on Youtube fireplace ambience for the winter months while I do laundry or while I read before bed. It's nice to give the kids access to their shows during winter sports that Daddy and Grey like to dominate the tv with in the living room. Even in the winter, we still aren't a huge screen family, but we give ourselves a little extra cozy comfort in the long, dark (!), cold winter months.  

Family hang out in our bedroom because of course with it all clean and clear and the fake fireplace on, every single child found their way in to us. There were lego building competitions and side conversations and laughter. It's shocking to me always that no matter their age, they still want to be near us - maybe not even talking to them or asking questions - they just want to be in the same room as us. Grey and Gem did the nearness thing again later that week. I was on my bed reading and first Grey came and laid next to me and scrolled on his phone, occasionally asking me to look at a reel he thought was funny and then Gem came and laid down next to me and closed her eyes and laughed at Grey's memes and reels when he showed them to her. 

Ordered our family yearbook for 2023-24! Fourteen months of love, sweat, and tears (hah). It is such a labor of love to make that thing but it is cherished in this house by everyone to get all our photos and memories collected in the book to look at and laugh together. Life moves so quickly that sometimes it feels like we are doing nothing but running and sleeping - but then we stop and flip through our yearbooks and remember that although time marches on - we sure had a lot of good times in between the hustle and bustle. This yearbook was especially important to remember all the special times when we had such a hard and sad time this year (miss you everyday, Gigi). I included a memorial page and my eulogy in the book. Such a hard and sad time, but there was a lot of good times; and all the holidays and memories made with her for the rest of the year - to see her smiling and snuggled up with us for the other parts of the year is so special. I can't wait to get this book home. 

A happy half birthday for Olive - three and a half this week! We celebrated with mini donuts and measured her height on our kitchen doorframe. It was a little confusing for three and a half to know the difference between a real birthday and a pretend half birthday (hah - she asked if her friends at school were going to bring her presents). I sent a quick note to the preschool teachers to let them know that we celebrate half birthdays in case Liv went on a birthday bossgirl streak at school. 

Doghouse building for Osa. She is a fulltime farm dog and we want to give her a space of her own (she has no problem sleeping with the goats, but I would feel better if she had her own house) So I found these plans online and B and Pappy got to work with the kids occasional help to get it built this week. I can't wait to get the house down at the farm for her! Never ending grateful to have a handy (and handsome) husband! 

Volleyball tourney for Grey at school. He participated with some of his friends and fellow teammates in the charity volleyball tournament and they won! Mostly he enjoyed playing with his buddies and getting out of class (obvi) but it was play for a cause so wins all around! 

Stopping by the funeral home to give hugs and condolences to a friend and fellow coach. 

Hot Cross Buns concert! Violet had her fourth grade recorder concert this week and did great alongside all her classmates. For the spring semester she gets to choose an instrument to try and she is leaning towards the flute or saxophone for now. Grey tried sax but didn't continue with it and Gemma played trumpet for two years. 

Thankful for our barber Lamont of Ambitious Cuts for getting all my fellas looking fresh and clean for Thanksgiving next week! 

Setting up our Christmas Budget spreadsheet. I just followed the exact video from Easesence Instagram and all my formulas and charts worked like a charm! (She has since shared a very cute, fancier one too!) Brandon added in a few more formulas because math boy wants to run all the numbers (hah). It looks so pretty and also is actually very helpful. It even has a countdown to how many days until Christmas and it is both motivating and terrifying. 

Movie & dinner with Uncle Juice. He came to grab all the kids (except Booboo who had a basketball game) and took them for Chinese and then to see Red One at the movie theater. He also gifted them all giant nerf guns. Uncle Juice always takes it up several notches in fun and the kids adore spending time with him (thanks for such a special day for them!) 

Couch shopping with B while the kids were out with Uncle Juice! We used the free time to check some new couches out because we really do need it and we are anxious to get our basement den finished before Christmas. We stopped at three different places and I think we found then one! Just want to go home and double check measurements and also give ourselves a 24 hour think-about-it time frame before making such a big purchase. 

Wedding dress photo shoot for the girls. I took pictures of my other two girls in my wedding dress when they were three and the thought of getting Liv in it has been itching my brain. We had time on Saturday evening, so I pulled the dress out and had her put it on for some pictures. Violet and Gemma both wanted another try in it and it practically fits Gemma now - waaah! Time is absolutely unhinged.

Teaching and getting my official faculty photo taken and I can't stop shaking my head and laughing because GIRL. It was a day that I have no prep at the elementary school, so I come rushing up to the high school already semi-whiplashed and then I was the last one that needed their photo taken, but I have eighth graders - so my principal comes in to watch the class and I was in such a hustle that I didn't even LOOK IN THE MIRROR FIRST (in what world do I live!?), never re-applied lip color, didn't fix my hair, like literally just sat on the seat and said 'cheese.' I really feel like I am truly becoming Miss Geist from Clueless...like can some teenage student please take pity on me and give me a make-over!? Elementary is still working on Doy Gracias lesson, Spanish Expo is in their Geography week. Spanish 1 started reading Capibara con Botas and read Chapters 1-3. Spanish 2 finished their novel Tumba and we studied for their book final next week. 

Sporting with two swim practices for Rusty. Violet had a basketball game and Gemma had five days of basketball practice (Vi went to one of them with her). Grey had five days of basketball practice which included two days of lifting and then a scrimmage on Saturday. He also played in the all day volleyball charity tournament at school on Thursday. 

Making crockpot ham & potato soup, chicken & dumplings, spaghetti with garlic bread, Korean beef with green beans over rice, frozen pizzas, take out Chinese. Liv got chocolate croissants for breakfast and then take out pizza and mini donuts for her half birthday dinner. I made a batch of puppy chow on the snow day!