Week in the Life: Introduction

This week, I'm going to be capturing our everyday life over here to share, hopefully in what becomes sort of a time capsule of what our life looks like right now as it is with our three little gremlins and whirlwind days that when I turn around and it's bedtime again I feel both relieved and confused - where does the day go? My friend Ashley from the Big White Farmhouse participated in the Week in a Life project this past summer and it was inspiring to see how it really does capture the feeling of life as it is right now.

I know there will be things that are very much a part of my life that won't make it into the posts, things that I can't grab the camera to capture in the moment.  Like the real circus show act that is trying to wrestle a one year old that has just been bathed and lotion-ed into long sleeve pajamas.  (whew, exhausting!) But, I'm excited to see the bits of our everyday life that shine through with the goal of taking photos consistently throughout the days this week.  It is daunting, but I'm excited.

I will be taking photos each day and then posting them the following day (so today's photos will be up tomorrow: Monday) and then I hope to incorporate them into our 2015 yearbook next year as a more in depth picture of our "What did it feel like to live in our home this year" section.

Some of my hopes for this week include:

• to use my 'real' camera for most (all?) of the pictures, I have become so dependent on the ease of grabbing my cellphone that my beautiful Nikon is often neglected.  Not this week!
• to use the self-timer on my camera to get myself into some of the pictures
• to photograph the real stuff of our life as it is right now, to grow this week in recognizing the small bits of our life that are both messy and wonderful.  both frustrating yet short lived in the age of raising small
• to try different angles, settings, zooms - that I aren't in my regular comfort zone
• take at least 30 photos each day

eek! I'm excited and a little scared, hah.

welcome into a week in the life of Team Studer!

Currently

Celebrating at my parents' annual fall festivus party last weekend.  We got to spend time with friends, eat delicious food (and enjoy leftovers all week), and the kids had a blast having so many people willing to entertain and watch them.  Bonus that we got to have a sleepover with Ninna and Uncle Jonny.

Playing with our favorite friends this week on a hike.  It was the perfect fall day to spend in the woods and so nice to get to chat with Kate while the four big kids ran along the path or hid in the bushes to scare us.

Soaking up our five and half year old boy.  In the madness that was last week, between school picture day, a short school week, karate and gymnastics practice, I totally dropped the ball on Greyson's official half birthday.  So I made up for it on Monday.  We just do a little something special to commerate their half birthdays; we sang at breakfast over chocolate muffins, he got measured in our door frame, and we completed an 'all about me' at 5 1/2 worksheet together.  Just astonishing how time slips by.

Admiring Gemma's ability to find joy in the tiniest things.  Now that we're in full-fledged pants weather, I realized she is low on leggings and so I bought her a few new pairs at the store.  Her exclamations from the backseat over each pair was filled with real happiness.  She's always saying things like, "You look SO beautiful, Mum" if I add lipstick to my yoga pants/tank ensemble.  She delights over a new tablecloth or discovering a book we had been missing.  I could use a lesson or two from that girl about celebrating all the tiny little bits of joy in my day.

Giggling about Violet.  This girl.  Her teeth are outrageous - I don't know why but it's hysterical, her little perfect toothed smile gets me every time.  She wants so hard to speak and is really testing the waters trying out words and communicating.  She loves shouting from various rooms, "MUM!" until I come in to see what she wants to show me.  She has this whine face if anything is even a little bit how she doesn't want it, this scrunch nose, lip curled face with her head tilted back.  we are in some trouble with this spoiled little thing.

Leaning into the holiday with adding new decorations created by the kids.  Grey brought home a decorated pumpkin from CCD last week and Gemma and I have been tackling fun little Halloween projects together in the afternoon like this candy corn banner.  The kids all finally settled on what they want to be for Halloween:  zombie (Grey), ballerina (Gem), kitten (Violet) - and now I'm working on collecting the items we need to assemble their costumes.

Re-organizing the living room, including the office space and kids toys.  I have just been so fed up with our home, (could I possibly type throw.out.all.the.things one more time!?!) and this week, I took the bull by the horns and tackled our main space.  The girls and I picked up two cube/stools from walmart ($13 each) and a new rug for the desk area.  We threw out broken toys, old papers and moved the furniture.  All this week, I've been lighting candles at night and the toys all get scooped up into the cube/stools by the end of the afternoon.  Brandon and I have both declared that the living room is now a place "we want to live" hahahaha, but not kidding.  Now that's my new motto for organizing in our home - make each room a place we 'want' to live.

Reading I Know This Much Is True By Wally Lamb and listening to Orphan Train as I walked this week.  I'm really loving Orphan Train and I'll be bummed when it's over (only about a half hour left in the reading!)

Baking these Peanut Butter and Chocolate chip cookies which is the best of both worlds over here.  Brandon loves peanut butter and I like them fine, but definitely not my favorite.  So I baked these up and we're all fans of them (Violet especially!) Also made this chicken corn chowder and it was gobbled down pretty quickly.

Currently

Enjoying Gemma's favorite pasttime of reading aloud books with her own completely made-up stories.  Even though she's 'reading' books we've read a million times, she still makes up these hilariously wacky tales.  She likes to try out new words while she reads, "It just doesn't make any sense in this century" (where did she learn the word century?) and she likes to lick her finger to turn the page.  Yesterday she wanted me to listen to a book she called "The Man and His Lung" with a chortle I said, "what?!" and she responded unflinchingly, 'you know lungs, like you breath with."  oh, okay, that makes perfect sense.  

Rejoicing that we've officially 'kicked the kids out of our bed.' Its been long standing ritual in our house that the kids all start in their beds at night, and some nights that's where they wake up even; in their own beds.  But many an early morning (somewhere between 4a and 6am) we half-wake to little nighttime ninjas climbing into our bed.  It doesn't normally bother us because...survival and sleep deprivation, but Gemma is a physical assailant in her sleep.  seriously.  And Grey he's so big and takes up too much room and so we've kicked them out officially.  They are still welcome into our room if they choose, but they both have sleeping bags on the floor now.

Feeling impatient with the weather.  This week we've had rain and cold and super sunny warm days.  Let's just pick one here, fall, ok.  Hahah, it's been a weird week picking clothes for Greyson for school, sending him in jeans and long shirt yesterday morning, only to have him come home in the high 70's.  oops, sorry bud.  And our meals, we grilled out early this week instead of having a cozy casserole I had planned and then I wanted to make soup yesterday but it was too hot out for soup.  Today I have a sandwich type dinner planned, but it looks like rain so I'm thinking of making the soup instead.  yeesh.  #firstworldproblems 

Holding our breath as Violet gets a little more brave each day at standing and almost taking a step.  Not quite, but it's nearly there (this week maybe?) It's always amazing to me to see tiny bodies standing upright and ready to walk.  How?  They seem too teeny!  

Not eating out this month, and we are doing really well.  I've packed a lunch for Brandon each workday so far and we packed a snack for after library storytime yesterday when the girls and I are all starving for lunch.  We finally got in our monthly grocery trip yesterday and our pantry and freezer are happy again.  We have a big month too:  Brandon's birthday and our wedding anniversary - but I slotted in a favorite meal of his for his birthday and a 'fancy' dinner to make together for us (butternut squash risotto!) 

Smiling at the sound of Greyson's voice this morning at 6am whispering goodbye to me as he was headed into the woods with Brandon.  He's off of school today, so he was overjoyed to be asked to hang out in the blind this morning with Dad during archery season.  He whispered, "bye Mum, I'm' going hunting with Dad.  We'll try to bring home a deer today, okay, so you can make some deer meat sandwiches."  

Reading The Winter of our Disconnect, on the final two chapters now, but I have found myself sort of in a sea of articles and information about media and our world now that I started the book.  Ya know like they say, once you know you see it everywhere.  Also chipping away at This Much I Know is True and got through a brutal chapter that had a pit in my stomach.  Great book, great writing, just hard stuff to swallow.

Baking these pumpkin cookies which Brandon loves.  We all like them too, but how many pumpkin cookies can you eat until you want chocolate (me: 1) and I feel like that recipe makes such a big batch and so B has been eating them mostly on his own all this week.  The kids and I whipped up these peanut butter energy balls this week for an afternoon snack and without fail, they get gobbled up in two days.  So good and so easy - we even gave some to the busdriver this week because we were late to the bus stop twice this week while he waited! (once for drop off and once for pick up!) 

Currently

Cheering Grey on at his karate belt test last week where he moved up into the next belt color (white with an orange stripe).  He even axe chopped a board in half!  Who is this kid!?  Pappy takes him every week, so it was Brandon and my chance to see his cumulative understanding and application of everything he's been practicing weekly.  So proud of that boy!

Running in the Que Classic 5K with my parents and sisters on Saturday.  We all signed up to run together and I even had the kids signed up to run in the kiddie race too.  The kids did a great job and then Brandon hung back with the girls in the stroller (Grey went to a hockey clinic with Heather & Caleb - thank you!!) while my sisters, and parents, and I took off on the 5K course.  We all stuck together and finished together too (more pictures to share soon!) but it was a great day and so fun to do all of us together! 

Celebrating our one year old!  Our Violet Mary turned one last Friday and we had a big big celebration for her on Sunday evening with so many of our friends and family.  The weather held out for the party (thank goodness!) and we all had a great time.  She wasn't thrilled about sticky icing hands, but she got in a few good bites of her cake.  Still not walking (kind of happy about that, hah!) but she's so close, I know it's a matter of days.  My baby big girl! 

Reading The Winter of Our Disconnect with the Inspired Readers book club which is really inspiring me to think about how we use technology and for what purpose.  Granted, our kids are pretty small so technology hasn't completely taken over their minds yet (although, they sure do love them some Netflix), but it's a really pushing me to think about my own overuse of technology and for no good reason really.  The chapter on boredom and technology was mind blowing.  Also making my way (slowly) through I Know This Much Is True .  It's such fantastic writing, just unbelievable how seamlessly he gets everything in there - I'm both in awe of the writing and very interested in the story.  Bravo Wally Lamb! 

Volunteering with the Johnstown Backpack Project this week as a family.  We spent Monday evening loading up bags of weekend snacks for local kids in need.  The snacks are delivered to local schools that have kids that have requested assistance for food items on the weekend.  The Johnstown Backpack Project also collects small hygiene products for distribution too.  This is a cause near and dear to my heart as a former educator and I saw firsthand how many of my students would come in Monday ravenous for breakfast and lunch, as school was the only place they were able to get a complete meal.  The kids loved loading the bags up (Gemma was like a little machine!) and it was a good lesson and chat about how we are blessed to be able to have plenty of food to eat ourselves.

Switching out winter clothes with summer ones.  Yeesh, it's been rainy and chilly all week, especially today, and my last dwindling thoughts of hot fall have been squashed out.  It's time to get the full blown sweat pants and winter jammies out (hah).  I'm also going through the insanely ardous task of switching kids' clothes sizes in and out of boxes from the attic.  It's such a pain in the behind, but I refuse to forgo hand-me-downs.  I pulled out Gemma's old jean & pink hooded jacket today for Violet and instinctively brought it to my face for a hug.  Gemma was watching and laughed at me.  I don't care, hand-me-downs get me in the feels and also the environment (fist bump, Momma Earth).

Loving how much the kids are into reading by themselves these days.  Gemma is always my biggest self-reader and is hysterical when she mashes together the bits she has memorized with her own little made-up words for the books.  My favorite is her self-reading of The Dot when she says, "And then she was so rude to the teacher with that bang of her marker!" Violet has found her own love of books, her favorite being Little Blue Truck (her birthday party theme!) and she will sit and flip pages in her little board books contentedly the whole time it takes me to fold a load of her laundry!  And Grey loves listening to books, but this week he lost his mind over Ed Emberly's Go Away, Big Green Monster! I have found him reading it multiple times to himself or his sisters and he's requested it at bedtime every night this week.  And I just discovered there are a whole bunch of these Green Monster books...so I'm tucking that away to add to Santa's list for a surprise for him :)

Helping at Grey's school this week for Marathon Fun Day which was an afternoon of fun games and stations for the kids.  He was so happy to have me there and the kids in his class are too sweet.  Gah, it had me really missing teaching.  Just waiting on my fingerprints cert to return so I can volunteer weekly in his classroom and the girls can get a weekly afternoon to hang with my mom (thank you!)

Blowing all the noses.  well, everyone except Brandon's.  hah.  All three kids have had runny noses this week and I'm just getting over one myself now.  Violet's sporting a fever today (I think she has some teeth coming in though) and Gem is taking a much needed nap after I made her get a how shower to break up that congestion! Cranky, sick babies = tired momma.

Doing really poorly at working out. Like, none this week.  The weather?  yeah, let's blame that.  Also the dark in the morning and the dark so early in the evening.  Actually, it's really just me making excuses, but I'm hoping to get back into jogging with Bully asap.  We both need it and soon it will be too snowy to go!  Make the most of this season, Tabitha!

Cooking in my pantry digging mode as we have yet to go grocery shopping for the month of October.  Even though it's a tad stressful, it's feels so good to use something that has been hiding out in the pantry or the bottom of the deep freezer when other yummier things were options.  It's pushing me to be creative and I made Chicken & Loaded Potato last night (with jalapenos added for Brandon and I, obviously still heavy on our jalapeno addiction) and it was awesome.  We were both sad when it was all eaten up.  And October starts our no dining out month too!

July: Recently

Because I have not been able to get it together for a weekly Currently post about all the summer fun, we've been having - I'm taking a cue from Shellie from Just Another Manic Monkday and doing a full month's recap - so here it goes...

In July, we've recently....

Finished out Greyson's teeball season with his first trophy ever, celebrated America's birthday and the Fourth of July and I started writing again. (one Currently post from this month!)

We hosted our 7th annual Studer's Invitational Beer Olympics and it was awesome and hilarious and fun as usual.  We do this yearly event only because of the people that come to it.  We are so lucky to have so many amazing people in our life.  We raised money for Baby Redden, who's momma contacted me this week and said "I'm so honored you would even offer this.  Simply incredible.  Thank you for doing this, for praying for and loving on us, and for sending money our way.  Your donation actually paid two major bills at a time we  needed it most....THANK YOU..."

We worked on an Art Month in which I had the kids working on art projects throughout the weeks to gear up for one of my 100 small things items to host a 'gallery opening' at the house for the kids art projects.  We sometimes do organized art projects, but art month gave us the opportunity to try out some new things and the kids really had fun.  We're still doing some (recently tried Coil Pottery with molding clay!) because we're not quite ready to do our gallery open.  So it's been a fun change up for us adding some organized activities into long days of summer free play.

Brandon and I finished out our summer co-ed volleyball league with our awesome teammates.  We didn't go as far as we would have liked in playoffs, but it was a great summer of volleyball with this group of people that we consider our volleyball family and to whom our kids call "Dad and Mum's team players.'

I've been jogging with Bullet all month when possible.  It's been a hot month and lots of days we didn't make it out to run until dusk - just me, bullet, and the fireflies (hah!) but we put in 20+ miles in July and we're slowly chipping away to try to get in 30 miles in one month!  

We've been outside:  playing, eating, working, grilling, exploring, napping; enjoying the sweet sweet summertime.

The kids and grandmas and I took an amazing weekend trip to Baltimore this year to visit and explore the city.  It was our first year going to a different city than my beloved NYC but it was a nice way to expand our yearly adventures!  We hope to continue exploring new cities as well as keeping NYC in the rotation occasionally.

The kids were brave enough to ride a kiddie rollercoaster for the first time ever!  Thanks to Uncle Juice taking them to the Ferndale Jubliee one afternoon (I got to vacuum and mop uninterrupted - miracle of miracles! thank you Uncle Jay!) and they had so much fun riding the rides and being spoiled with a thousand games and snacks.  Does this mean now that they'll be roller coaster riders with their momma?  Please, I hope!

We had fun playdates with our friends!  A visit at home with our favorites, the Fiores while the kids ran free in the yard in their bathing suits and Kate and I got to chat like real life grown ups!  Then spending a full afternoon at the Quemahoming Dam with the Stifflers while the kids played all day so contentedly.  It was oddly calm and beautiful and not even that loud - how did that happen?  Can we make it happen again?  such a perfect summer afternoon!

We attended our second of three family reunions with our Plunkett side (paternal grandmother's family).  It was such a wonderful day and the kids kept asking if we could come back to this reunion again soon.  They had a great time giggling and playing with their extended family and cousins - and so much good old fashion fun like softball and old school dodgeball.

My mom and our cousins got together to start to clean out Gram and Pap's collections in their attic and basements after the passing of my grandfather this past spring.  My Pap was a big collector (of many things) and although ardous to go through everything, I found it fascinating and interesting to see what they kept, what brought back fierce and loving memories.  I found a huge stack of poems typed by my Pap, signed "Al Mesaros Amateur Poet" and have been pouring over them over the past couple of weeks.  So that's where I've inherited this writing bug, eh?  Pap was holding out on me, many of them are actually quite good and it inspires me so much more to know that he and I have this connection towards writing our words down.

Greyson: Still running on full throttle every single day.  We've now adjusted to recognizing that he goes turbo speed all the time and then about every two months he'll just have to have a 'booboo recharge day' where he does nothing but sleeps.  boys.  He is very into climbing trees right now and I feel like I'm holding my breath for a broken bone.  Hasn't happened yet, thank goodness, but surely it's inevitable with this wild boy I raise.  He's so ready for school and to make friends and be pushed academically.  He's ready, the girls and I probably are not as ready to be without him all day - but we'll get there together.  Gulp.  Lately I've been picturing him from the back wearing his little backpack and waving goodbye and my eyes start watering.  help me.

Gemma:  calling everyone by their first name followed by "Studer."  So when she talks to me in regular conversation she'll say, "Can I have a drink, Mumma Studer?" Even if your last name isn't Studer (like my mum for instance) - Gem is still going to do it.  She tells my Mum, "Can I have some gum please Abba Studer?"  For her siblings, she adds a little flair by adding in their middle names; "Greyson Rudy Studer, I was playing with that!" or "What are you doing my sweet Violet Mary Studer?"  Gem also does an excessive amount of 'telling stories' also known as lying - but we're trying to get her in the routine of at least announcing when it's something she's making up or something that really happened.  She'll dive into these monologues about how she got her foot stuck in a car door and a firemen helped her get it out while I was in the house folding clothes and Grey and I just stare at her like, 'um, no that's not real, Gem."  I'm going to pretend that means she's a storyteller/writer like her momma.

Violet:  time, why?  She seems to me to have made a huge leap this month in her age and it makes me want to cry and rejoice at the same time.  She's blazing all over this place crawling and loves to climb to the top of the steps and then joyfully shout to us until someone retrieves her so she can do it again.  She's signing already (faster than the other two did) and she communicates with us by showing us the baby signs for:  More, All Done, and Outside.  She also 'talks' to our pets by whispering "Sssss, Ssss" whenever she seems them (is she attempting whistling?  maybe.) and if we ask her what a puppy dog says she pants.  She's pulling herself up and taking moments of bravery to let go of things and balance without support.  and her hair!  So so so incredibly blonde, maybe so blonde it's a tinged red?  but so so blonde that random people will come up to us and say, "Now that's a towhead if I've ever seen one!"

Also...

Reading*:  finished A Tree Grows in Brooklyn  by Betty Smith (how I love thee) and our June/July book club book Make it Happen: Surrender Your Fear. Take the Leap. Live On Purpose by Lara Casey .  I finished Paper Towns by John Green in three days, started our August Inspired Readers Book Club Book:  Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng, and slowly making my way through B.J. Novak's One More Thing: Stories and Other Stories (compilation of his short stories) and loving it with ferocity.  Found my current favorite short story among them:  The Comedy Central's Roast of Nelson Mandela (amazing, amazing stuff).

Baking:  This super yum, super easy Jalapeno Popper Shredded Chicken sandwiches (leave off the jalapenos for kid-friendly yet still delicious), Prosciutto wrapped asparagus, Grilled Cabbage all summer long please, these country-style pork rubs with mustard and dry rub, Grilling pizza (because Brandon and I cannot get enough of jalapenos, we made Jalapeno Popper pizza for us), and all of the zucchini everywhere in every way, but especially in this Chicken and Zucchini casserole.  Chocolate Chip & Walnut cookies (my fav cookies), Chocolate Chip and Pumpkin muffins (i want these every morning please), and this Blueberry Breakfast Cake,   (I'm such a great baking sweets momma when I have PMS.  It's like my body's natural way of saying - here family, I'm sorry for being horrible right now, enjoy some delicious snacks, HAH)

Bring it on August, we ready!


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