the weekly 'what's up.'

We kicked off last weekend with a trip to the Compassion Experience, a traveling exhibit-thing organized by Compassion International and hosted by one of the churches in town.  Basically, it's a simulation experience that allows you to 'see' the living conditions and hear the stories of a couple of children sponsored through Compassion.  We 'experienced' the life of Carlos, a kiddo in Guatemala.

She was a dead-ringer for Carlos.  Minus the headphones and smart device.

Monday, Callista turned three months old (and yesterday she rolled from back to tummy for the first time!).  It was full of ups and downs for her.  Aging is emotional for all of us.

Tuesday, Atticus had a dentist appointment.  His third of six, to be exact.  The first appointment, they cleaned his teeth and did xrays.  Then they had me come in for a second appointment to discuss the results of the xrays and the plan to move forward.  The third appointment was to put sealants on his teeth.  The fourth, fifth, and sixth appointments are to deal with each of three cavities individually.  I AM LOSING MY MIND.  This can't possibly be the most efficient way of going about this. 

I just start doing the math in my head: six visits per kid, times five kids with teeth, every six months... plus well child checks, and vision appointments, and speech therapy appointments, and orthodontist appointments... and trying to find sitters for many of those appointments to avoid the chaos that is taking them all to confined spaces... and trying to actually get other important stuff done, like school... This has the potential to send my stress levels through the roof at some point.  So look forward to hearing about that in the near future.

Wednesday, the kids discovered a spider that had caught a live fly in mid-air.  It somehow captured it and dragged it up the string while we all watched.  It was pretty gross.

Other than those items of note, this week has been pretty low-key.  We've been on break from school, so the kids have had ample free time, which has actually been really good for them.  (Oftentimes their break weeks are spent fighting with each other, since their time is so unstructured, but this week hasn't been too bad!  I wonder if it's because we're also on a TV hiatus - they seem to entertain themselves better when the option for watching Netflix has been taken off the table.)  They've spent the time reading, working through Art for Kids Hub drawing tutorials, and building God-knows-what out of scrap wood.

I looked out the window the other day and saw two of the kids in the yard, jousting each other with janky old pieces of castoff lumber, and it hit me - hard - that we are the rednecks of the neighborhood.  Let me clarify that: Here in Missouri, we are rednecks by comparison.  Let that sink in for a second.  That's some pretty harsh reality to have to face on a Friday morning.

my favorite fiction recommendations!

This post contains affiliate links.

The other day I issued you a challenge: set an ambitious reading goal for the month of October, and be ready to share it tomorrow on the Facebook page!  I know it can be hard to know where to start, though, so I thought I'd spend a few posts giving you my subjective, best-of-the-best book recommendations.  These are my absolute favorites, and many of them I've read over and over.  Since I know I'm not the only one who loves fiction, I figured I'd start there.  Here are my top fiction recommendations!

Left to right, from top:

All the Light We Cannot See: A Novel
I tend to like current fiction, but I don't tend to love it.  This book is an exception.  The writing is gorgeous, the story is deeply moving.  I can't recommend it more highly.


Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
If you don't know by now, I am obsessed with Harry Potter.  (Well, maybe not obsessed, if we're being relative about it.  There are some HP kooks out there a bit kookier than I am.)  I jumped on the bandwagon a few years ago, and will not be jumping off until you pry my rigor-mortised fingers off the tailgate.


The Forgotten Garden: A Novel
I know, I know.  More current fiction after I said I don't really tend to love that stuff.  But, guys.  This was like mystery-meets-fairy-tale.  I couldn't put it down.


East of Eden
THIS IS MY FAVORITE BOOK OF ALL TIME.  All time.  Ever.  If I could only be buried with one book (though I fully intend on being buried directly under the public library, for the sake of not having to decide), this would be it.  You will never love - or hate - anyone as much as you will the people in this novel.


To Kill a Mockingbird
Another absolute favorite.  I'm sure you've suspected that Atticus is named for Atticus Finch, whom I desperately wish I could meet in real life.  (We wanted to name a girl Scout, too, but were afraid of being too themey-slash-culty about this book.)


The Odyssey
I think I assumed this would be boring and hard to read, since it's technically ancient.  Not so.  I loved it!  Penelope was named after Odysseus' wife.


O Pioneers!
I just read this one for the first time this year, and was blown away.  It is so American and earthy, and yet so tragic in the vein of the ancient Greeks or Shakespeare.  It's one of those books I couldn't stop thinking about for days after I finished it.


Gone with the Wind
I am a sucker for any book that has a glaring sense of place - one in which the 'homeland' is its own character.  I loved how sweeping this book was and how I got to see the characters grow and develop over a long period of time.  Plus, you know.  Rhett Butler.


Have you read any of these?  What were your thoughts about them?  And I'm such a book nerd - I'm dying to know what fiction you'd recommend!

callista at three months.

THIS GIRL IS THREE MONTHS OLD!  Three months is the 'finish line' of the newborn stage in many ways (it is the 'fourth trimester,' after all), so this always feels like a huge milestone to me.

She eats about every two hours through the day, and divides her time pretty evenly between wake time and sleep time.

From about six weeks, she had been sleeping through the night - like, all the way through.  She'd eat at 10 or so, and then sleep until 6 or 7 the next morning!  Which was outrageously weird to me, since I've never had a kid start sleeping through the night anywhere near that early.  But then she just stopped.  She is back to eating every 2-4 hours through the night - some nights, she'll only be up once, other nights it's three times.  I'm at the point where I've finally stopped being frustrated ("I KNOW you are capable of more!") but I'm looking forward to getting a bit more sleep at some point.

Todd's the MVP of the VV's. His record for being the clear favorite is now six for six. He's batting 1000. He's nothing but net. He's... more sports metaphors for being the winningest dad that has ever dadded.

A post shared by Paige Van Voorst (@theminivanvoorsts) on Aug 30, 2017 at 8:18pm PDT

She is so happy and chill when she's awake.  I really could not ask for a sweeter baby.  She's gone through what my bestie Jeska calls the 'hound dog stage,' where they coo in this funny, distinct 'oooooooooooh' way (this is far and away one of my favorite things babies do), and is on to making those funny guttural 'kkkkkkkkkk' sounds.

Oh, Lord. There is nothing sweeter than this.

A post shared by Paige Van Voorst (@theminivanvoorsts) on Sep 8, 2017 at 8:06pm PDT

I think she laughed once, but it was so brief that I'm not confident!

She can use her hands to push her paci toward her face if it's close by, and she has learned to go to sleep on her own at this point.  Once she starts getting tired-fussy, I can now just lay her down in her bed with her paci.  She only fusses if the paci falls out, but once it's good and in there, she can get herself to sleep really easily.  Getting to this point is my one and only goal between the ages of 6-12 weeks, and all that hard work is worth it!

She is such a dollface, and I just can't get enough of her.

finding time to read in busy seasons.

I've always liked reading, though I've had seasons of more or less consistency through the last nine years of motherhood.   (Last year's reading list, for instance, ended up being pretty anemic.)  Recently, I decided to take it up a notch, and start striving towards truly ambitious-for-me reading goals.  And it has been so good.  I have seen so much character growth, added mental stimulation (a must for moms of little kids!), and skills development just over the last couple of months of striving toward bigger goals.

I'd urge you to start reading more, too.  I do get that it takes time, something many of us feel is in short supply.  Not all of us are quick readers.  Not all of us like doing it.  We won't all have the same reading goals.  But we should all be reading.  Even moms.  Especially moms.

So how do we do that, without manufacturing more hours in a day, or dropping the ball on other things we're already committed to?  Here are a couple things I've found to be helpful in pursuing a book-dense life:

1. Set a goal, and make it just out of reach.  Tim Ferris says it's easier to fundraise a million dollars than it is to fundraise $100,000.  Why?  Because a bigger goal makes you feel the strain and urgency of the push.  Often, we're tempted to set 'realistic' goals, but the truth is that we actually make more headway when it takes a little bit of sweat to get there.  I set my goal at eight books a month.  I haven't made it there yet, but I did make it to seven last month, and that is much farther than a goal of four books would have gotten me!  (Four was my 'realistic' goal.)

Maybe your realistic goal is two books a month.  So shoot for three next month.  Or even four.  Push yourself and you'll see better results, even if you don't quite hit the mark every time.

2. Figure out where the time is going to come from.  I get that you don't have hours on end open to you right now.  No one does.  Nature doesn't exist in a vacuum - your time will always be full.  But you're the one who chooses how to fill it.  I remember the specific moment that I realized I had the exact same number of hours in a day as anyone else, and there were people getting a whole lot more learning done in their hours than I was.  So I simply stole time from my more 'mindless' activities.  I stopped watching Netflix during naptime, stopped checking Pinterest, and scaled way back on Facebook and Instagram.  And I have found around two hours every day to read.  TWO HOURS are being put to much better use each day, and I'm no busier than I was before.

3. Tell other people your goals.  I choose my eight books at the beginning of the month, snap a photo, and share it on here and on my social channels.  By the time I'm done, I've seen that photo in front of my face a bunch of times, and I've invited other people to keep me accountable.

4. Set your book stack where you can see it every day.  My monthly stack is sitting on the table by "my end" of the couch.  I look at it dozens of times every day.  When I see what's left to dig into, I get excited to finish the book I'm currently reading so I can start the next one in the stack.  And I can see the stack get smaller and smaller as I make headway.  The visual really helps.

5.  Read first.  If I'm tempted to check Facebook or something, I just tell myself I can do that... after I've simply read a single page of a book first.  One page takes 2-3 minutes tops, so it doesn't cost me anything major, and usually by the time I'm done with that page, I'm more motivated to continue reading than to set my book down to scroll the never-ending newsfeed.

6.  Take advantage of short chunks of time.  I do not have two hours straight to sit down and read every day, but I do have a bunch of ten minute chunks.  They add up.  We've also had a lot of appointments lately, so I just bring along a book to read instead of the waiting room magazines... on the (very very) off-chance the kids are sitting quietly and don't need me to constantly referee them while we're there.

7.  Read from a variety of genres so you don't lose steam or get bogged down.  I like to have a work of fiction or memoir going most of the time, since these genres are pretty easy, fluid reading that I don't have to work super hard to concentrate on.  I also like to have a book on spiritual growth, and a nonfiction/skills-development book, both of which take a bit more focused effort and time to get through.  I have a variety of options and styles to choose from during any given ten minute chunk of time.

8.  Audiobooks count.  I've been listening through audiobooks as I cook or do my hair.  My eyes or hands are occupied by something else, but I'm still reading.

9.  Keep a list.  It is so helpful to my momentum for me to track my progress.  I love writing down the title and author of each book as I complete them - it is so weirdly gratifying!  Plus, I love going back later to see what all has been shaping me over the course of time.  I've been keeping track of every book I've read since 2010 - and I love using these lists to recommend books to others, and jog my memory regarding which books I'd like to re-read.  (If you'd like to take a look, here are my lists from 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2016 - 226 books so far in the last eight years!)

This month's stack.  I'm on track to have completed six or seven of these by the end of the month, unless I really get my butt in gear in the next few days!


In the long run, you will be so glad you committed time to this kind of growth!  I'm finding that the time I spent scrolling social media or watching Netflix isn't missed - I'm no worse off for having missed out what I've given up.  But I am reaping dividends from having spent that time reading.  Five and ten and twenty years from now, I will be a different person than I would be otherwise, because of how I'm choosing to spend my time now.  And that's super motivating to keep going!

If you'd personally like even more motivation, check out these two mind-blowing articles on why you should (and could!) be reading more.

In The Time You Spend On Social Media Each Year, You Could Read 200 Books

Reading Wars

On Friday, I'll be posting a thread (maybe even popping in live?) on the Facebook page where you can talk about your reading goals for October - big or small, make a goal!  Spend the week making a plan - how many books will you read?  What genres will you include?  Where will you find the time?  Then head over there on Friday (don't worry; I'll post reminders in the meantime) to tell me what you're thinking.  I'm SO excited to see what you all are going to read.  I'm a total book nerd, so tell me all about your books!

what's up weekly.

Oh, this week.  So normal.  So not-normal.  So, basically like every other week.  (I need to start getting realistic about that fact that, with this many people in the house, there is no real chance for boring weeks anymore.)

Saturday morning, Todd got a text from a friend saying that they had three extra tickets for the Mizzou game that day, and asking if we'd like to take advantage.  Spur-of-the-moment plans are sometimes difficult for us, but we figured it would never be easier on us to get some of the kids to a game - the weather was nice, the tickets were free, and our friends even gave us a parking pass.  So it was kind of a no-brainer; Todd took the two older boys.

first trip to the Zou with my biggest boys for some football ... #atticusjacobrhyne  #finneashaddonfoxe  #saturdaydadurday

A post shared by Todd Van Voorst (@toddhenryvanvoorst) on Sep 16, 2017 at 6:51pm PDT

Penelope and I spent our alone time while the boys were gone playing chess and checkers.  (The littler kids were all down for nap.)  She is, unsurprisingly, really good at chess.

Sunday morning, we had church in the park, but it was raining like crazy... and we had record-breaking attendance.  Go figure.  When the kids get ready to go out the door, they (of their own volition, because they saw it in a movie) line up in age-order and yell in unison, "WE'RE READY!!" Even Rocco yells, "Yeh-yeh," which is Toddler for "ready."  It's hilarious to see him automatically take his place in line with them.  (Ignore the terrible lighting - our house is a verifiable cave when it's cloudy outside.)

Monday morning, I had an orthodontist appointment to get my new retainers, but it didn't really matter in the end because I FOUND MY OLD RETAINERRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!  There are not enough exclamation points.  I'm a very happy camper.

Here's a very unhappy camper, for your viewing pleasure:

Tuesday, Atticus had a dentist appointment.  The x-rays show that we have healed three of his six cavities completely!  Can you believe that?  We got the decay in his teeth to halt, and healthy tooth matter to actually grow back.  That's the great news!  The bad news is that one of the cavities that didn't heal will need to be pulled.  Poor kid.

Tuesday night, Penelope lost a tooth while we were at Connection Group!  She now sports the most adorable lisp you've ever heard.  Paired with the fact that she's started using the phrase, "According to my observations..." and is working on her (astonishingly good) fiction series, "Kyan: Alpha Wolf," she's obviously the cutest, nerdiest, most fun seven year old on the planet.

The babysitter snapped this photo right after Penen lost the tooth.  There was apparently a lot of blood involved, but she doesn't look too shaken up about it!

Wednesday, we stopped at Lowe's and Atticus got his very own hacksaw and miter box.  I resupplied him with nails and a replacement pair of leather gloves (his old ones have worn through), and he has spent 48 of the last 24 hours out in the garage, building all kinds of things out of scrap lumber from a friend.  (Doll bunk beds, book shelves, picture frames... all made out of the 8-inch long scraps of a bunch of 2x4's.)

Thursday was boring in the best way.  I cleaned the kitchen and spent a few hours reading.  (I'll tell you next week about where I find the time to read as much as I do.)  A clean house and a good book? Yes. Please.  Throw in a couple cuddles with these little marshmallows, and I couldn't ask for anything better:

Today is another good-boring day: nature study, artist and composer study, tea time.  Takeout for dinner.  More books.  The best kind of day.

And here's Rocco to play you home on this fine Friday:

family photos: twenty-seventeen style!

With a family our size, accomplishing a family photo session can be a real beast.  First of all, we have a million kids on a single income, and photos aren't cheap, so we've been pretty sporadic about it.  Second of all, it's literally impossible to get everyone looking decent in a photo.  The more people there are, the more variables there are that could go wrong.

In answer to the first conundrum, we were outrageously blessed with a super talented and generous brother-in-law, who is a literal pro, and who offered to get some shots of everyone when he and my sister came down for Laurelai's birthday last month.  In answer to the second conundrum, we never got a shot where everyone was looking pleasant, but I'm more than happy to settle for at least most people looking pleasant.

I just love the shots he got of each kiddo.

And only because I find this shot hilarious:

Their responses to whatever is happening behind the camera are so polarized.

Oh, how lucky I am to get to call these people all mine!

daily quiet time printables.

Last week I promised I'd cook up a couple of printables that might make consistency in prayer and Bible reading a little easier to achieve.  A chart like this has been majorly helpful for me in beginning to develop a more faithful prayer life lately - seeing my own progress over time each month has really spurred me on to keep going!

My own prayer log, photocopied from the back of the book, "The Heart of a Woman Who Prays," by Elizabeth George.

I used the same basic idea, but streamlined the look a bit.  I have a love-hate relationship with the idea that resources for women always have to have swirly-girly fonts and watercolor florals.  You know I love watercolor florals, but a) I thought we could all use a little break from them for just a second, and b) I have no idea how to put watercolor florals onto something like this.  So you're stuck with the basics.

The one I put together for you guys, of which I then took terribly lit phone photos.  Hooray!

These are pretty basic, but effective!  The instructions are simple: just keep this little sheet close to your Bible or prayer journal (I actually made it so you can fold it into thirds - the perfect size for a bookmark!), and each day that you spend time in pursuit of God, highlight the date.  That's it!  Watch yourself get more and more consistent with each mark on the page.

More badly-lit phone photos! Happy Monday!

I made three different styles: one for tracking daily prayer, one for daily time in the Word, and one for quiet time in general.  Use one or all of them!  Each file contains a black and white copy and a color copy.  (Click each title link to download.)

*Edited to add: my friend LisaGrace mentioned in the comments that she printed the Bible Reading tracker on one side of a sheet of paper, and the Prayer tracker on the other so she can track each individually.  I think I might steal this idea from her myself!


Daily Bible Reading:

Daily Prayer Log:

Daily Quiet Time:

Hope you find these as helpful as I have!

'what's up' weekly.

*This post contains affiliate links.

This week was full of ups and downs.  On Saturday, I led through the first meeting of our Connection Group girls' book study of Practical Theology for Women.  It was so much fun, and I'm really looking forward to the rest of the semester, getting to dig into this book and the Bible with these girls!

The weather is really starting to cool down (finally) so we spent lots of time outside on Monday.  Rocco, who usually stays in the house with me while the big kids play outside, got to go out and play while I sat in the shade and read a book.  He had a blast.

Atticus is in a woodworking stage right now - he's been getting his hands on whatever scrap wood he can, and begging for his very own saw.  Until he gets one, he's been using the claw end of his hammer to hack wood into whatever shapes he can.  I'm almost starting to think a saw would be a safer option, so I think we'll be making a trip to Lowe's this weekend to grab him some supplies.

Tuesday, I got all the kids loaded into the van to go pick up my new retainer, and the van wouldn't start.  Long story short, it needed to be towed from our driveway to the shop.  Then towed again from the shop to the dealership, where they made me a new key and took the van out of 'theft protection' mode, which was the cause for its failure to start.  Such an expensive new key.

I'm beginning to think the Kristy Chrysler doesn't like being the family mascot. She's clearly willing to try just about anything to get out of active duty. #secondtowingoftheyear

A post shared by Paige Van Voorst (@theminivanvoorsts) on Sep 12, 2017 at 1:59pm PDT

Because the van was in the shop from Tuesday morning to yesterday afternoon, we didn't get a chance to head to the Amish on Wednesday, like we usually do.  So we stayed home and made beeswax candles, got some school done, and had a college gal over for a bit.  Yesterday we spent the day at home getting caught up on school, playing outside and hanging out with another one of our favorite college girls.

And that brings us to today.  We'll be finally heading to the Amish this morning, which is a huge relief - if you can't make it to your 'standing appointment' with an Amish person, there's really no way to let them know!  So I'll be glad to touch base with them about why I just disappeared this week and left them to figure out what to do with the extra seven gallons of milk they weren't expecting to have to deal with!

And I've been taking my reading inspiration from Penelope, who always has her nose in a book.  Here are the books I've had my own nose in this week:


This book is rocking my world.  It is so insightful and helpful.  I have to go slowly with it, since I like to highlight and much of my reading time takes place while I'm nursing and therefore not exactly hands-free.  But I think the slower pace has been beneficial!



This is my second or third re-through of this book.  I like that it's really, really accessible for those who haven't had much previous exposure to the formal study of theology, but it covers the central message of the gospel so well that it doesn't feel simplistic.


Beautifully written.  While I'm not an unschooler by any means, a lot of the values and goals he sets forth for his kids' education connect deeply with my own.

 
I'm still uncertain on this one - I'm not loving it yet, but it has come so highly recommended and has received so many awards that I'm continuing on in it, hoping it will become more engaging.


 I wrapped this one up at the beginning of the week.  I loved it - so funny and difficult and real.  And I now want to be her dad.  Or something like that.


 I'm still a little unsure on this one, too, though part of that might be due to the fact that I'm listening to it on audiobook and the reader's voice really gets under my skin.  Plus, I only get to listen to it in 2-5 minute chunks while I cut up chicken or take a shower.  (Both of which take longer than 2-5 minutes, but are continuously interrupted and therefore are broken into many, much smaller chunks.)  Plus, I don't actually work.  (I mean, I do.  But you know what I'm saying.)  So a four-hour work week is a longer one than I'm currently putting in.  But there have been some valuable nuggets in there so far, so I'm sticking with it.


And that has been our week!  What were you up to this week?  Reading anything good you can recommend?