what's up weekly.

Happy Friday, friends!  We had a fantastic week - not a stinker of a day in the bunch.

Last Saturday, we spent our 'out of town' time in a cute little town with an old college, tons of turn-of-the-century homes, and THE most adorable, classic courthouse you ever did see.  We ate our dinner on the courthouse square...

...then headed to a nearby park to run off the calories.

"Daddy, I mad.  Take a pitcher a-me lookin' like dis."

I have to say it - I am loving these COVID weekends.  What started as a commitment to avoid masks ourselves, and to avoid dumping our money into a city government that is requiring them even though our state is open and our local death rate is (and always has been) extremely low, has become a really memorable time for our family.  The drives are enjoyable, the parks we've discovered are really sweet, our neighboring cities are so stinking cute, and I think we're going to look back on this time as a God-given opportunity to enjoy each other and our area in brand new ways.  Thanks, COVID!

On Sunday, we worshipped at home together.  Normally the little kids draw and the big kids take sermon notes while we listen to the sermon...

...and Penelope decided she'd spend her listening time sketching Doug Wilson.

This week, we jumped into our second week of school, and the younger school kids joined us.  Our weeks are definitely full at this point, but not overwhelming.  Nothing like last year.  I am feeling really optimistic about this school year!

And, spoiler alert, I did take First Day of School photos, but this post is already photo-heavy, so I'll post them next week.  But not without a teaser:

On Tuesday, I took four of the kids with me to a friend's house so we could continue talking about a book we're reading through.  I left Juni home to nap, and the big kids home to work on their schoolwork.  (Before you call CPS, please remember Todd is home during the days!)

Wednesday was a busy day - Amish in the morning, a visit with a friend in the afternoon, and friends over for dinner in the evening.  I like having Wednesdays free from regular schoolwork to be able to be flexible like this in the middle of the week.  It does make for very full, very social days!

Yesterday, we hung around the house, working on school and getting some run-of-the-mill stuff done.  I am getting close to the end of my Western Civ book!  I also worked on the yard, turning the compost pile, deadheading flowers, spraying the never-ending poison ivy.  I'm getting ready to try some liquid aerator on our back yard, in hopes of getting some actual grass to actually grow back there in our hardpacked clay soil.  Wish me luck.

In yard-y news, Penelope's flowers are in bloom!  We are now taking local orders for bouquets - $5 for a small bouquet, $8 for a regular sized bouquet.  (Regular is perfect for a wide mouth mason jar.)  Free delivery, and all money earned is strictly Penelope's to recoup her initial investment, invest further in the business, or count as profit.  We offer free delivery by a sweet delivery girl.

And it's high summer, and you know what that means: more bean tippin'.

And lastly, Callista would like you to know SHE BONK! WIGHT IN DA HEAD! IT HOWT!

She ran right into a cast iron radiator.  And that'll do it.

And I'm off to try my hand at some sourdough bread, set my kombucha for a second ferment, and don my shades for another lovely weekend ahead!

what's up weekly.

HEY Y'ALL.  Wkka-wkka-wkka-what's up?  Well, I'll tell you.

This week has just sped by.  We started the school year, which is the primary reason for that.  (This is the spot in the post where I'd insert First Day of School photos, if I had taken them yet, but I haven't.  I'm hoping to get that done today.)

I'm attempting a 'soft launch' for school this year.  This week, I'm just trying to get the big kids up and running with their new schedules and responsibilities, and then next week I'll be freed up to get the ball rolling with the younger schoolies.  Then the week after that, we should be at a good place to figure out how to best fit things like foreign language and piano lessons into our days.

So far, so good.  Things are humming along pretty well at this point.  We've added a couple new things into each day, but the kids have taken it all in stride.  They've started doing Latin with Todd in the afternoon, and they seem to be liking it.

In addition to our school routine, we've had a few other items of note this week.  On Saturday, we spent the evening in our favorite neighboring town, eating pizza and playing at a playground with DOUBLE TWISTY SLIDES. #bestlifenow

Rocky totally owned this rock wall.

Then we picked up our grocery order and headed home.

On Sunday, Todd preached, and I stayed home with the kids to listen from afar.  It was a fantastic address of "Judge not, lest you be judged."  You should take a listen here!

I got a batch of second-ferment kombucha going in the afternoon.  I've been getting 'kitcheny' lately - my kombucha is revitalized, I'm still making yogurt, I started a sourdough starter and some milk kefir this week, and I've begun to "Julie and Julia" my way through The Art of Natural Cheesemaking. 

I have wanted to try making cheese for a while, since I have access to so much cheap, high quality raw milk.  But all the extra tools and cultures that are necessary to modern cheesemaking was making me feel overwhelmed, and the cost investment seemed less-than-worth it since the whole point was to use cheap milk in the first place.  (And, shocker, I don't always have great follow-through on projects, so I settle for cheap hobbies so I don't feel too bad when I inevitably drop them.)  But I stumbled on this book that teaches traditional cheesemaking with raw milk - no DVI cultures, no expensive cheese presses; just raw milk, calf rennet, and some basic kitchen tools.  

I have already made yogurt cheese, which is basically just the best cream cheese I've ever had in my life, and the kids couldn't stop raving over it when I served it.  So that recipe is a hit.  I'm currently working on clabber cheese and kefir cheese, which are basically variations of the same thing, just leveraging different probiotic cultures in the milk, just to compare the outcome of each and decide which we like best.  So far, I have tried no rennet cheeses, but I do have rennet on hand, ready for the moment I get up the nerve.  I'll be getting to that part of the book soon - my goal is to attempt most of the recipes in the book, and thankfully they start out simple and get increasingly more complicated.  Wish me luck!

On Monday, we jumped in to school in the morning, but our afternoon was cut short by a dentist appointment I had out of town.  I had to leave around lunch time, so for the first time, I asked the big kids to babysit all the little kids while I was gone.  (Todd was home, to be clear, but he was working, so the big kids were fully responsible for everyone's care, but with the anchoring presence of a grownup nearby in case of emergency.)  They made lunch, cleaned up, and got the little kids down for nap (with a little help from Todd).  And then, while they waited for me to get home, they cleaned the house - upstairs AND downstairs.  It was GLORY.

I have officially entered a new phase of parenting, one in which I left the house in the middle of the day.  One in which I left the house by myself.  One in which my big kids were an actual, adequate, responsible, adult-like presence in my home without me there.  One in which my husband works from home to allow this to be possible.  I just... I can't even explain the tectonic scale of the shift.  I could get used to this.

On Tuesday, I had scheduled a meetup with a friend in the morning - we're going through The Fruit of Her Hands, and have been getting together on a weekly basis to discuss it while our kids play together.  I told the big kids they could come with us, or stay home and work on schoolwork, and they chose to stay home and work.  Again - new phase of life.

On Tuesday night, a sweet friend watched the kids so Todd and I could go on a date, and she brought a couple of Andy Griffith board games she had saved from the imminent threat of a friend's burn pile.  Guess what the kids have spent all their free time doing this week?

Wednesday we headed to the Amish and had some friends over for dinner.

Yesterday, we did school and went to another friend's house to swim in the afternoon.

These are "V"s.  For Van Voorst, if you didn't get that.

ANNNNNNNND I think you can see why this week sped by so quickly - we've had a lot going on!  It didn't keep me from getting some reading done, though, and I'm in the middle of a couple of really fantastic books: The Politically Incorrect Guide to Western Civilization by Anthony Esolen (who is quickly becoming a go-to author in my bookstacks), and Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand, in keeping with the genre of World War II accounts/memoirs that I've been into lately, though it is a re-read from a few years ago.  

And that has been our week!

Heads up: the book links are affiliate links.  No shame here.  I have to fund my book addiction somehow, and selling my blood has become more difficult because of COVID.  This is a socially responsible, yet mask-free way to help a sister out.  So click away, my friends.

what's up weekly.

Hey, hey, hey!  I have SO much to tell you - two weeks' worth of stuff to be precise, so let me jump right in!

Two weekends ago, we devoted our Saturday to attending the wedding of a sweet friend.  We loaded up the van and headed a couple hours away.  Once we were there, we set up the back of the van as the dressing room, and all the kids (and Todd and I) took turns getting ready back there.  Can I please reiterate how much I love, adore, cherish the Kraken?  Who else has a green room IN THEIR CAR?!

The wedding was outdoors in Missouri in July, but the kids were absolute angels.  I could not believe how well they did - they were quiet and (mostly) still, and at the end of it all, Atticus said, "I just love weddings!" 

The bugs also seemed to enjoy weddings, or at least hitching a ride in Lissy's wedding getup.  Her dress was literally crawling with bugs when we got back to the van.  The photos don't do justice to the creep factor.  The tulle was so full of bugs, the fabric itself was moving.

We didn't stay for the reception, but headed back in the direction of home.  We stopped in an adorable little town on the way home, where we picked up local BBQ, ogled a Civil War jail, and played at the sweetest little playground in Missouri.  It reminded me of playgrounds from when I was a kid - nothing flashy, nothing made of rubber composite, everything situated under big, old, sprawling trees.  Kill me dead.

Other items of note before the current week kicked off:

1.  It is sweet corn season.  Praise the good Lord, it is sweet corn season!  I love this time of year for obvious reasons; the kids love this time of year because they earn extra chore money for prepping all the produce I buy up at the Amish.  They shuck corn, tip beans, sneak mouthfuls of peppers and tomatoes, and get rid of any nasty crawly bugs that find their way home on our veggies.  The kids love it, I love it, it's an excellent set up.

Plus, look at all that excellent fodder for my ever-growing compost pile.

2.  We got more fish.  I know what you're thinking... is it time to stage an intervention?  But we have actually proven ourselves to be somewhat stable fish parents at this point.  Our first one (and then the next two) died because I didn't clean the tank well enough before putting them in.  Then the fourth and fifth ones died after getting sucked into the filter.  (Have I told you that story yet?  Macabre.  The kind of horror goldfish have nightmares about.  They came out the other end of the filter looking like crinkle fries, and yet those poor fish were still alive and trying to swim for a while.)

But a friend's mom had some fish who had some baby fish, and we were able to take a couple of them off her hands, even though the gal at Petco told me to NEVER put goldfish in a tank smaller than ten gallons.  To which I was like, "Um, excuse me, Gal, but I am not looking for a commercial-sized tank for my kids' room.  I am not running a dentist's office.  A three-galloner will work just fine for our modest fish needs."  To which she shot me the stink eye and the most aggressive shrug ever shrugged, like she was calling me a fish slumlord with her shoulders.  

I know everyone is all "Animal Rights!" but I'm a little like, "Cool it.  They're labeled, 'Feeder Fish.'  You're sending them home with me in a trash bag.  I don't feel like Petco Gal occupies the inherent moral high ground on this one, and I stand by that."

SO ANYWAY.  We now have four fish.  All of whom are alive and well and not complaining of squalid tenement conditions.

Okay, so let's jump into this week's escapades.

This Saturday, we went to a barbecue for charter members of our church plant - it was a fun time getting to reminisce, but it was honestly more fun just seeing a bunch of people that I haven't seen since quarantine started. 

On Sunday, our church's livestream was acting weird, and I've deactivated my Facebook account so we couldn't watch from there.  So we listened to the recent John MacArthur sermon, and can I just say I love that man for stepping out and doing the right thing?  I am so grateful for his leadership and his courage, and am excited to see what comes from his example. 

On Monday, I headed up to Moberly to get a mold taken for a new retainer.  I assume you remember the drama, the heartache, the unending grief from a year or two ago, when I thought I'd lost my twenty-year-old retainer, and my teeth started shifting horribly.  So I went and got an expensive new retainer made, but it was based on the new position of my teeth, not the correct position.  So when I found my old retainer behind the bathroom cabinets, I went back to using that one.  But now that one is cracked, and superglued back together, and I figured I needed to go get a new one made while my teeth are still where I want them to be.

Long, boring story to people who don't have my teeth.  But exciting for me!

In the afternoon on Monday, Callista came down with a fever and started complaining of a sore throat.  On Tuesday, Rocco was hit, and on Wednesday, Juni was hit.  

It seems to be herpangina (which is THE WORST NAME FOR A DISEASE EVER, and that's saying something because there are some pretty nasty disease names out there).  Basically, it's related to Hand, Foot, Mouth and comes with a fever, a sore throat, and tons of painful sores, both inside and around the outside of their mouths.  

Callista has been hit the hardest, and has barely eaten anything since Monday because it hurts so badly to even open her mouth, much less swallow.  So I've been keeping her hydrated on warm water with plenty of honey, and soft foods when she feels like eating.  Rocco spent one day sleeping almost constantly (he took four naps that day, and still went to bed at a normal time), and is back to eating and playing normally, though his eyes and skin are still sunken and see-through, and he's lost some weight.

 Juni has been acting mostly normal, but having a hard time falling asleep, especially when her fever spiked.

Even though she wasn't feeling great, she still wanted to comfort Rocco through his own ordeal.

Getting at least a little bit of peanut butter sandwich down in the sunshine

Penelope also wanted to help Rocco feel better, so she read to him.

Then, Finneas somehow ended up with pink eye yesterday.  Oof.  Luckily, colloidal silver seems to be making quick work of it.  (Also luckily, it didn't prevent him from catching the world's tiniest and most precious toad.)

It has been a really long time since any of the kids have been sick, and this week was draining.  Lots of tantrums, lots of clinginess, lots of needing to eat and sleep at weird times (and not wanting to eat and sleep at normal times).  I had forgotten just how exhausting sickness is, and I'm glad for all our sakes that we seem to hopefully be coming out the other side of things. 

It has also helped my morale that the weather has been so STINKING beautiful this week.  Temps in the mid 70's during the day and low 60's at night!  We have spent as much time as possible outside this week, myself included.  It was perfect to bring Juni out to play in the shade while I read a book and kept eyes on the bigger kids.  I don't get outside with Juni as much as I really should.

The kids get creative and gutsy with their playhouse building.

Lolo loves playing inside the baby jail with Juni.

Rocco played outside once he was feeling better, and took a (plastic) baseball bat to the face.  That poor kid puts up with so much, and keeps on trucking.

And I started reading 1984 yesterday... I've busted through 200 pages already.  I am surprised by how compelling the story is; I had previously thought it was just political commentary.  Which it is, and it is valuable for that, but the character development and the storyline are actually really engrossing in themselves.  I find myself really emotionally invested in it, and also a little creeped out by how prophetic it feels in some ways.

And here it is, Friday yet again.  We have a low-key weekend planned, and then we kickstart our new school year on Monday already!  I have a few things to finish up before then (okay, too many things - I have procrastinated on a bunch of stuff; shocker), but we're feeling ready to dive in!