what's up weekly. (still playing catch-up. POST THREE!)

This is the point in the catch-up series where I'm really kicking myself for not having just stayed up to date on posting.  Three blog posts in one day is too many blog posts to write (and, I assume, read).  So I will finish this one up, then hopefully post the current week's update later this afternoon or this evening, and be totally caught up!  (In case you missed it, I have posted a number of posts today chronicling what we've been up to the last couple of weeks, including selling our house and house hunting.  The first post is here, and the second post can be found here.)

After we got home from Leavenworth on Sunday, our house was under contract but still hadn't passed inspection yet.  Luckily, our buyers were ON IT and scheduled the inspection for Monday.  It was nice because the house was still in clean condition, and we didn't have to walk on eggshells for too long trying to keep it pristine while we waited.  

We had breakfast and lunch outside, where Juni immediately got herself covered in dust from head to toe.  I didn't want to take her inside and track all that in, just to get the tub gross and then have to clean it.  So I brought a rubbermaid bin outside and had her bathe in hose water in the yard.  She loved every single second of it.

In the afternoon we ran errands to kill time during the inspection.  (Another day without naps - that was FOUR IN A ROW.  Rough stuff.)  We returned some things to Target, bought Atticus new church shoes, picked up our turtle and milk from the friend who kept that stuff for us all weekend while we were away, and stopped at the storage unit.  It was so unbearably hot!  When we got home, it was already after 5:00 and I had no idea what we were going to eat for dinner, so I threw together pancakes, eggs and bacon, and my praises were sung to the high heavens.  What is it with Brinner that is just so appealing to the masses?

On Wednesday, Ophelia turned SIX MONTHS OLD.  Hold the phone.  She is a half of a year old.  How did this happen?

She looks like she's jumping in a photo on the cover of High School Musical.  In my Microsoft Paint days, I could have really worked some magic with this photo.

DON'T YOU JUST WANT TO SMOOCH HER?

The girl is the sunshine that lights up every single one of our lives. The first thing the big girls do when they get up in the morning is look for her.  They make her laugh, they ask to hold her.  She has brought us all so much joy.

She has two teeth, but still has no hair and refuses to roll (she does this funny little arched-back move where she can see anything she wants to see, but she just does. not. want to roll.).  She sucks on her bed to fall asleep, and I think I'm going to have to order the toddler sized Snuggle Me at some point because she's so cozy in it, I can't imagine her wanting to give it up.  She takes 2-3 naps a day, goes to bed around 6:45 most nights, and wakes up once or twice through the night to eat.  Breastfeeding is going well, and she is getting heavy and strong.  She recently tried apple and banana, and loved them.  She is such a gift.

And that was our week!  After a long stretch of prepping the house for sale, packing up stuff for the storage unit, cleaning, painting, and having carpet cleaners/glass guys/house cleaners/plumbers/etc. come through, and then a weekend away with very little rest, we were READY for a light week.  I purposely left things pretty wide open so that we could recover and just be for the first time in a while.  It was good, and I'm grateful for it!

Now, hopefully I can get this week's post up today and then I'll be all caught up!  Check back in later!

what's up weekly. (weekend update. POST TWO!)

Okay, now on to the BIG post - the one where I tell you about our travels and the selling of our house.  (If you didn't see the first catch-up post, you might want to start here.)

Our house was open for showings beginning Friday morning, and we just wanted to leave for the weekend so we didn't need to worry about having people in and out, and trying to keep the house clean, etc.  So we gathered up the kids and our things and spent the weekend house hunting in our new town and enjoying our new church family.  

Unfortunately, we left the house at 8:30 in the morning on Friday, but the place we were staying wouldn't be available until 4:30.  Since the drive is only about 2.5 hours, we knew we would have to kill a lot of time through the day.  We started with breakfast from McDonald's so I didn't stink my house up by cooking breakfast (Lord forbid), then the kids ate in the van with Todd while I ran into Target to buy Rocco some new shorts.  Then we headed over to Shelter Gardens to walk around.  We hadn't been there as a family in a long time, and it was so fun.  Walks at Shelter feel like a Very Van Voorst thing to do.

Attending school in the one-room schoolhouse.  (I'm a bad student - I'm listening to voicemails and nursing a baby when I'm supposed to be listening.)

See? No one likes being tethered to a desk all day.

Ophelia's first thumbs up.  She's growing up so fast.

After that, we loaded into the van and drove to Boonville, which is the town we would visit each weekend in the summer of 2020 when Columbia was requiring masks and closing down playgrounds.  We have a couple parks there that are near and dear to our hearts, so we played at one playground for a while, then grabbed some lunch and went to a beautiful spot on a bluff to eat lunch overlooking the river.

Lolo the Eternal Extrovert made friends with a high school/college gal who was there hitting softballs.  One thing led to another and all the kids got the opportunity to hit the ball a few times.

She apparently found the world's largest dandelion.  It was her moral duty to enjoy every second of it.

This hill is deceptive - it is incredibly steep.  The kids all love it.

I, on the other hand, experienced some kind of vertigo or something and turned all "Liza Minelli in Arrested Development."  I got stuck at the top of the hill and couldn't get up without help.  But I'm still young and normal, I swear.

After lunch, we got back in the car for the long stretch of our trip.  I was hoping the kids would nap, but no one did.  Not even Ophelia.  Everyone was happy and no one was melting down, but still.  When we got to town, we spent a couple hours visiting with friends before heading over to the house where we would be staying.

NBD, Rocco only TAUGHT HIMSELF TO RIDE A BIKE WITHOUT TRAINING WHEELS.  You know, the way kids do on any random afternoon.  Scrappy Doo, I do love you.

After our time playing with friends, we came here to land for the weekend.

Isn't it cute?  The sister of a friend let us stay at her house all weekend and she went and stayed with their parents.  It was wonderful and so generous - it was a great fit.  The upstairs bedroom even had a little playroom under the eaves that was full of toy kitchen stuff and dress up clothes!

We got settled there, then left for the monthly dinner and psalm-sing with the church.  It was so fun, but made for a very long day - we didn't get the kids in bed until close to ten, and no one had napped.  BUT!  We got a really solid offer on our house that evening - full price, cash! Praise the Lord! - so the day ended on a high note, literally and figuratively.

We started our psalm sing out on the grass...

...but had to finish it inside because it suddenly started downpouring.

I can't figure out how to embed it, but if you'd like to see a short little video of the psalm sing, you can watch that here.

Saturday morning, we started a little slow, then after breakfast drove to St. Joseph to start house hunting.  There were more options and better prices there, but we realized we didn't want to live that far away from Leavenworth.  I mean, if we are going to be moving to be part of the church community, it only makes sense to live in that community, right?  So we went back to Leavenworth to see houses there, but the prospects were pretty dismal.  Lots of mold.  Lots of split levels.  One house had a wall that literally looked like a cartoon character had taken a large bite out of it.  (We call it the Sandwich Bite House.)  

Saturday night, we drove to Lee's Summit to have Sabbath dinner with friends, so it was another day of no naps and late bedtimes, but we had a blast.

Then on Sunday, we went to church and were going to do a little more house hunting, but the kids were so exhausted and not feeling well, so we just left for home instead.  

So, that was a very full weekend update: we sold our house in twelve hours, got a great offer and have a close date of August 1.  We didn't find a home to purchase yet, but now the clock is ticking!

I will give you a rundown of the rest of that week in the next post...

what's up weekly. (catching up from like forever ago. POST ONE!)

Hi there!  Remember me?  Paige Van Voorst?  I'm the one with the million kids?  No?  Not ringing a bell?

Photo from last summer for effect.  I'm the one in the red shirt and giant pregnant belly.

I realize it's been a while.  There has been a lot going on around here and I just haven't had the time to sit down and document it all.  So maybe if I jump in and tell you what has been happening, it'll jog your memory and we can become fast friends again.  I'm going to do a separate post for each week I have missed, so let's go waaaaay back to the beginning of June.

Last time I checked in, we had just celebrated Mes'morial Day and were balancing the pace of summer with prepping to sell our house.  We spent a lot of time cooking and eating outside so that the house wouldn't smell like cooking when people walked through.  (Our realtor said that my house perpetually smells like bacon.  I personally don't see the problem with that, but just in case someone was hoping to buy a pristinely kosher or halal house, they might be tricked into thinking we never cook pork if I just let the house air out a bit.  Sure.  Seems likely.)

I also had carpet cleaners come do the basement carpet because "Missouri humidity + basement carpet + sweaty boys' room" is apparently not a recipe for recreating the smell of the crystal clear air of the Alps.  So carpet cleaning and a dehumidifier came to the rescue.  

We celebrated Pentecost that Sunday (June 5)... 

Pentecostal Reformed Presbyterians: only a thing on Pentecost.

...which was also the day Atticus turned thirteen-and-a-half. He is now closer to fourteen than thirteen, and that is all I feel like saying about the matter.

We had cleaning ladies come in for a light cleaning of the whole house, and I have two things to say about it.  First, I loved it.  Everything in the house was clean simultaneously for a little while.  The bathroom caulk was white for once.  You know, that kind of thing.  

Second, it was validating.  It took two professional women two and a half hours to get it done.  That's five man-hours.  They weren't splitting their time between cooking and childcare and laundry and school and personal hygiene and cleaning, and it still took them five combined hours to do a light cleaning.  When I feel like keeping up with the cleaning is sometimes hard, it's apparently because it actually is.  Not an impossible challenge, or one I resent at all.  It was just nice to know that the honest calculations reflect that it does take a good amount of work.  (And it inspired me to do a little bit better myself when it comes to my weekly work - it's amazing how much better it looked and felt to have things truly clean.  I want to do a better job so I can feel that way more often!)

And we continued to truck along with house prep.  I borrowed a power washer and blasted the front step and driveway clean.  

The kids literally had front row seats.

Atticus got to try his hand at power washing.  We have together decided that a power washer of our very own ought to be in our future.

Todd and I worked together to replace the ballasts in the laundry room lights.

Todd replaced the dead battery in Goldie Honda so we could move her out of the driveway and onto the street for showings and photos.

And speaking of taking listing photos: the realtor's photographer came over to take pictures, and wanted to start in the backyard where the kids were playing.  So all the kids rushed into the garage so they wouldn't be seen by the drone, and they forgot Juni behind.  So the drone was flying all around the yard, and she was hiding behind the air conditioner and all you could see was her little waterspout ponytail over the top.  Poor baby, she was so scared of the drone and being left by herself.  You can't see her in the photos, but you can see a bunch of kids' heads peering out the garage door window.

And don't worry - we didn't forget it's summer, so we spent our free time accordingly.  

We got our first Mini Van Voorst bee sting.

Rocco stayed on track with Same Page Summer.  Just kidding, but look at him go!

This was a "popes in a Volkswagen" situation but they liked it.

We had to remove the back seats of the van so we could haul a bigger load up to storage.  The kids didn't seem to mind.

And that was where that first week ended.  Sorry to leave a cliff-hanger!  Click on through to the next post to find out whether we ended up selling the house!

what's up weekly. (memorial day = summer is officially here!)

Happy Friday, folks!

You know what they say: "Another day, another dollar."  Or, in our case, "Another day, another forty thousand moving-related bits that I don't want to do but should." 

Same dad, different dad.

Luckily for me, there were plenty of distractions happening this week, most of them related to the fact that we are now, concretely, in the throes of summer.  Exhibit A:

Yard work.  Yard work is Very Summer.  (As is my clearly beach-ready body.)  I had my little right hand gal help me with some mulching.

Exhibit B:

Strawberries.  Strawberries are also Very Summer.  We bought ten quarts of them at the Amish last week, and processed them all.  (Also with my right hand gal.)  Most of them went into the freezer (I got about 2 gallons), but some of them went into homemade strawberry frozen custard with strawberry sauce.  And it was as amazing as it sounds, so you better believe we will be buying more strawberries this weekend.  I'm trying to decide what to make with them all.

Exhibit C:

Mes'morial Day.  Mes'morial Day is the epitome of Very Summer.  To recap for those of you who are new around here, we eat s'mores on Memorial Day.  That's how it became Mes'morial Day.  Pretty straightforward.

We save up sticks and nut shells all year for our annual fire.  Not that we do that intentionally; it's just that after about a year, we have enough that we're starting to go a little crazy so Todd burns them all at once and just tends the fire all day.  This pit is actually four or five feet deep for some reason, so it's quite a bit of yard waste.

Grammy June made an appearance.

This is why I call this kid Scrappy Doo.  I mean just LOOK AT HIM.  So many heart-eye emojis belong here.

The Real Boy Scouts of America

Exhibit D:

Ukulele is Very, Very Summer.  Although, "Bad to the Bone" on ukulele is not as summery as it could be.

Exhibit E:

...Chickens?  Are chickens summery?  We still love them, we still have DeeVee because I can't bring myself to get rid of him quite yet.  Ophelia got to meet a chicken and it seemed to go over well.

And, just to round out our summery summery week, here's what else we were up to:

Lots of trips to Lowe's and Walmart and the storage unit because: Moving.  Atticus is my box carrier and van tetris-er.  Moving with big kids is a whole different ball game.

Penelope hit her own shaving milestone.  HOW ARE MY KIDS ADULTS ALREADY?!

Juni's favorite activity is laying down by Ophelia and having Sister Time.

And speaking of Ophelia, she's having a killer week.  She finally got a second tooth. (The Lord God said, "It is not good for the tooth to be alone; I will make a it buddy suitable for it.")

Can you see her little toothers in there?  It's hard to get a good picture - they are not unequally yoked; they are both equally miniscule.

She also got a bath.

That's a pretty killer week in Baby Town.

LOOK AT HER SHORRRRRRRRRRRRTS!

And that was our week!