what's up weekly. (saying farewell to the Christmas season.)

Hello, hello!  It's Friday and I'm feeling good.

I know I failed to post last week.  I'm sorry.  I just... could not.  The stretch that was Christmas had finally caught up with me, and I just needed to lay around in a dark room by myself watching Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman instead of blogging.  I know you've been there too.

So let me back up just a bit to give a fly-over of what was happening the week I didn't blog.  Friday the 6th was Epiphany, so we made a day of it.  We had a cheeseboard for dinner, and I baked a King Cake with a bean hidden inside, the lucky finder of which would get to be king or queen for the rest of the evening.  The lucky Queenie Beanie ended up being our very own Lissa Lou.

Here they are asking her what her first command will be.  She refused to demand anything of anyone.  She had one opportunity to be top dog without a fight and she squandered it.

The next day, my family came down from Iowa and we got to celebrate Second Christmas with the grandparents and cousins!  We had yummy food, opened gifts, and the kids celebrated the arrival of a surprise from my sister and her family: a basement piano!

Girl Cousins table.  Lissy is not thrilled to be wearing jeans, even though she looks so cute in them.

Oey and Yaya cuddling in a chair, S-I-T-T-I-N-G.

Rocco trying out his new binoculars.  Anything he ends up seeing will have definitely seen him first.

The following Monday we were scheduled to start school after three weeks off, but I just couldn't.  There were still Christmas trees and decorations and pine needles everywhere, and I knew I wouldn't have time to get it all taken care of once school started.  So we took Monday off to clean and organize the house and store away our Christmas things.  It was a huge job - the kids had decorated their rooms, we had decorated both the living room and the family room; there was stuff everywhere and it took a surprisingly long time to get cleaned up.  I suppose that is the sign of a good party!

So we finally jumped back into school the next day.  It has gone really well.  I think everyone was ready for some more structure to our days, and to pick back up in so many stories that had been waiting for us.  The last two weeks have really been smooth sailing, all things considered, and we are enjoying our days.

Our basement library/book room/"conservatory."  It has a long way to go - I would like fresh paint, maybe a sewing table and another cozy reading chair, and new carpet down the road - but the piano is such a great addition in here and is being played constantly.  The kids have really loved having a piano they can play whenever they want.

I have been trying to impose a little more order and structure over my own personal time as well.  I've been trying (imperfectly, but still trying) to get back into the Bible reading plan that Todd, Atticus and Penelope are keeping up with.  I am twelve days in to Whole30 and it's going super well.  I've been trying to look at my phone less and read actual books more.  (I'm currently in Gone with the Wind, The Knowledge of the Holy, and A Woman After God's Own Heart.  I also need to get a couple of chapters read in Ruler of Kings for a new book club that will be starting next week.)  I took some stuff to Goodwill, cleaned out our basement storage room, and Todd helped me get the treadmill set up in there this week so I've been trying to get back into walking when I have a few minutes to spare.

That isn't me, that's Penelope, but she has also been taking time to walk on the treadmill.  She feels a lot better when she can get her body moving through the day.

Also, I have been watching Dr. Quinn while I walk because I've never watched through it before and I'm enjoying it, although it is inspiring me to want to decorate with more barrels.  So I think that's my sign I'm watching too much Dr. Quinn.

And in Oey news, she is still adorable.  She turned thirteen months and has discovered the joys of playing with (and hugging and kissing and snuggling) baby dolls.  I literally just can't even take it - she is so cute.  She decided about two weeks ago that she would start sleeping through the night, so I have actually started catching up a bit on sleep as well!  She also has dramatically decreased the amount of time she wants to spend nursing, so I'm only nursing her once or twice a day at this point.  The rest of the time she sits with us at mealtimes and drinks raw milk and eats food (well, she eats meat. Only meat.  She never wants anything but meat) and is just another run-of-the-mill adult by now.  

She woke up with the barfs yesterday morning, and was running a fever at bedtime last night, so we'll see how the day goes.  There are very few things as sweet and pathetic as a sick baby.  How she feels will determine how the day plays out because you better believe I'm not giving up a moment of the opportunity to snuggle a cuddly baby if she wants me to!  She nursed a little more through her fever yesterday so maybe she'll want to do that again today.  I'm not complaining.  As I have more babies, I am struck more and more by just how fleeting it all is.  I am in no rush to make it go faster than it already does.  I really want to enjoy every single baby day I am given because there will come a day that is the last one.  The last time I ever nurse, the last time I ever get up in the night to feed a baby, the last diaper I'll ever change.  There will be an element of relief that comes with that for sure, the way anyone who has worked hard welcomes rest, and it definitely is hard work, but it's satisfying work and I'm in no hurry to see it end sooner than it has to.

Anyway.  Enough sap.  Now, on a completely unrelated note, here is Santa, wishing you a very merry but official farewell to the Christmas season.

Ho, ho, ho, merry January!

Happy Epiphany, friends!  It's the twelfth day of Christmas, and our last feast day for a while.   (Whew!)  Feasting is hard work, and by the end of the holidays I am ready for the finish line.  We will have a cheeseboard tonight, and a King cake (a bundt cake, which is crown-shaped, with a dry bean baked in - whoever finds the bean gets to be king or queen for the rest of the night)!  And that will cap off our stretch of winter holidays.  We will do another feast day on Valentine's Day, but nothing between now and then.

I am planning on starting a Whole30 on Monday to squeeze it in between celebrations.  I think my body composition is just cheese wrapped in skin at this point.  My brain feels like cheese, my legs move like cheese, my stomach looks like cheese, my breath smells like cheese.  And while I know it sounds glamorous, I think I need a little break.  A little austerity.  A little temporary cheeselessness.  So Whole30 it is. 

I won't be making the kids join me this time, which they are glad about.  And I'm just going to keep it really simple and not attempt too many out-of-the-ordinary recipes or snacks; just modify what we normally eat.  Wish me luck.

But anyway, back to our cheese-logged existence for a little longer.  Last weekend was New Year's, and you know what that means: cheeseboard.  Friends of ours who are currently stationed in North Carolina were in the area for the holidays, so they stayed the weekend with us.  Of course we got a photo of the food, but no photos with the friends.  Because that's how cheese-muddled our brains are at this point.  I am still kicking myself over it.  But it was a super fun time, even if no photos were had.

Mmmm.  Food photos after dark under overhead lighting.  You're just going to have to trust me that this was a pretty epic spread.

Every year on NYE, we have a 'talent' portion of the evening in which some of us present drawings of our family as it was that year, or poems about what the year held for us.  This is Finneas' drawing.  Callista, Rocco, Lolo and Atticus also drew family portraits but I don't have photos of those for some reason.  

 

On Monday, we took advantage of Todd's day off work for the New Year and drove back to the Columbia area for some errands.  We first hit up the chiropractor, then headed to Natural Grocers and Aldi.  Why Aldi, you ask?  Don't we have one here?  Why, yes, we do, but Kansas grocery stores aren't allowed to sell wine because the state government thinks that's a reasonable and necessary and helpful restriction.  So while I could go to a liquor store to buy wine, and I have, it is just not nearly as cheap and wonderful as Aldi wine.  And it is feast season - we go through wine, and I'd rather not pay $14 for what I can buy at Aldi for $8.  (True story.)  So I went through the Aldi checkout with three bags of chocolate chips and nine bottles of wine and I really do wonder what people who saw me thought my life is like.  While I was shopping, Todd took the kids over to drive past our old house.

After the grocery stores, we dropped off a Christmas present at my friend Megan's, then headed to my friend Jen's so that the girls and I could get haircuts.  It had been a hot minute and we were all kind of looking like Fraggles.  While she cut our hair, her husband taught the boys to shoot.  A grand time was had by all.

After that, we headed up to the Amish.  I was able to stock up on some of our bulk items like oats, honey, salt, coffee and canning lids, and I found some good deals on a few ding-and-dent items.  Then we stopped at my friend Irene's house and bought six gallons of milk.  We currently buy eight gallons a week from our local farmer, but that's just enough for our drinking/cooking/butter-making needs.  I haven't made yogurt or cheese since we've gotten here because I just don't have any extra to work with.  So I'm excited to make some yogurt and paneer this week.  (Just in time for Whole30... I guess I will be experimenting with freezing paneer.)

But anyway.  That was our trip on Monday.  I should add that we left at 7:30 in the morning, didn't get home until 9:00 at night, it was crazy foggy the entire day (until after dark, when it started pouring down rain), and Todd was battling a killer headache the majority of the time.  It was a day.  But I'm really glad we went - it felt really good to visit the familiar.  I feel like this move has been really gentle on us and we are settling in surprisingly quickly, but I do still feel a little displaced sometimes, so it was nice to feel 'placed' again for a little bit.

On Tuesday, a friend and her kids came from Kansas City to visit for the afternoon.  I have known her from back in our Ames days, and lots of life has happened in between (they lived in China for a while, we have moved all over the place, and now here we are, forty-five minutes from each other).  It's been fun to make a new, old friend.

Not related to what I was saying above, but here is how you can find Atticus 90% of the time: prowling the exterior perimeter by himself.

On Wednesday, I got really serious about finally starting to clean out the storage room.  That has been my biggest goal to tackle this break, but I was sick for most of the first two weeks off, and then this week has been pretty busy, so I hadn't even started yet.  I still have some progress to make down there yet, but I did get a lot done in one afternoon and I'm really glad.

Yesterday was spent menu planning in anticipation of today's grocery trip, and procrastinating on folding all the laundry.  Our laundry system in this house is in a state of constant hiccup.  All of my previous houses had basement laundry, which is its own inconvenience, but I'm having to figure out a new way of doing things and I haven't quite solved the puzzle yet. 

Okay, well, I'm off to bake the King cake and take in the beauty of our Christmas decorations for a little bit longer.  We always leave them up until Epiphany (or, in the case of last year, February) and then they come down.  I will leave them up through the weekend since we're celebrating Christmas with my family here tomorrow, but then they'll get put away until next year.  I feel... ready/not ready for Christmas to be over already!