what's up weekly. (Last Day of School Photos, Swimming Lessons, and Meeting a New Cousin.)

I am here, I am alive, and I am tempted to apologize, yet again, for missing a week of blogging.  I think at this point you should just plan on semiannual updates.  I can't seem to promise more than that.

To pacify your annoyance with me, please enjoy these "last day of school" photos that I took of the kids weeks after the last day of school.  It still kind of counts, right?

What has kept us so busy?  Well, first of all, Atticus has had swimming lessons, which is usually a weirdly major undertaking.  (Once, when my kids were all much smaller and I only had four of them, a friend was like, "How are you doing?" And I was like, "Well... it's swimming lesson week, so..." And she was like, "No, how are you doing, really?" And I was like, "Like I said, it's swimming lesson week.  That is amply descriptive of the state of my soul.")  But a few things are different this year that have made it manageable, and dare I say it, downright enjoyable.

First, it has been a hot sec since the last time we attempted lessons.  In 2020 it was, well, 2020 so there were no lessons.  In 2021, all the folks who had missed lessons the previous year must have tried to make up for their swimming deficiency by bulk buying all the lesson openings far in advance, so we weren't able to join.  Last year we were moving.  So the last time we even attempted this was 2019.  Our life stage has changed dramatically since then.

Second, Todd started working from home in 2020.  Before that, I took all the kids everywhere I went.  Now I have the luxury of only taking one or a few at a time, and leaving the rest back at home.

Third, my oldest was only ten the last time.  It turns out bigger kids become wildly easy in public.  The more kids I have over the age of ten, the easier public outings become.

So anyway, I say all that to tell you that swim lessons this year have been so fun.  I take Atticus and Ophelia with me, and sit with Oey in the shade by the pool for half an hour.  It's like time at the spa.  (Well, time at a spa where you're still mama-birding Larabars to a toddler to keep her occupied, but that's still pretty restful comparatively.)  That said, I still somehow managed to not take any photos.  Whoops.

Next week, the other six are all scheduled for lessons, so it could end up being wild and crazy and exhausting like it has been in the past, and you will ask me how I'm doing, and I will tell you, "Swim-Lessons-Fine."  Juni and Callista (and maybe Rocco?  I can't remember) will be taking lessons for the first time.  Finneas will be fine.  Penelope has a fear of drowning that ironically prevents her from learning to swim, so that has been a hurdle to jump in previous years.  We'll see how it goes.  But I'm optimistic.  Must be all that Vitamin D I've soaked up working to the advantage of my attitude.

In addition to swimming lessons, we have also had a friend spending the days with us this past week while her mom is at a teacher training for our church's private school.  We also invited some neighbors over to play in the sprinkler one afternoon this week, and have logged many hours riding bikes through the neighborhood.  So our week was literally full of friend time.

Okay, what else?  Well, the reason I didn't blog last week was because Thursday night I hosted a women's singing night at our house.  It had been such a long time since I've hosted a large group. But it went really well and was really fun.  Maybe twenty women or so came, and we sang some of the psalms and hymns we sing regularly in church.  One gal played piano, another gal directed and helped us all learn our parts.  It was fun!

Busting out my Blue Willow dessert plates!  Everyone brought snacks to share, which was super nice but makes for kind of a boring prep photo of my table.

It was hard to get all the seating in the photo.  We had a row of seats behind the couch, and a bench and some chairs set up in the dining room, and ladies were sitting on the floor.  It was a very full house!

The next night, Friday, Todd and Atticus went to a men's movie night with the guys from church, so Penelope and I stayed up late watching the Half Blood Prince after the other kids went to bed.  These late-night movie screenings have been so fun, but I'm also learning about myself that I'm not as young as I once was.  I can barely hack it anymore.

Then the next day we took a day trip up to Iowa.  My sister had a baby last week and we were so excited to go meet him!

Atticus loves babies so much.

If you're wondering why there are no photos of the littlest girls with him, it's because I couldn't look away even for a second to take a photo, or they would have absconded with him.  And Lolo didn't realize we were passing him around at the time so she missed this chance, but we'll see them again soon and she can hold him then.

We also celebrated Callista's birthday a few days early while we were up there.  And of course... I forgot the camera.

Callista turned six on Monday!  She is sweet and spicy and beautiful and I just can't get enough of her.  She tells super colorful stories, and I swear she would make a great actress.  She is also very maternal and affectionate- she adores carrying Oey around (regardless of the shrieks of rage and disgust from the latter) and dressing up her babies, Baby and Strongdor.  She loves playing doctor and "fixing" me in the evenings.  She has a sensitive conscience and is in the stage of oversharing her potential infractions.  ("I'm not sure if I did this or not, but maybe I didn't brush my teeth."  "DID you brush your teeth?"  "Yes."  "So... you're fine.")  She is bossy and responsible and smart, and it makes me wonder if birth order experts would say that sixthborns are basically just firstborns but with five kids in front of them whom they try to subjugate to their will.  She is absolutely fearless.  Also, she loves to vacuum.

We went to the Sonic playground for dessert.

And other than that, I've been spending my extra time trying to get everything squared away for next school year.  Things get more and more complex each year - I will have six students next year and it is really blowing my mind.  I'll probably be planning until we start school in September.  (Oh, yeah! We won't even start until September, praise the Lord!  So I do have time.)  So far I have ordered the ONE MILLION BOOKS on the list for my big kids, and next week I will sit down and schedule them all out (if I don't die of swimming-lesson-stroke on those days).  Getting there, getting there, but it takes time.  The nice thing is that getting all the planning done over the summer means that the year is very open-and-go.  I hate planning during the school year - that's how plates get dropped.

Anyway.  That's that.  I'm off to enjoy my Friday and hopefully stay cool - it is hot out there.

The light was so weird yesterday morning and the sky was a funny color, and it was oppressively hot and humid, even by 8:00 a.m.  The sky suddenly got really dark and the wind picked up, so I called the kids inside from climbing this tree.  Just a couple minutes later, the whole thing blew down.

Close call.

what's up weekly. (swimming, gardening, reading, and the best summer break on record.)

Well, hello folks!  Sorry I didn't show up around here last week.  We had friends over for dinner on Thursday night and I didn't end up having time to blog.  C'est la vie.

It has been a busy stretch!  I feel like I am still kind of mentally in "school mode," in which time is a very scarce resource, so I feel like I have to do all the things while I can and I pack my days to the gills.  (I have even printed out an hourly planning sheet for each week so that I can plan what to do in every time block.)  I don't mind it, though - I have gotten a lot done, and have not squandered my free time as much as I typically tend to do. 

A couple weeks back, we spent the day at the Amish, since it was Strawberry Week.  (Strawberry season is so short!)  We drove there (and navigated extensive road work in Kansas City), did our shopping and visiting, drove home (navigating the same road work again), made Sabbath dinner, and then I processed all fifteen quarts of strawberries for the freezer.  It was a busy day, but I am SO excited to have all those berries on hand.

We have spent a lot of time driving back and forth from the brush site, hauling compost for a garden bed I'm putting in along the outside of our fence in the side yard.  Once I got my pretty raised bed from Austin all planted, it was kind of a "If you give a mouse a cookie" situation, and I felt the need for more space.  Our fence doesn't incorporate all of our backyard, so we have an unfenced section of our yard on either side of the house.  It's just kind of awkward, unused space, and one side is entirely south-facing, which is perfect for a garden.  So since it doesn't take up valuable play space for the kids, and isn't being used for anything else, I figured I'd grow some food there.  BUT I didn't want to spend money, so I decided on a raised bed a la Charles Dowding.

Here is All The Rock I moved.  We still have a giant pile in the front to figure out what to do with, but I'm glad this section is done.

The boards are up temporarily and will likely come down once the bed establishes itself.  Or I will end up finalizing it with something prettier than this.  Either way, it will end up looking better than it does now.  But it is functional, and it's tucked away from street view, so I'm not too worried.  I have strawberries, raspberries, zinnias, pole beans, bush beans, cucumbers, carrots, beets, okra, watermelon and spaghetti squash in here, and I think I'm going to tuck a couple more tomatoes in there at the very end.  (Have I told you before that I'm an incurable plant crowder?  I always tuck way more into a bed than I should.)

We've also been spending a ton of time with our church family, having friends over for dinner and hang outs, as well as spending days at the park as an encouragement/reward for those kiddos in our congregation that are keeping up with Same Page Summer, the Bible read-through we're all going through.  A friend celebrated her fortieth birthday, and her husband threw a big surprise party for her.  We had our monthly Psalm Sing, and had our weekly after-church fellowship meal at a nearby park.  Our neighbors in the military are getting ready to move, so we watched their kids a couple of days to keep them out from underfoot of the packers.  Their son celebrated his seventh birthday and had a driveway pizza party that we attended.  (Best birthday party idea ever.)  And in addition, Atticus has had a lot of mowing jobs for friends, which gives me the opportunity to hang out and chat with gals (and even let the other kids play in the sprinkler!) while he mows.

Birthday party.  Have I told you before how much I love our neighborhood?

My friend Courtney came to hang out one morning.

This is Oey's new favorite face.

It has been a fun and busy and social time. 

I have also been working on transitioning out of the last school year and prepping for the upcoming year.  I have made our schedule, ordered our books, and have started working on portfolios.  I didn't have time to really make this transition well last summer, and there were definitely consequences of the lack of planning that were felt all year.  I'm hoping to avoid that this year.

In the meantime, after a two week break from all school work, the kids are now back to doing some reading and math each day.  A couple of them have fallen behind in math, and a couple need to boost their reading skills before the expectations and rigors of next year.  They're also all doing the Bible read-through. (Penelope has taken it upon herself to make sure all the girls are hearing it on audio each day, Atticus is working through his readings independently, and Finneas has been reading out loud to Rocco.)  So they have plenty to keep them busy.  Penelope has also been reading like a maniac now that she doesn't have any assigned books.  This is what she had finished as of earlier this week, and has finished more since then.

And finally, our December babies celebrated their half-birthdays.  First, Atticus turned fourteen and a half.  Whoa.

And then Ophelia turned eighteen months.

She is headed in to toddlerhood strong.  She has mastered the complaints, "Ow!" "Hey!" and "Stop!" ("Bop!") and plays them on repeat.  She doesn't say Mama, she still refuses to walk, but by gum she knows how to tell you to get out of her face and leave her alone.  Eighth-born, amiright?  This week we're working on dropping her morning nap and consolidating her daytime sleep into a single afternoon nap.  I've been dreading it since she dearly loves to sleep, but she has been pretty tolerant as long as we have something to do to keep her busy and engaged.  So we have spent our mornings at places like Home Depot, our friends' sprinkler, and today we're headed to Walmart to pick up swimwear for the older kids, since swimming lessons start next week.

This afternoon, I need to remember to take their "Last Day of School" photos (whoops, dropped the ball on that one), and I'm thinking about doing "exit interviews" for the school year - "What were your favorite books this year? Least favorite? What are you most proud of? What would you like to have gone differently?  What do you hope to change next year?  What are you msot excited for?" Etc. etc.  We'll see if I can discipline myself to stay inside long enough to do it.

Phew!  It has clearly been a full stretch, but we're getting a lot done, having a lot of fun, and thoroughly enjoying ourselves.  GOD BLESS SUMMER BREAK!

what's up weekly. (rocks and barfs, rocks and barfs.)

Happy Friday!  Our first week of summer break is in the books, and it was (mostly) fantastic.

We tried going out last Friday morning to celebrate having finished all our schoolwork.  I was going to take them out for donuts.  But the donut place ended up having two - count 'em, two - parking spaces, neither of which I would be able to back the van out of without absolutely decimating something.  So we decided to go to the other donut place in town (why we have two is a mystery to me), but then I couldn't find it.  So we decided to stop at the library to pick up our holds, regroup, and check Maps before trying again.  And again, even with all modern technology available to me in the Maps app, I couldn't find it.

So, we pivoted and decided to try Dairy Queen.  We discovered upon our arrival that our DQ's current business strategy involves complete abandonment during business hours.  It's bold.  I admit I don't fully understand the method behind the madness, but I've never been one to readily understand finance.  I'm the kind of ignoramus that would have my business open during business hours, but I guess that's why none of my zero business ventures have ever succeeded.  (But none of them have ever failed, either, so maybe I have more business acumen than I give myself credit for.)

So, we scrapped our trip.  I had to get home so that Atticus could load the mower into the van for a mowing job, so I left the other kids in charge of making lunch while we were gone.  Tuna salad after you've been expecting donuts and ice cream is a pretty low blow, but they (mostly) handled themselves with aplomb.  I told them we could try again after lunch.

But then Atticus had another mowing job in the afternoon, so to save me time, Todd just suggested we go to Wendy's for Frosties after dinner.  Sold.  It ended up working out okay, and we got ghost pepper fries to go with them, and everyone was happy with the arrangement.

How I felt about the kickoff to summer break, and the staying power of the lid on that sideways Frostie.

Saturday was spent washing rocks.  Literally.  We scooped up all the dirty, detritus-ridden rock from the chicken yard, washed it in soapy water in the kiddie pool, hauled it by the bucket, and dumped it into a new rock bed I'm making.  

I told Todd that I feel like I'm panning for gold, except for, instead of gold, it's rocks I don't even want.

Why make more rock beds when the bane of my existence is rock beds, you ask?  Well, because the rock has to go somewhere.  It's like the weight of sin.  Or student debt.  Or the pink tub ring in The Cat and the Hat Comes Back.  It doesn't just disappear.  You have to find an effective and lawful place for it to get transferred to if you don't want to live with it where it is for the rest of your life.  

For me, the target for transference of the rock (when I can't pawn it off on our friends and neighbors) is our other side yard, which has a big ugly electrical panel, and then a medium-sized ugly electrical panel, and then a baby ugly electrical panel.  It's like something right out of a fairy tale, only instead of bears, it's stuff you have to mow around.  Well, no longer, because: ROCKS.

So we shoveled and washed and sorted and dumped and hauled and poured rock all day on Saturday, until it was time to come inside and prep Sabbath dinner.

Saturday night, Oey started crying in the night, which is very unusual for her, so I went in to check on her, only to discover she was laying in a huge puddle of her own puke and feeling very confused and sad.  So we gave her a midnight bath, changed her sheets, rocked her, laid her back down, and then did the whole thing again half an hour later when it happened again.  Sick babies are just so sad - they have no idea what is going on, or why they feel the way they do, or what all this stuff is everywhere, or if they'll ever feel better again, and you can't explain to them that it's all going to be okay.  So I rocked her and rocked her, then laid her down, did some laundry so we'd have more crib sheets available if we needed them, then laid awake until 3:30, listening to make sure she didn't get sick again.

She didn't.  She woke up feeling fine.  I didn't take her to church out of caution, but she acted fine, at breakfast normally, and went down for her morning nap.  I should tell you that her morning nap is still about three hours long (she is a sleeper), so once she was asleep and the rest of the family was at church, I was all by my lonesome IN MY OWN HOUSE.  It was weird.  I folded laundry, worked out, twiddled my thumbs, then had to readjust to the noise level of my real life once everyone got home.  Then later in the day, we celebrated Pentecost Sunday with a cheeseboard, and have now entered into that blessed rest that is Ordinary Time, in which most of the official feast days in our home are wrapped up until Reformation Day at the end of October.  Celebrating is hard work!

Monday was Memorial Day, and was spent washing yet more rock.  I also made some slow-cooked baked beans, homemade pasta salad, and prepped brats and chicken for our annual cook-out.  The food turned out only okay for all that, which was a bummer, but the company more than made up for it.

Austin made a bench seat all around the garden box, and it was the perfect height to push the table up to.

I had to include this picture of Juni.

After dinner, we got cleaned up, at which point Atticus told me his stomach didn't feel right.  But nothing really came of it.  Until we got back out into the yard to roast marshmallows for our MeS'morial Day s'mores... at which point he suddenly, unexpectedly, conspicuously started upchucking into the grass.  So, that was a surprise.

He went inside to soak in an epsom bath, and the other kids started roasting their marshmallows once we got the yard hosed down.  It ended up still being a really fun night, for everyone except Atticus, obviously.  He went to bed early, but didn't wake up through the night or feel sick in the morning, so his was quick like Oey's had been.  (Juni also had the same thing happen last week, but I forgot about it when I blogged so it never got logged as a workplace incident.)

Will you please take a second and pray with me that the grass grows back in that spot under the fire pit where it ended up getting scorched to hell?  I feel inordinately sad about my lack of foresight and avoidance.

After barf cleanup, I took a shower before rejoining the gang.  You understand.

Anyway.  That was how we kicked off Monday of our first full week of summer.  

Tuesday involved more rocks, because this is what I live for now.  There is no Dana, there isn't even Zuul; only rocks.  I took a break for a bit in the morning to go to the appliance place to order the parts to repair our dishwasher.  According to the guy, they should arrive in 5 to 25 days.  Until then, we're still handwashing.

Wednesday was rainy, and without rocks, I didn't know what to do with myself.  I read books and got crabby.

By yesterday it was sunny again, but by then I was out of the habit of Rocks-ing, so I decided it was as good a time as any to take the kids shopping for summer shoes.  So we all ventured forth to Walmart.  Since Todd started working from home, I haven't found myself taking all the kids on errands very often, so this was out of the ordinary.  I was a bit nervous.  But it went swimingly and everyone ended up shod (except for Finneas, who is in that dreaded Boys/Mens Size 5 shoe - the boys section doesn't carry them because they're too big, the mens section doesn't carry them because they're too small, so you end up ordering from DSW just to get a pair of shoes that cost more than you want to pay, and last less time than you hope they'll last because: Boys).  I'll order Finneas' shoes when I get up the gumption to place an internet order.  By then, maybe he'll have graduated to a size six and this problem will have solved itself.

Atticus also had two mowing jobs yesterday, and one of them was for friends who invited all the kids to come along and play in the sprinkler while Atticus mowed.  So the rest of us sat in the shade, or swam to our hearts' content, while Atticus toiled away in the heat and humidity.  This is a new stage of parenting.

So anyway.  That was a wordy rundown of our past week.  I am planning on puttering around the house today, maybe potting some plants, maybe hauling some never-ending rock.  Just call me Sisyphus.

That's a tiny toad in there, if you can't see.