what's up weekly. (what a lady, what a week.)

It has been a WEEK.

Todd has been out of state all week for work (he's back now, or I wouldn't be announcing that to the internet) so I've been parenting on my own for the first time in years.  It actually went well, all things considered - my kids are so much bigger now than they were when Todd took his last work trip, and having bigger kids on hand makes such a difference.  

The babies had quite the pit crew helping me get them ready for bed.

Knox looks unsure of his benefactors.

There were not nearly as many meltdowns or behavior problems as I assumed would arise.  Everyone was pleasant and cooperative for the most part, even when they were vocalizing that they missed him.  So all things considered, it wasn't as difficult as I dreaded it might be.

The babies turned SIX MONTHS OLD on Monday! I just can't even believe it.  Half a year already.  Time flies when you are having babies, as Todd says.  I am so in love with these little people, I can't even tell you.  They are twins!  HOW?  Amazing.

That said.  It has been a week.

Our dishwasher has started leaking, so we were shoving towels under it while we figured out what was wrong with it and then waited for the part to arrive.  While we were still in Towel Mode, the dryer went out, so I had a bunch of extra laundry but no way to dry it.  (My indoor rack broke, and I wasn't even able to use my little retractable clothesline on the deck because it was raining.)  So I had towels hung over the shower curtain rods in all the bathrooms.  The part got here Sunday night before Todd left, so it hasn't been installed yet.  By the end of the week, we were handwashing everything because the leak was too much for the towels to handle.

I was still able to manage the diapers without the dryer, since they get line dried anyway.  I am so in love with these.  They don't leak, they don't smell, they are so easy... and so incredibly adorable.

Also, we discovered a mouse living in the garage.

Also, two stray dogs got into our chicken coop and killed all nine of our chickens.

Also, I'm pretty sure Rocco has walking pneumonia.

BUT all's well that ends well.  

They look like they just heard a joke.

The replacement part for the dryer arrived on Monday, and Atticus was able to get it up and running for me.  

The mouse was caught, though it was in a live trap, and we had to put the little guy in a bag and I backed over him with the van to put him out of his misery quickly.  But I always have a tendency, during my nursing days, to anthropomorphize - roast chickens, alligators, mice apparently - everything looks like a newborn baby to me.  So I saw the little buddy wiggling around on the trap and all I could think of was how his little eyes looked like baby eyes, and how his little belly looked like a baby belly.  Normally at this point in my delusions I would just ask Todd to do the dirty work, but I didn't have that luxury.  I had to man up and kill it myself.  Not fun.

The chickens... well, no real good came of that (other than the obvious good that the dogs only attacked the chickens and not the kids).  Our chicken fencing is all torn up and I have been spending money on chicken feed for the last four months just to never even get a SINGLE EGG from this flock.  I suppose it was okay in the sense that we had five roosters that I was going to need to send home with a homesteading friend in the next week or so, so that hassle is taken care of.  But still.  The kids were pretty upset and I'm getting more and more annoyed by the number of dogs that just wander the neighborhood.

Rocco seems to be on the mend.  All the kids had The Crud - fevers, nausea, headaches, extreme fatigue, congestion - but everyone else bounced back after a while.  But Rocco's cough and fatigue were getting worse, and his color wasn't right.  He was constantly pale with these really rosy spots high up on his cheeks.  His cough kept getting phlegmier, but it wasn't productive - it was like his lungs were sticky.  We waited it out for close to two weeks, but it wasn't improving, so finally by Tuesday, we pulled out the big guns.  He's been nebulizing hydrogen peroxide solution and taking a number of supplements that I took for Covid, and finally as of yesterday he seems to be on the upswing.  More energy, better color, less coughing.

Knox took this week to figure out how to sit.

How big is Knox now? SO BIG.

In other news from the week, I took all the kids out by myself for the first time since the babies were born.  I needed to run to Price Chopper, which I normally do by myself during naptime since Todd is always at home.  But this week I couldn't even leave the big kids in charge for me because our second phone was with Todd, so they couldn't call me if they needed something.  So we all trekked out during one of the babies' wake windows, and what do you know, the kids did an amazing job.  It went much better than I anticipated.  I wore Eulalie in the Ergo, and Knox and Ophelia rode in the cart, and we still had a little room left for a couple of groceries.

Also this week, I've started working my way through preserving FIFTY POUNDS OF CARROTS.  A friend knows a guy who has a Carrot Guy.  (The way every good story starts.)  So I ordered two 15# bags.  But they were out of 15# bags so he gave me TWO FIFTY POUND BAGS INSTEAD.  My friend took one of them, thank goodness, but I still ended up with nearly twice the amount I thought I would.  So I will be canning a lot of carrots.

Luckily, my canner is out anyway this week, as I'm putting up some chicken broth in preparation of teaching a canning class this morning.  A few gals from church are coming over to learn how to pressure can.  The first time I used my pressure canner, I hid under the table the entire time in case it blew up!  Hopefully I can dispel some of that fear for someone else.

And that's our week.  Now that our dryer is fixed, I have started trading out seasonal clothing, so I need to go tackle the mountain of laundry staring me in the face.  

And then I'm going to take a long, long nap.

what's up weekly. (Did you think I died of Canning? I almost did, but I made it through.)

Time to blog! Let's kick this pig!

You know us: we've been keeping busy the last couple of weeks.

When I last left you, we'd just celebrated Halloween and Reformation Day.  The kids weren't quite ready to give up the costumes yet, so we spent a few more days dressing up.

These two girls have been thick as thieves lately.  Thieves who sometimes get along, but often spend their time screaming at each other.  The way thieves do.

We've also had little Indians in our midst.  They built a teepee in our yard and fought tribal wars in the rain.  Is this not the stuff wonderful childhoods are made of?

I had also mentioned last time that I'd been canning like a madwoman.  I finally finished up the spiced apples and now am done with canning for a bit, though there's always something I could be putting up.  (Meat and beans are next on my list, but it might be a while before I want to get my canner out again!)  I had a lot of help getting the rest of the apples done.  Another 17 quarts for the shelves!

That Monday was Rocco's ninth birthday!  

This brother is funny, and silly, and sweet, and so smart.  He adores the babies and is so good with them.  He sticks like glue to Finneas.  He's good at school, but he double-checked with me the other day that firemen don't have to do much math, because he doesn't want to spend his whole life doing math.   He plays hard and sleeps hard.  He's a keeper.

He requested going to the Mexican restaurant for his birthday dinner.  It was our first restaurant outing with the babies, and my first evening outing with them in quite a while, so I was a little apprehensive, but it ended up going so well.  (Last year, we came to the same restaurant for his birthday, but he was sick and ate like one nacho, so the fact that he got to enjoy it made it better from the get-go.)  The waiters were so kind and friendly.  They brought the babies limes and orange slices to try, and Knox went nuts.  He loved it.  

The next day was Election Day, so we took the kids to the polling place with us.  In the evening, we stayed up way too late watching election coverage.  The next day we did mapwork for school, and the big kids colored in theirs by memory, according to the electoral results that we had so far at the time.  (I would show you, but my phone is refusing to send photos right now, I'm not sure why.)

In the afternoon, we jumped into Little House in the Big Woods again.  I love reading the Laura Ingalls books in the fall and winter.

The next day I went wild and had Todd cut my hair.  It had been nearly six months since it had been cut, since before the babies were born, and my hair always grows fast, but especially this past pregnancy with all that extra twin-pregnancy estrogen pumping.  So I had nearly six extra inches that were driving me bananas.  It was so heavy it was waking me up at night.  But I still haven't found a hair gal here in Leavenworth, and even if I had, it is hard to get away from the babies for appointments.  So Todd came to the rescue and offered to cut it for me.  And do you know what?  I love it.  He did a great job and my hair looks and feels so much better.  (Though I will say that the girls are disappointed - they were loving how long it was.)

Some of those pieces look about as long as the scissors!

 I keep trying to convince the girls it's still long, but it really is much shorter than it was.  That's how much hair I was dealing with!

Last Saturday, we threw a Van Voorst Exclusive birthday party for Rocco.  He had requested a ninja party, but Walmart didn't have any ninja-themed party supplies, so we made do with a couple of simple crafts.  They turned out pretty cute, I think!  The kids all got him gifts and made him the center of attention, which he both hates and loves.

I had spent the morning cleaning and setting up for the party, so I was still in my pajamas by the time we did the cake.  I asked Todd to be the one in the photos, and we realized that this was the first time in our fifteen years of parenting many kids that he got to bring the cake over!  I love these photos!

On Sunday, we had some sick kids so I stayed home from church with them.  When Todd got home, he had a big bag of cloth diapers from a friend.  I had mentioned in the church women's chat group that Knox kept leaking out of his diapers and had asked what brands they'd had success with.  A couple gals suggested cloth, and one offered to pass her diapers along to us.  We had done cloth with the oldest two kids, but it became too much for me when Finneas was born, and I'd never revisited it.  But the ones she was sharing were all-in-ones, much simpler and nicer than the prefold/shell situation I had done before.  All-in-ones are basically just like disposable, only they're cloth.  They're all one piece, with no need for pins or snaps or separate pieces.  The whole diaper goes on, the whole diaper comes off.  Piece of cake.  I am loving them.  They don't leak, so I am washing fewer sheets and outfits, so the laundry situation really isn't much more to manage than what I was already juggling.  

This is only a very small portion of what she sent.  There are about 35 all-in-ones, and probably another 35 pocket diapers.  These are twin-and-then-some quantities of diapers.  I am so thankful for her generosity!

Plus, LOOK AT THESE BABIES IN THESE DIAPERS.  COULDN'T YOU JUST KEEL OVER DEAD FROM CUTENESS?! 

Our past week hasn't held much more of note.  We are getting so close to Thanksgiving break I can taste it.  (And no, it doesn't taste like turkey.  It tastes like the time and opportunity to Mom Purge their rooms.  Sweet, sweet Mom Purging.  It must be done.)  A couple of the kids have still been fighting off whatever we came down with over the weekend.  Luckily, the babies haven't caught it, because it's been pretty nasty for some of the bigger kids, with fevers, nausea, major congestion, and extreme fatigue.  The congestion is what worries me most around the babies - babies who can't breathe through their noses can't eat well and can't sleep well, so everyone is miserable. 

Speaking of sleeping well, the babies have regressed a bit so I am tired.  They're still waking up at 11:00 before I go to bed, but they're also waking up again in the middle of the night.  Luckily, though, they're sleeping in and I've been able to wait until 7:30 or 7:45 to start their day, so I suppose it's all a tradeoff.  We're hanging in there.  I can't believe they'll be six months old in a few days.  Half of the first year is already gone!  I tell myself on the hard days that I'm already halfway - I can do the exhaustion for another six months; six months flies by!  But golly.  The tiredness is real!  

Luckily, I get to wake up to all these people every day.

what's up MONTHLY. Yikes.

Oh wow.  My blogging record is truly abysmal this month.  It's been a full four weeks since I last checked in.  That's a really long time in the lifetime of small children.  

Look at the party vibe you've missed out on in the meantime!

Oey Mysterio

The twins are now five-and-a-half months old, if you can believe it.  Eulalie has two teeth, Knox is reaching for things and putting them in his mouth, and they both are so social.  

I have to button her onesies outside of her pants or she wiggles right out of them.

Oh, twins are so precious. They always find ways to touch each other or wiggle closer to each other.  The best word I have for the feeling I get watching them is "wonder."  Pure awe.  Amazement.  There is Eulalie, and there is Knox, and then there is this third element that is "twins," and I get a front row seat to see all three grow and develop.  I really do look at them most days and wonder how I got to be one of the lucky few who are gifted two babies at once. 

We're trying out a new nighttime routine, in which I feed them around 11:00 before I go to bed, and then they sleep until about 7:30 the next morning.  We're all getting much better sleep, but I don't seem to be making as much milk, so I might need to add another night feeding back in... but golly, I really don't want to.  Those middle-of-the-night feedings take about 45 minutes to feed them both, and it is so painful to be that tired and awake for that long in the middle of the night!  

Anyway.  You didn't come here just to hear me detail the babies' schedule.  It is very full, I'll say that.  I am finding that life with twins is very busy.  Not that that's a shocker to anyone, but the actual juggling of things has given me a run for my money.  As the babies get older, the workload is mellowing into a more predictable fullness, but it's still quite full.  It's truly wild.  Most days, there is genuinely not enough time in the day to get everything done that needs to be done, so some things are holding on by a thread, and I'm going to bed exhausted each night.

In addition to the babies, the rest of life keeps trucking along.  The older kids are getting older, life is getting busier for them, and I am along for the ride!

So let me give you a brief-ish (?) rundown of what our past month has held for us.

The Babies Moved Beds:

After I originally moved the babies into the nursery overnight, they were sharing the single crib that was set up in there already.  But as they got bigger, they got wigglier and were starting to scooch next to each other in their sleep.  Which was adorable, but not exactly safe.  So we pulled out our second crib and Todd got it all set up for them.  We did some rearranging in the nursery, and now they each have their own bed, although the cribs are touching so as they get older they can still reach other if they want to.  

Half Birthdays and Birthdays

Our April birthday girls each celebrated their half-birthdays, and Todd celebrated his 46th (full, actual) birthday.

No photos of Todd on his birthday.  Face palm.  Picture this: dark-haired man smiles through his majestic beard at his myriad progeny as they do him homage and shower him with homemade cards and Dollar Tree snacks.  Nearby sits the wooden numbers declaring he is forty-six.  Bejammied wife is nearby, smiling but unfortunately cameraless.

A thousand words are worth a picture.

Camping

We were on break from school for a week in the middle of the month, so my parents came down with their camper and stayed the week in a campground by the river.  They had the kids out for campfire cooking, crafting, and general merriment.  The last night of their stay, they set up a projector in the yard and we got to watch The Greatest Showman on the bigger screen.

Airsoft Battle

A family at church hosted an airsoft battle and the kids got all geared out to go.

If you look closely through the camouflage, you can see there is a boy in there somewhere.  A Finneas, I believe.

Juni, owning the day.

School

After our break week, the kids jumped back into their independent schoolwork with both feet.  I took a second week off from the things I help them with, since I had a number of home management projects I needed to tackle. 

Reformation Day Party and Hosting

Christ Church Leavenworth hosted its annual Reformation Day party the weekend before Reformation Day.  Penelope dressed as Perpetua, as part of a group costume of Christian women through the ages, and her group won the costume contest!

For some reason, these photos uploaded in backwards order, and I'm too lazy to redo them, so humor me and just let me tell the story in reverse.

Learning the Virginia Reel

Penelope looked so regal

Lolo went as a character from one of Penelope's original books.

Callista was Una from St. George and the Dragon.

These babies stole the show.

This was Halloween night, not the Reformation Day party, but golly, aren't they cute?

Can I just take a moment to document how stinking DIFFICULT it is to paint a baby's face??!

After the party, our friends Josiah and Meghan, and their kids, stayed the night with us.  Other than our families, it was the first time we've hosted anyone since the babies were born.  It was so wonderful to spend a little extra time with good friends.

Canning

I have jumped back on the canned-wagon.  The weather is cooler, and the potatoes and apples I bought needed to get dealt with, so I've been working hard to tackle them.  I have put up around seventy quarts of potatoes, thirty quarts of applesauce, seventeen pints of maple syrup, and fifteen quarts of spiced apples so far.  It has been a busy time.

Other Photos You Should See:

Atticus has been saving up, and finally got to pick up something he's been saving up for.

Reformation Day 

Yesterday was Reformation Day, so we celebrated with our first cheeseboard of the season!  This is the official kickoff holiday for us, and WE ARE READY for holiday season!

Okay, that's it!  A very high-altitude flyover view of the last month!