what's up not-exactly-weekly.

Hi there folks!  Sorry to have missed you last week - we were in South Dakota visiting Todd's parents, so we had other things going on.  It was so wonderful, and we all had such a great time.  But let me back up and fill you in on what I haven't covered yet.

So - two weeks back.  I spent the week before our trip trying to get organized - packing, making lists, cleaning, doing laundry, picking up groceries, picking up books from the library and making runs to the Dollar Tree.  Oh, yeah, and trying to get school done and taking Atticus to his mowing jobs.  It was wild, and exhausting, and it made leaving on a long road trip with ten kids feel downright relaxing after all of that.  I would say I had been running around like a chicken with my head cut off, but to cook up a more relevant mental image, I'll tell you I was stumbling through life like a toddler learning to walk.

Knoxy Boy takes a few steps at a time, and Eulalie loves being in the center of the mix.

Eulalie is basically a pro at this point.  Look at that swagger.

On Sunday, Todd drove me and the babies home after church so they could spend naptime at home.  When he tried to start the van to head back over there himself, it was completely dead.  It was so strange, and kind of stressful because we were leaving the next day.  Luckily, some church friends were able to come over and help us troubleshoot, and then help us replace the starter.  (And by "us," I definitely don't mean to imply that I was personally involved in any step of the process.)

The nice thing about driving old vehicles is that a) they occasionally break down and b) there's a chance that they can be fixed at home.  Atticus now knows how to change a starter.

We left the following morning at 6:00 and settled in for a fun day on the road.  We actually look forward to our road days.  We pack the kids' backpacks with surprises - snacks, water bottles, library books, and small activities and toys from the dollar store.  We pack fun music and plan fun stops.  On the way there, we stopped at our favorite park in Sioux City, and then at Pizza Ranch for lunch.  We ate dinner in the Badlands and then drove through the rest of the Badlands loop at sunset.  The babies didn't sleep much, but they also didn't spend the entire time crying either, so I think they did really well.  We arrived at my in-laws' around 9:00 that night, gave the babies baths (because Knox had a diaper blow out right at the end), and then put everyone in bed.

They napped for a little bit once I came back and sat by them.

On Tuesday, the kids headed right outside to play.  They love being up there.  It's beautiful and there's so much to do outside.  We didn't plan any activities away from the house the entire trip; they just played the whole time (and spent some time watching "channel TV," with regular TV commercials and all!  So much better than streaming!  And the generations have come full circle).

I got some quality time with Todd's parents, which is always so nice, and a chance to actually make some headway in a couple books I'm reading, which I was grateful for.  I'd say it was really relaxing for everyone, but I am not sure I can say with confidence that my in-laws would call it relaxing to be overrun with twelve extra people for a week!  But I can say with confidence that we all had a fun time together.

Atticus lent Jacqi his cigar for this killer photo op.  That, friends, is the OG.

We headed home on Saturday, stopping first at the Lewis and Clark museum/Sacagawea statue, then on to Falls Park for lunch, then to eat dinner at the playground rest stop that's only a little way from home (where Eulalie took her turn having a diaper blow out).  We got home about 10:00 that night and got the kids all squared away in bed quickly.  Todd had asked our friend Candace, who is a professional cleaner, to come clean for me while we were gone so I could come home to a clean house and it was wonderful.   I just sat up admiring the clean house for a while.  (After, of course, getting the first of about one thousand loads of laundry started.)

We all made it to church on Sunday, and Todd preached from James.  On Monday, we jumped back into school and tried to get settled back into our routine as best we could, which was kind of a hurdle since Todd left in the morning for a two-day trip to Wichita for the twice-a-year meeting of the elders in our presbytery.  He was gone until Tuesday evening.  It felt long.

In the afternoon on Tuesday, my mom and stepdad came for a short visit to drop off a dining room table that my grandma is handing down to me.  It is gorgeous.  (I haven't had time to swap it out with the old one yet, or I'd share photos.)  It's Amish-made, walnut-stained oak, and it's extendable.  It's so perfect.  Our current table was a gift from my sister and brother-in-law and has held its own for the last ten years, but it doesn't extend and is starting to wear out.  I had been praying the Lord would provide something that would meet our current needs a little better, and the next day my grandma called and asked me if I was ready to take this one because she was ready to pass it along.  She even wrote a little note to me on the underside.  I'm so excited to bring it in and get it settled, but I think I'm stalling because I just want it to stay pristine for a little longer.

Wednesday was the first day since before leaving on our trip that a full day of "normal" life and rhythm was able to take place, and I was so ready for it.  I'm so tired after a long stretch of "abnormal"!  But today we will be doing as much school as we can in between taking Atticus to mowing jobs and getting ready for a bake sale tomorrow morning.  And then maybe, just maybe, next week can run start-to-finish without a hiccup.  (No! I take it back! I don't want to say it out loud and risk jinxing it!)  Please, Lord.  Let there be no hiccups.

what's up weekly. (back to school, back to school, to prove to dad that i'm not a fool.)

Well.

This week has been a doozy.  It has seriously been so wild.

I'm just going to insert some random photos through this post to give you a feel for how school is going.  Here you can see the babies during school time.  I have long felt that the most challenging part of homeschooling is not actually schooling, it's figuring out what to do with the pre-school set.  So far what has been working with the babies is a combination of distracting them with food, letting them tootle around when they're in a nonviolent mood, and incarcerating them in the exersaucers when they're being a menace to civil society (read: as naptime approaches).  Don't worry, they're given Cheerios and milk while they're in the clink, which they mostly just throw everywhere.  It's like the Martha Stewart prison experience for babies.

On Monday, we tried to start off on the right foot and get into our school rhythm, but Penelope had another CLEP test that afternoon.  This time, I took some of the kids with me so we could get some of our read alouds done in the lobby while we waited, which kind of worked except for the fact that the kids were wildly distractible the entire time, and also it felt weird to be reading an Austrian School economics book out loud directly across from the open door of the college recruiting office on the Army base.  It was weirdly subversive without being remotely stealthy.  Like, maybe these young guys in fatigues wanted to hear more about the Federal Reserve and fiat currency? No?

Anyway, all's well that ends well.  We were probably already on some kind of watchlist before this anyway, and also Penelope scored a 90% on her test (College Algebra!) so we went to Culver's for cheese curds.  It turned out to be a pretty good afternoon after all.

Tuesday was nice because I was actually home most of the day to get school done, although I did go to the library over lunch to print some things off and pick out some books for the kids for an upcoming activity, and it took forever and set our afternoon back a bit.  

Oey has a new true love: the wooden train set.  She literally will spend hours sitting by herself, playing trains.  She really grew up a lot just over the summer months.  She is a very different kid now than she was just at the end of last school year.  Such a big little thing.

In the evening on Tuesdsay, Todd and I took the babies to do the milk run and left Atticus in charge of making dinner.  He has done that for us the last two weeks, and has done a really great job and enjoys it, so this may be something we do more often.  It was fun getting to go run an errand with "just" Todd (only having two kids in tow basically feels like having zero kids in tow, comparatively).  After dinner, Todd had an elder session meeting, so the kids and I hung out and I got everyone in bed, and then I watched Gilmore Girls, because it is getting close to Fall, and that is what you do in the fall.

You wouldn't know it from the expression on her face in the above photo, but Juni has been LOVING school.  ADORING school.  BEGGING for more school.  And she's doing so well.  She's catching on to phonics very quickly, and has literally completed six weeks' worth of math worksheets just since we started last week.  This girl is going places.

Wednesday was another weird day.  I woke up with blisters all down my throat and along the side of my tongue, and with a hormone headache.  Penelope had a surprise babysitting job come up, so I dropped her off there in the morning, and came home to find Finneas sprawled on the couch with a fever.  On Wednesdays, our school work is a lot of "together" work at the table (map drills, math drills, memory work, grammar, dictation) or on the couch (geography, Shakespeare, poetry, and family read aloud).  Since we were missing a couple of the kids, and since it hurt to talk or read out loud, we just laid low.  The healthy and at-home kids worked on some independent schoolwork but there was nothing structured about the day.  In the afternoon, after I picked up Penelope, I ran a couple of quick errands.  By bedtime, Finneas was back to himself, so it seemed to be just a quick down-and-up thing.

He's thirteen-and-a-half. SOMEONE TELL ME HOW THIS KEEPS HAPPENING.

Yesterday, we mercifully got through all of the school day without a single errand, a single interruption, a single issue.  Everyone got through their work, I got all my individual time with the kids and we're going into Friday strong.  (Fridays are like Wednesdays - the schedule is quite different from M, T, Th, and it feels like reinventing the wheel each time.  I am not yet in a rhythm for Fridays - we do lots of read alouds, but also two grades worth of lab science, and some Fridays we do Fine Arts, and some Fridays I go grocery shopping... so it's kind of a wild card of a day.)  

Today is an "extra lab science" kind of Friday, so I need to go look over my lab plans to make sure I have everything I need on hand before we get started.  Also... I just now remembered I still need to have the kids take their "first day of school" photos.  Um, oops.  There's always something I'm forgetting!

what's up weekly. (lolo is twelve!)

Hello and happy Friday, y'all!  Last week I was muttering veiled complaints about how it was a boring week to write about because there wasn't any news and I couldn't even remember what all we did that week. 

This week was crammajammed with news.  Funny how that works.

Last Friday was Lolo's birthday.

She had the best day.  She picked cereal for breakfast, grilled cheese and spaghettio's for lunch, and fried chicken for dinner with root beer floats for dessert.  It was the last weekday of summer break, so the kids spent the day playing.  In the evening, all the siblings gave her gifts that she adored.  It was such a fun day, watching her have a fun day.

Finneas got her a large stuffed cheeseburger.  Which makes complete sense, knowing both Finneas and Laurelai.

She is so servant hearted and always quick to help.  She has a funny, silly sense of humor.  She is extremely creative and is always thinking of new things to make, or ways to elevate meals, days or situations to make them more special.  She is best friends with Penelope.  She is beautiful and soft-hearted and we are so glad she's ours.

The day after her birthday, family came down to party with us.

This photo is so cute.  Atticus surprised Lolo by taking the day of her party off of work so he could celebrate with us all.  Flipping through photos, I discovered he was taking his own photos and video of the day.  So sweet.

Monday was Labor Day, but instead of taking a break like normal people do, we jumped into our first full day of school with all the kids.  It was nice that Todd was off work, since it was kind of an all-hands-on-deck day as we tried to get into the new rhythm.  He did spelling placement tests with all the kids for me, which helped out a ton and freed me up to do other things on the list.  I have to say, everything is tightly packed into our days with very little margin, but so far it is going surprisingly smoothly.  Or, at least, not unsmoothly.

Lolo's little reading nook is getting a workout these days.

The hardest part of homeschooling is often figuring out how to entertain the littler ones.  I've been impressed by Oey so far this week - she has matured so much just since the end of last school year.  She has enjoyed joining us sometimes throughout the day.  (Though, I have to admit, she has had her share of forced participation as well so I can keep an eye on her.)

Penelope has been loving the cooler weather and has chosen to do much of her schoolwork out on the deck.

Multitasking: making lunch and reading.

Tuesday should have been another normal school day, but Penelope babysat in the morning, and I had to go back over to the Fort to get my background check done so we could get onto the Army base for Penelope to take her next CLEP test in the afternoon, so I spent my day running around like a maniac and grumbling about it in my head.  Luckily, the test went more smoothly this week than last, but since it was a Composition test and she had to submit a couple of essays, we're not sure yet if she passed it or not.

Wednesday night we were invited to dinner at a friend's house.  They have five kids, so between our two families there were 19 people!  We all had so much fun - Finneas and I were trying to remember if we've done dinner with friends since the babies have been born.  I think we've had people over to our house a few times, but I think this may have been our first time being hosted just for a couple hours in the evening at someone else's house.  It's funny how gradually twin life gets easier, but when I stop to think back over the last year (or two, really, since the pregnancy was so hard, too), it hits me fresh just how wild it has been.  We are gradually making our way out of the fog.

Yesterday was a mercifully normal school day.  I had had to leave the house on Wednesday to run to the grocery store for a few last minute items to bring to dinner, so it has just seemed like this week has not been allowed to settle into a rhythm.  I'm not home much for homeschooling.  Which I hate.  I love my home routine, I love being here and never leaving.  I love days that go from beginning to end at home and on track.  So yesterday was a gift.

Today is scheduled to be another out-and-about day.  Atticus has two mowing jobs, and then his DRIVER'S LICENSE TEST!  Please, Lord.  Please, Lord.  Let him pass.  Then a lot of this running around won't require my presence!  I'm actually pretty confident he will pass - he doesn't have to take the written test since he's taken and passed it within the last year to renew his permit, and the deeply menopausal woman who works at the DMV was apparently in a giving mood the last time we were in there, and she gave Atticus some pointers on what mistakes most people make on the driving portion so he can pay careful attention to those.  

And that brings us up to date!  And just to end on a photojournalistic note, take a gander at our local fauna.

I recently put out a hummingbird feeder and it has been so fun to watch our new little friends through the window!

Here you will see not one but FOUR vultures chilling at the back of the field.  There is likely a hawk skulking around, too.  They spent no less than three full days working on a dead baby racoon.  I should probably take that as some sort of lesson in commitment and work ethic, even when the job at hand is less than a thrill ride.  But really, I'm just glad they're finally gone.  It was kind of a bummer to watch them at it while we were trying to eat dinner.

And on that cheerful note, enjoy your weekend!