what's up weekly. ("it was my birthday.")

Hey there, party people.  I don't have to tell you twice that it is FRIDAY, and you know what that means!  That yesterday was Thursday!  (Also, it's Blog Day today.)

The biggest news of the week was that I celebrated another trip around the sun.  I am officially in the second half of my thirties.  It turns out time just keeps on trucking, just like I always suspected.

The day was wonderful - I woke up to a decorated dining room, complete with a banner that read, "Happy Birthday Mom!" (And then the "birthday" section fell down, so it just said, "Happy Mom!" which was accurate.)  My chair also had a sign on it that said, "There she is, the birthday girl!"  Todd got me flowers, which smell heavenly and have held up all week and still look wonderful today.  Penelope made me an apple crisp - my favorite to eat, but not my favorite to bake myself, so I almost never do.  Everyone got me such sweet gifts (so. many. M&M's) and were so sweet to me all day.  

It is not lost on me how well I am loved.  I don't deserve it, and I won't take it for granted. 

Penelope bought me a gift on Ophelia's behalf, so I even got to say thank you to my littlest one.

The day itself was great - Todd asked me to pick whatever I wanted for meals, so I had a steak omelet for breakfast, and we got fancy coffee on the way home from the Amish.  I had thawed a ham steak for lunch, but Ophelia conked out for a good nap, so I skipped eating lunch so I could lay down with her, and I got a fantastic nap in.  (Almost three hours!!  I've been really tired lately, so it was needed and helpful, and I still got to sleep fine at night.)  Then we got barbecue for dinner.  All in all, such a great day.

This is all I have to say about how it feels to turn another year older: every single year I look around and my blessings are more layered.  Nothing has been taken from me, only added to what I've already been blessed with, and I just honestly can't believe it sometimes.  I really never imagined life could be so wonderful, so full, so enjoyable.  I didn't know I was allowed to even hope for a life so good, much less actually get it.  We do not serve a stingy God, but a lavish one.  And that's all I have to say about that.

In less me-centric news, Ophelia got her first full bath.

Raise your hand if you are cold and unimpressed.

We have also been working a little bit on some very gentle sleep training.  We've had some wins (she is actually napping in the crib most of the time, rather than in my arms for every nap, and her bedtime has moved up) and some not-so-wins (shorter naps, earlier wake times).  It's a process.  I always feel the itch for more routine/normalcy/sleep right around the four-month mark, so this seems right on track for us, but it feels like it really marks the end of the newborn stage, which is sad.

Also, OPHELIA LAUGHED FOR THE FIRST TIME THIS WEEK!  The kids heard her quite a few times before I got to witness it, but we are all just melted into puddles.

In other kid news, we finished up a six-week stretch of school, so we are officially on break after today!  I think next week will be spent on a few house/yard projects, like painting the trim on the chicken coop, finding and killing the mangy mole in our yard, finishing up deep cleaning the boys' room and the kitchen, and hopefully finding a spring wreath for the front door. (My old one bit the dust last year, so I still have a Christmas wreath up, yikes.  Happy April.)  I think we will also be getting our baby chicks.  I do feel a bit of trepidation about it, but there's no time like the present to be brave and invest in new skills (and an alternative food source), am I right?

In addition to school this week, we squeezed in a few extras: an Azure Standard pickup, which means I have some new flour to experiment with, so I'm working on a couple of loaves of sourdough sandwich bread as we speak.  I also made some paneer with leftover milk, and sourdough crackers from discard.  Just call me Ma Ingalls.  I also picked up some beef from our beef guy, and found a killer deal on organic chickens at Natural Grocers, so our freezer is stocked up a bit.  I got my canner back in the mail (did I tell you I had to send it in for repair?), so I'm going to be making a large batch of cooked chicken to can, as well as lots and lots of chicken stock.

And that was our week!  I am looking forward to the simultaneous rest and productivity that come with break weeks, so off I go to enjoy it!

'what ups weekly. (and my unsolicited thoughts on current fashion trends.)

How is it Friday again already? I really feel like I just sat down to write last week's post just a few days ago, and yet here we are.  I would say that's a mark of a good week, though- it didn't drag, but it also wasn't overwhelmingly full and speeding past.  This week moved at a good pace.

Last weekend, we had a couple little friends come over so their parents could go out for a date night.  The girls out their very best hostess feet forward and threw a truly epic tea party.

From the way Juni is eyeballing me, I get the feeling I wasn't cordially invited.

Sunday was normal, with church in the morning.  Those of you nursing moms out there who go to more traditional churches: what do you wear?!  Dresses are basically out, unless I want to lift the whole thing up to nurse.  That doesn't seem appropriately churchy.  But skirts make me feel a little dumpy because I'm still pretty large around the middle after having Ophelia (and also after having seven kids before her; the tummy never really goes away anymore) and skirts sit right at my widest part.   Is there anything flattering and stylish and breastfeeding friendly and modest and not shaped like a potato sack and also not pants?  That seems like a simple request.

Okay, and while we're on the subject of fashion, let me just rail a little bit.  At the risk of sounding like a curmudgeon, WHAT ON EARTH IS HAPPENING RIGHT NOW, may I ask?  Why are there no flattering fashions for women out right now?  For one thing, half of the crap out there looks like it got washed in rusty water.  The color palette makes everyone look like they've spent days out in the wilderness and only recently hiked their way back into civilization, and on top of that they have the flu.  For another thing, every style seems to fall into one of three categories: Intentionally Repulsive to Anyone with Eyes, Let's Leave Nothing to the Imagination, and Ma Ingalls: Now with More Fabric.  Let's address each of these individually.

 1.  Intentionally Repulsive: It's like the nineties barfed out a hermaphrodite.  You know it looks bad, but that is weirdly the point.  Pair anything in this genre with some kind of homegrown haircut and a devil-may-care attitude toward personal hygiene and you have yourself half the population under 25.

2.  Let's Leave Nothing to the Imagination: Ladies, flesh colored bike shorts don't actually count as shorts.  How did your mom not teach you this?  It's not sexy, it's not casual, it is just bizarre.  Also, your crop top makes you look box-shaped.  You know.  Like Spongebob.  Is this what you were going for?

3.  Ma Ingalls: on the other end of the spectrum, we see a wide range of flowy skirts and prairie dresses, but everything is so humongous.  Like, all I can think of is that scene in Anne of Green Gables where she finally gets her dress with the puffed sleeves, but the sleeves could each fit about three Annes each in them and her tiny head is just kind of weirdly floating above the neckline of the dress.  The scale is just truly weird.  It's like people are going all-in on the feminine look to the point that there is question about whether there's an actual female swimming around under all that fabric.  

So, again, I ask - what should I wear to church?!  Maybe this dilemma is why church ladies of yore just eventually defaulted to denim jumpers.  

Anywho.

Let's get back to the weekly rundown.

Sunday night we watched A Knight's Tale with our popcorn party, so Todd and I have had front row seats to many a joust since then.  

The kids came down with a cold at the beginning of the week, and Ophelia eventually caught it, so we are dealing with the world's tiniest sniffles and adorable little coughs and itty bitty boogers.  The rest of the kids and I kicked it pretty easily with some higher dosing of Vitamin C.

I have been trying to work with Ophelia on some naptime training this week.  She has been only sleeping in my arms or in the bouncer, and I have been wanting to train her to sleep in a crib during the day.  So I moved Juni down to the boys' room for naptimes (which she has weirdly loved - I think it's nice and dark and quiet and cozy down there, so she has mostly slept better than normal) and I put Ophelia in Juni's room.  The problem I'm running into is that she only sleeps 30-40 minutes at a time on her own, whereas she'll easily sleep for two hours if I'm holding her.  But that means I'm holding her for two hours.  (And no, I don't use a carrier.  I really hate those and can't imagine having to wear one for hours at a time.)  So I'm in a pickle.  Since she was sick, I went back to holding her rather than putting her in her bed, but it really makes the day a little complicated.

I have started watching through the Taking Cara Babies course for some help.  I am still very much an advocate for sleep training and scheduling, but every kid is so different (and life circumstances are very different with #8 than they were when I was only juggling a couple kids) so I'm needing to add a few new tools and strategies to my belt.  Parenting is a never-ending continuing ed class.

On Wednesday night, we had friends over for dinner for the first time in months and months.  It has been a shockingly long time since we've had anyone over for dinner - maybe five or six months?  Yikes, that's awful.  I'm glad I still remember how.  But was so much fun! Even Atticus, who seems to be my only introvert, mentioned multiple times yesterday that he had so much fun having people over for dinner.

Other than that, our week has been very lowkey.  We did school and are looking forward to another break after next week.  I set a mole trap for the varmint in our front yard.  I placed an Azure order and a local beef order.  (I would love to buy as much of our food from local or Christian suppliers as possible.)  I started cleaning out the boys' room and purging junk.  (Boys are junk magnets.  The number of empty cardboard boxes and also animal bones I found in that room were truly astonishing.)  And I actually got dressed for the entire day twice.  This is real progress, you guys.

I also spent time walking down memory lane with the kids as we scrolled through old blog posts together.  Atticus was like, "Whoa, how many of these are there?" and I said I started blogging after I found out I was pregnant with him... so nearly 14 years!  Almost fourteen years of regularly documenting our days.  What a treasure!  I probably should have it all formatted and printed off into books at some point, but that sounds incredibly arduous.

And that was our week!  I'm praying for warmer days ahead so the kids can get out and get some sunshine - this has been a dreary, lethargic spring.  If this is global warming, I remain underwhelmed.

what's up weekly. (Ophelia is three months old!)

This week has been surprisingly mild, with very little news to report.  Last week's headache and fever lasted through Sunday, so that was the main news of the weekend.  Once the fever broke, the headache lingered until my chiropractor appointment on Tuesday, where I asked him to adjust my neck and, after feeling around, he asked, "How did this happen to you?!"  Apparently, I was pretty out of whack.  Once I was adjusted, the headache went away entirely, with no lingering soreness or anything.  I am so grateful for a good chiropractor.

The kids continued to battle with the fever/tummy bug until Wednesday, but we have been in the clear since then.

Other than that, the week has trucked along like normal.  We're still on schedule with our schoolwork, but I would like to get ahead so we can finish a little early.  

Drinking coffee, working on his graphic novel.

The kids spent plenty of time outside this week, since the temps were in the seventies.  I would like to get the summer clothes out, since they come in all hot and sweaty, but we're set to have at least one more dip down into the fifties in the next couple of weeks, so I'm putting it off a bit longer.  In other outside news, I discovered a mole or something has ripped our front yard to heck (yes, the front yard I have been working so hard to make nice for the last few years), so now I will have to troubleshoot that.  It's like a neverending puzzle.

For those wondering about our chicken coop and its future occupants: we will be picking out some baby chicks in a couple of weeks when we're on break.  (Break weeks always go better for us when we have plenty of out-of-the-ordinary stuff planned.)  So wish us luck - and pray for our chicks.  I have a Lenny or two in the bunch, and I fear a little for the lives of anything tiny in their hands.

And in other news, Ophelia is officially three months old!  She is the smooshiest smoosh of all the smooshes.  She is so happy and wonderful, and the kids are still so intensely in love with her - it hasn't worn off.  We are still waiting to hear her first laugh - I can't wait for the kids to witness it.  They are going to keel over from cuteness overload.

"I'm so big!"

And honestly, that was about it.  Here are a few other random highlights from the week:

Todd has been keeping our dining room table supplied with beauty.  Once one bouquet bites the dust, there is another to take its place.

I bought Operation for the kids and they love it.  And have already lost the pieces.  I am not a board game person, but the kids have loved getting a few new games lately - they get along really well as they play, and it keeps them occupied for long stretches.  So I've been keeping my eyes peeled for good, classic games they can play together.

Finneas, enjoying his legions of action figures.  Also, my couch is very, very sad.

Finneas made this for Atticus, who has it taped up by the head of his bed.  I can't tell you how lucky I am to get front row seats to my kids' relationships with one another.

And now I'm off!  I have grocery pick ups, a Fed Ex pick up scheduled to send my pressure canner in for repair, Big Kid school, and hopefully some organizing of the boys' room and the kitchen on the docket for the day.  Wish me luck!

what's up weekly. (we got a very small new house, and Finneas turned 10!)

This week was a doozy!  Lots to share.  Unfortunately, one of the news items on the docket is that we've been sick, and I currently feel that decapitating myself slowly with something blunt might be a less painful means of existence than continuing to live with this headache.  So imma do my best to keep things abbreviated, but it will be hard - there was a lot of fun stuff happening here this week! 

First and foremost, I need to acknowledge Finneas, who has survived TEN WHOLE YEARS of life on this planet, running with the throttle wide open.  I would say I'm a little surprised he hasn't gotten into truly catastrophic hijinx yet, but then again, Finneas can do whatever he puts his mind to, and this boy wants to LIVE.  He is extremely extroverted, and extremely funny, and extremely sweet.  (Are you noticing a pattern?)  He is quick-witted, tenderhearted, and eagle-eyed.  He and Rocco are thick as thieves.  He adds so much color to life, and I couldn't live without him.

Penelope made him a cake.

To celebrate his birthday, my family came down from Iowa.

My sister and brother-in-law stayed the whole weekend to build us a chicken coop!  WE ARE GETTING CHICKENS!  THIS IS NOT A DRILL!  WE ARE GETTING CHICKENS! THIS IS NOT A DRILL!  I mean, what's the big deal, I've only wanted chickens since we got married fifteen years ago.  But yeah, no big deal.

Austin had lots of eager helpers.

Look at my sister go!  Holding a toddler with one hand, rolling a paint roller with the other, being swarmed by children, and not even breaking a sweat.

Austin even picked up nails and small hammers for Finneas and Rocco at the hardware store, so all the boys were building up a storm with the scrap wood and their new tools.  HEAVEN.

Y'all, don't even @ me, okay?  I see what you're seeing.

This is Rocco's first-ever build.  His name is Bob and I'm thinking of adopting his as my ninth child.

Unfortunately, Sunday night, Juni started puking.  Then on Monday, Finneas didn't feel well.  Then on Tuesday I came down with a fever and fatigue.  And here we are: Friday, and most of us still have "on-again, off-again" symptoms.  (Or, as in my case, "on-again, on-still, on and on until I want to meet death" symptoms.)  That has kind of put a damper on our week.  

We took Monday off of school to rest, then did school on Tuesday; then we took our regular Wednesday off and did school yesterday; and today is a half-day.  Really rigorous stuff happening around here.  But I do have one little student who's serious about her responsibilities: everyone, meet Ophelia, the magical rolling baby.

She was on the couch on her back, and she kept rolling herself to her side, so we kept flipping her back over.  Just to see what she would do, we finally left her to her own devices, and she shortly rolled all the way onto her tummy.  (Her arm was still trapped under her, but still.)  Then, after she got tired of tummy time, she promptly tucked and rolled and gently landed back on her back.  I wouldn't have believed it if I didn't see it with my own two human eyeballs.  Like I said, she's magical. 

Also, I would like to take the time here to assert that she also said "Hi" to me.  I gestated a genius.  Must be all those steroids I was on during my bout with Covid.

In other miscellaneous news, Rocco and Atticus were wrestling.  The result is that Rocco weighs very slightly less, and he has an honest-to-goodness lisp.  He named the missing tooth Mr. Funny.

These two cutie patooties tied for gold in Olympic Cuteness.  Truly, they're masters at their craft.

Rocco held his own in the perpetual Battle of the Boys.  I think we currently own about thirty-eight makeshift rifles.

And for one last look at our newest addition, here is one more shot of the coop!  I'm going to get some white paint for the trim soon.  Also, that little fella under there is pretty cute.

And now I'm off.  Not to drink absinthe, if that's what you were thinking.  I mean, now would be the perfect time for me to try it since it literally couldn't make my headache any worse, and it might allow me to at least hallucinate that it's better, and if all else fails, it could kill me and put an end to my misery.  But no.  I'm off to drink some water.

what's up weekly. (everyone is in new glasses - even Lolo!)

Oy vey.  I have two weeks of news to share, and limited time in which to do it.  Luckily, it has been kind of an uneventful stretch, so I can hopefully share it quickly before Ophelia will want to eat again.

Most of our activity over the last two weeks has been of the 'masterly inactivity' persuasion.

Juni has been really into throwing parties lately.

Is this not just the coziest thing you've ever seen, and such a perfect way to spend the tween years?

The boys continue on in their quest to become the world's best stop-motion filmmakers.

Finneas aged a little and is now in his mid-twenties.

We spent a lot of time outside this week, including picnics and loooots of raking.

In postpartum news, I am hitting that really bad 'brain fog' stage where it feels like my brain is a big bowl of mashed potatoes and every word I want to say is hidden somewhere in the potatoes but I have to scuba dive for each one.  (Remember when I was postpartum with Penelope and I couldn't remember my last name when I was called for jury duty?  I thought it was Page.  I thought my own actual Christian name was Paige Page.  True story.)  Also, my hair is starting to fall out so I'm having to part it on the other side to more effectively hide my bald patch.  It's such a magical time.  Tomorrow will be the official 80-day mark of the end of postpartum season.  It's funny - it really has taken this long to feel like I can be back up and running at normal capacity.  It has been the perfect amount of time.  Maybe now I should finally start doing the laundry myself again.

In Ophelia news, we took her on her first long-ish car trip and she was a complete champ.  She seems to love the car, and she was conked out for most of the 2.5-hour drive - other than a quick stop to feed her - both ways!  (We went to Leavenworth this weekend to attend the baptism of a friend's baby.  It was precious.)

Headed into church.

The kids' glasses came in, and they are all rocking them.  Lolo even got glasses this time!  She is, apparently, nearly blind in one eye.  Who knew?  We're going to have to do some patching to hopefully strengthen that eye.

I reported last month that Lolo had turned eight and a half.  She, in fact, did not.  She has now.

This week we have not only gotten fully caught up from the weeks of lax schooling due to Covid and postpartum, but we have actually gotten a little ahead!  This is the time of year when I start to really book it to the finish line.  We're scheduled through the second week of May, but wouldn't it be great if we could be done sooner than that??!  Like... by the end of April?!  I doubt we'll get that far ahead, but it's worth a shot.

Today, I have a few things on the agenda.  I have been on a cleaning kick lately, trying to rid the house of extra crap that is lurking around.  I've had some items I've wanted to take to Goodwill for a while, but the weather seems to always be bad on the days I am planning to go.  BUT TODAY IS THE DAY, FRIENDS.  And, conveniently, Goodwill is by the yard waste site, so I'll take some leaves that we bagged up this week (SO. MANY. LEAVES.)... although, the Goodwill stuff and the leaves are all bagged in the same kind of black plastic bags, so maybe I'll have to make two separate trips just so I don't get confused and accidentally give the Goodwill guy sacks of wet yard trash.

I'm also going to pick up some groceries, and hopefully clean the ceiling in the girls' room.  Glam!  Then we'll finish up our school reading for the week.  

And last but not least, here are a couple photos that I would like to submit for the archives:

Penelope is Relentlessly Penelope.

Rocco got to go pick up the pizza with Todd this week, and he asked to listen to his favorite band on the drive.  Coal Chamber.  Coal Chamber is his favorite band.

AND THAT IS THAT!  Now I'm off to feed my sweet girl.  Have a fantastic weekend!