2017 reading log (and book recommendations!)

You guys.  I am so proud of this year's reading list.  I not only crushed last year's accomplishments (eight measly books last year! EIGHT.), but I broke my own personal record.  In my thirty-one years of life, I have never before read this many books in a single year.  I feel victorious.  And, on top of just looking at numbers, I read some really good books.

I have highlighted ones that really jumped out at me, not necessarily because they're the only good books on the list.  (I didn't highlight any re-reads; only first-time reads are in bold.)

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis (1/5)

Prince Caspian by C.S. Lewis (1/6)

The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper (1/11)

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls (1/12)

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead (1/13)

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis (2/2)

Teaching from Rest by Sarah McKenzie

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling (3/08)*

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling (3/27)*

A Long Way Home by Saroo Brierley (4/1)

A Chicken in Every Yard by Robert and Hannah Litt (4/10)

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver (4/21)*

The Queen of Katwe by Tim Crothers (4/26)

On Becoming Babywise by Gary Ezzo and Robert Bucknam (5/1)*

An Amish Garden: A Year in the Life of an Amish Garden by Laura Anne Lapp

Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells(6/17)*

Let Me Be a Woman by Elisabeth Elliot (6/20)

Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer (7/1)

A Woman After God’s Own Heart by Elizabeth George (7/2)*

Boundaries by Henry Cloud and John Townsend (7/7)

The Heart of a Woman Who Prays by Elizabeth George (7/15)

Seven Women and the Secret of their Greatness by Eric Metaxas (7/16)

A Natural Sense of Wonder by Rick Van Noy (7/18)

Disciplines of the Home by Anne Ortlund (7/21)*

Just Do Something by Kevin DeYoung (7/22)*

All the Pretty Things by Edie Wadsworth (7/23)

When You Rise Up: A Covenantal Approach to Homeschooling by R.C. Sproul, Jr. (7/25)*

Hannah Coulter by Wendell Berry (7/29)

Crazy Busy by Kevin DeYoung (8/4)

Grit by Angela Duckworth (8/8)

The Silver Chair by C. S. Lewis (8/11)

O Pioneers! by Willa Cather (8/13)

50 Women Every Christian Should Know by Michelle DeRusha (8/26)

Listen! The Art of Effective Communication by Dale Carnegie and Associates (Audio)

Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life by C. S. Lewis (8/31)*

Diastasis Recti by Katy Bowman (8/31)

In My Father’s House by Corrie ten Boom (9/7)

The Middle Place by Kelly Corrigan (9/9)

Home Grown by Ben Hewitt (9/21)

A Handbook to Morning Time by Cindy Rollins (9/23)

Women of the Word by Jen Wilkin (9/29)

The Road to Little Dribbling by Bill Bryson (10/8)

A Simple Way to Pray by Martin Luther (10/12)

Trim Healthy Mama Plan by Serene Allison and Pearl Barrett (10/17)*

Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey (10/20)*

Ragweed by Avi (10/25)

A Love That Multiplies by Michelle and Jim Bob Duggar (10/31)

Ten P’s in a Pod by Arnold Pent III (11/6)

Cheaper by the Dozen by Frank B. Gilbreth, Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey (11/18)

Practical Theology for Women by Wendy Horger Alsup*

The Shaping of a Christian Family by Elisabeth Elliott (12/2)

Growing up Duggar by Jana Duggar, et al. (12/15)

The Story of My Life by Helen Keller (12/29)

The Vanishing American Adult by Ben Sasse (12/30)


*Subsequent read-throughs of books I've read before.

There you have it. Fifty-four books! I read seventeen in the first half of the year, and thirty-seven in the second half, after deciding to set some ambitious reading goals. I'm a converted believer: setting goals really does help me accomplish more!

Now, for my absolute favorite "Books of the Year," by category:

On Homeschooling:

Teaching from Rest by Sarah Mackenzie.  This one absolutely has the potential to be a perennial re-read.  Biblical, practical and refreshing.  I'd absolutely recommend it to anyone who homeschools, or is considering homeschooling, regardless of method.

On Parenting:

The Vanishing American by Ben Sasse.  I've sung the praises of this book before, but I can't recommend it more highly.  With the scope of an historian, the passion of a senator, and the vested interest of a parent, Ben Sasse covers the history and trajectory of adolescence and adulthood in America (including the role of public schools), and offers tons of practical help in catching a vision for our kids as they grow to adulthood.  I am so excited to read this again soon.

The Shaping of a Christian Family by Elisabeth Elliot.  While this isn't a how-to parenting book, it's a really beautiful look into Elisabeth Elliot's childhood, her parents' marriage, and how they raised their six kids.  I just love the close-up look at a couple worth emulating, who loved God and each other, and whose children all grew up to dedicate their lives to sacrificial service.

Random excellent writing:

The Road to Little Dribbling by Bill Bryson.  I know I am getting annoying with how much I rave about this book, but I just love his writing.  He's definitely not a Christian, and he uses profanity, so there's that heads up (or incentive?) if you need it.  But the storytelling and humor are excellent.  I'm looking forward to reading more by him in the upcoming year!  I've already checked out every single book of his my library has...

Fiction:

O Pioneers! by Willa Cather.  I don't even know how to describe this.  I don't even know how to summarize the plot without giving anything away.  So all I'll say is this: it was really moving, and I just loved it.



Go read one of these awesome books, and then come back and tell me what you thought!  And, if you've already read some of these, how would you review them?

what's up weeeeeeeeeeeeekly. (woohoo, it's friday, y'all!)

*Prepare yourselves for only-slightly-related photos.  Oh well.*

This week has been glorious, if only because we are finally sleeping around here!  I moved Callista into her own room last week, and less than ten days later, we seem to be completely cured of the issue of the elevensies....and then the twelvesies, and the twosies, and the three-thirtysies, etc. etc.  It took two nights of training, and she's now sleeping beautifully.  While she will often cluster feed between 7:00 p.m. and 12:00 a.m., which is fine with me since I'm up until around midnight anyway most nights.  Then she conks out until 8:30 or 9:00 the next morning, only waking once to eat, if at all. 

This is huge, you guys!  Two nights ago, I got eight straight hours of sleep, and she never even cluster-fed: she slept from 9:00 p.m. until 9:00 a.m.  The flowers are blooming, the birds are singing, and I am making up the deficit in the sleep books.

I mean, I COULD remove her hat while we sit in the waiting room... or I could leave it on because she looks SO CUTE I COULD DIIIIIIIE.

A post shared by Paige Van Voorst (@theminivanvoorsts) on Jan 4, 2018 at 8:15am PST

What else was going on this week?  Nothing quite as wonderful by comparison, but some great things nonetheless.  Todd taught at church on Sunday, which I always just love.  I could listen to him every week and still never get tired of it.

Sunday night, we had some friends stay the night.  We know them from all the way back in Ames, but they currently live in North Carolina and were on their way back home from visiting the Midwest over the holidays.  It had been years since we'd seen them - they had never met Rocco or Callista, and they have a son we hadn't met yet.  So it was so great getting to catch up!

On Monday night, we had some friends over for dinner.  We know them from Cedar Falls, and they recently moved down to help with this church plant.  This nomadic ministry life can be really rough sometimes, and it's so good to be in a community where people just understand the hardships.  I'm really grateful for friendships like these.

On Tuesday, a friend watched the kids so we could go on a date.  Since I'm doing Whole30 (well... I'm kind of doing Whole30.  I'm on Day 5, and I may or may not have had brownies two of those days.  So I'm basically doing Half30)... anyway, since I'm nominally doing Whole30, we went to Hu Hot so I could load up on the veggies and meat.  I abstained from the sauces, and it still ended up being really good!  If you somehow have insider information on how I technically could not have eaten a sanctioned meal there, please don't tell me about it.  Let me live in blissful ignorance.  Plus, it wouldn't matter anyway, since I came home and indulged in aforementioned brownies.

On Wednesday, I got to chat books for an hour with an old friend, which is the best kind of phone call.

The rest of the week was pretty normal.  Amish.  Speech Therapy.  Also, I cleaned out the linen closet and hung a bookshelf in Penelope's room.  I swear, decorating always becomes a "If You Give A Mouse A Cookie" situation around here.  Now I want to hang the pod swing in there, but if I hang the pod swing, I'll have to paint the ceiling.  And once the ceiling is painted, the trim will probably need a fresh coat.  And if I'm painting the trim, I might as well just do the whole thing.  And once the walls are painted, I'll need to hang some art and curtains... you see how this works.

Anyway.  Love to you all: I'm outtie to go dig out the curtains I have in storage.

our mornings up at the Amish.

Every Wednesday morning, we drive up to the Amish to pick up many of our weekly staples.  (If you saw yesterday's Facebook video covering our Amish haul, you saw we get a lot of milk each week, as well as cream, butter, bread and eggs.)  It's about a forty minute drive from our house, and I like to get up there no later than about 9:30, so we shoot to leave the house around 8:30, so I can stop for gas and/or cash if need be.  (Obviously, they don't accept debit cards, so I have to make sure I have enough cash on hand.)

We're comparatively late risers in this house, and on normal days I don't even start the day with the kids until about 9:00, so it's a bit of a scramble to get out the door this early.  We do breakfast in the van to save time, so I usually pack things like applesauce pouches, nuts, string cheese, and raisins for the kids to munch on.  I'm currently doing a round of Whole30, so this is what I grabbed for myself yesterday:

In addition to packing breakfast, I also need to make sure to pack all my containers to bring things home in.  I bring fourteen glass half-gallon milk bottles, two glass pint jars (with lids) for cream, and empty egg cartons to return, along with any plastic containers I'd received butter in previously.

I also pack lids for the milk bottles.  Always pack lids for the milk bottles!

I've forgotten lids a few times in the past, and have had to borrow massive buckets to haul all the milk home in.  Like I said, always pack lids for the milk bottles.  It was kind of a nightmare trying to figure out how to get these into the fridge.

I remembered to bring all my milk bottles to fill at the Amish today, but forgot to bring lids for them! So I borrowed some buckets from Marie and dang, it's sobering to see how much milk the kids drink each week when it's measured by the bucketful. This is what seven gallons of raw milk looks like. I think we need our own cow.

A post shared by Paige Van Voorst (@theminivanvoorsts) on Nov 8, 2017 at 9:11am PST

Anyway.  Once breakfast is packed and containers are rounded up and loaded, I get the kids wrestled into the van.  We have a serious clown car situation going on.

Yesterday morning it was cold, but not as chilly as it was the week before, which was nice for two reasons: 1) because you do a lot of standing around outside and/or in woodstove-heated buildings once you get up there, so it makes for a cold morning, and 2) the front blower and defrost vent in our van isn't working right now.  The kids stay warm in the back, but the front can get cold.

In order to use some of our drive to get something done for school, we listen to audiobooks on the way up.   We've listened to Mary Poppins, Peter Pan, Mr. Popper's Penguins, and many of the Little House books during this time.  Yesterday, we wrapped up On the Shores of Silver Lake.

I love the drive once we start entering Amish territory.  It's peaceful, with open fields and pretty houses scattered around.  All the houses and stores are white, and the barns and outbuildings are all red. 

There's always something going on - many days there will be families hanging laundry or mending fence.  We've gotten to watch construction happening on a barn, and have found ourselves in the middle of a community fish fry.  Yesterday, many of the men were out cutting ice from the ponds into blocks, to keep in their insulated ice houses, which are essentially refrigerated outbuildings behind most houses.  The ice blocks keep the ice houses cold all year, until the ice is replenished the following winter.

Our first stop is Irene's house. 

It's been fun getting to know her.  She's my age, with five kids right around the same age as mine.  We get butter, cream and eggs from her, and frequently bring her things from town - most often it's white sugar, but I've also found myself trucking bananas, cottage cheese, pipe cleaners, and barbecue potato chips.  I've gotten to see how she does laundry: with an old-fashioned, generator-run Maytag, which she fills with water heated in a huge tank over a wood fire.  She then wrings it all out and hangs it on a line, even in zero-degree weather.


Our next stop is up the road a little way at a bakery run by The Maries. 

Little Marie got married this fall, so we haven't seen much of her in the last few months, and most of our recent business has been handled by Big Marie.  We bring our empty bottles (with lids! always with lids!) in a folding wagon I keep in the van for this very purpose.  The empty bottles aren't all that heavy, but once they're full, they weigh about one hundred pounds in total.  Hence the wagon.

Grocery shopping with some of my very best buds. #latergram

A post shared by Paige Van Voorst (@theminivanvoorsts) on Dec 3, 2017 at 5:07pm PST

In the summer, we unload the bottles on the ground outside the ice house and fill them there.  In the winter, when they don't need to keep the milk in the ice house and when it's too cold to stand outside in the wind to pour it, we go inside the kitchen of the bakery.  I hold the funnel while Big Marie (who is actually quite wiry and small) pours it from huge buckets.  Finneas caps the bottles, and Atticus loads them back into the crates in the wagon.

In addition to the milk each week, we also get eggs and cream from her, depending on what she has and what we were already able to pick up at Irene's, and the girls get to go inside to pick out cookies for the car ride home.  Then we load up and head out.

In all, we're usually only up there for about forty-five minutes other than driving time, unless I want to run into one of the bulk stores to pick up salt, or drive around in search of houses offering produce.  Once we get home, I'm totally tuckered out, but I still have to haul all the milk into the house and get it put away. 

While I'm doing that, Penelope makes tuna salad for lunch, and once all the kids have eaten and the little ones are down for nap, I basically lapse into a two-hour-long coma before one of my college gals comes over in the afternoon.

And that's how we end our typical-yet-unusual Wednesdays.  If you're ever in the neighborhood on a Wednesday, you should join us!

my january reading goals.

This month's book list has me really excited, but I guess that's true most months.  Either way, it's a good-lookin' stack staring at me from the corner of the console table.

1.  The Holiness of God by RC Sproul.  This book has been staring me down for months.  (In fact, in reading through old reading lists from previous years, I discovered that I had it on my To Read list for 2012, after not having gotten to it in 2011.  It's been a long time coming.)  I'm about halfway through it, and loving it, so I'm determined to finally finish it this month!

2.  The Abolition of Man by C. S. Lewis.  This one has been eyeballing me for a while as well.  I've really enjoyed what I've read of it so far, but as this has been my 'purse book', the one I bring with me to Atticus' speech appointments and whatnot.  But I'm finding I should just start over with it at home, since I think I'll retain more of it if I'm able to read it in longer, less-frequently-interrupted stretches.

3.  A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson.  I am so stinking excited to read this.  I read Bill Bryson's, "The Road to Little Dribbling," and just adored it.  His travel narrative, his insight, his humor.  Just excellent.  This one is in a similar vein, but instead of documenting a course through Britain, he writes about his travels along the Appalachian Trail.  And y'all know how I love a book with a sense of place, and how I especially love it when that place is somewhere in the South.  This is going to be so good.

4.  Travels with Charley in Search of America by John Steinbeck.  I love love love Steinbeck.  And it's another colorful travel narrative.  Count me in.

5.  The Life of Prayer by Edith Schaeffer.  I swear I've been slowly working my way through this since like August or something.  It's excellent stuff, and I have a girl crush on Edith Schaeffer, but if there's one present difficulty in reading her work, it's that she's not terribly succinct.  It takes me a while to wade through all the words, so I need frequent rest stops.  But this is the month I finish, friends.  This is the month I finish.  Lord willing.

6.  The Sonnets of William Shakespeare.  I just started these the other day, and I have been surprised by how much I have loved them.  Like, all-in adoration.  I find myself thinking about them when I'm doing the dishes, and going to back to re-read them in order to find some especially satisfying line or thought.  Who'd have thought Shakespeare would prove to be good and interesting?  Not me, but that's because I'm a Cretan at heart.  But here I am, finding my Cretan heart being melted and civilized and won over.  I'm about to become one of those priggish farts that calls him the Bard and refers to him like we're best friends.  "Well, just this morning, the Bard mentioned blahblahblah."

7.  The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday.  This is a year-long collection of readings from ancient stoics, so obviously I won't be finishing it this month.  I'm enjoying it so far.

8.  The Town that Food Saved by Ben Hewitt.  Ben Hewitt's book, "Homegrown" was a favorite among last year's books, and this one seems to be kind of in the same vein as one of my perennial favorites, "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle," by Barbara Kingsolver.  I'm a sucker for agriculture/food systems journalism, and this falls right in there, but I'm about fifty pages in and I'm still waiting to get really engrossed.  So we'll see.

9.  Mother and Son: The Respect Effect by Emerson Eggerichs.  This is by the same author that wrote Love and Respect, if you've read that.  I'm really excited to dig into some of the ways the principle of respect should affect how I'm parenting my boys, especially as they get older.  Should be good.

10.  (Not Pictured) The Call of the Wild by Jack London.  I'm listening to this on audiobook when I walk on the treadmill.  I'm enjoying it so far!


And in case you'd like to read any of them along with me, I figured out how to make this fancypants thingy.


On to conquer January's books! What are you reading this month?

the best monday of all the mondays.

It is no secret at this point that Monday is my favorite day of the week, since I kind of can't shut up about it.  Mondays offer a fresh start, a 'back-to-reality' return to the relative calm and stability that 'normal' offers.  I am never better rested and more ready to get to the task of real life than I am on Monday mornings.  And yesterday was not only a Monday, it was also January 1.  Talk about a great Monday. 

While I've always liked the fresh start of a brand new year, and have been what could be called a Realistic Linearist, with a clear understanding that the choices I'm currently making will inevitably lead me somewhere, I've never been an Optimistic Striver Toward Things, which meant that some of the gleam of the new year was frequently lost on me.  But last year I allowed hope to spring eternal, rather than simply acknowledge that realism puddles at the bottom of the hill, and I caught the goal-setting bug.

So now I find myself to be not only a lover of Monday Present, but a lover of Monday Yet to Come.  And I'm wet-my-pants giddy at the idea that fifty-two more Mondays stretch out before me this year, just waiting to be conquered.  So I'm making plans to do just that: to allow this year's weeks and days to count for something, and to know that what I do in this upcoming year could be used to shape who I am at the end of my life, and even how well I die.  If that's not a cheery thought to you, then you need to drink the New-Years-Was-On-A-Monday Kool-Aid.

I'm wanting to get a good start on the year by diving into this month head-first.  I don't have any hard-and-fast resolutions set yet for the year, but I do have some positive goals set for the month, like:

1.  Blog each weekday in January.  (I realize the irony of posting this goal on January 2, after not having blogged yesterday, but I'm okay with my choices and would gladly roll my eyes at you and make mocking gestures if you want to pick a fight about it.)

2.  Have weekly meetings with Todd to sync our calendars, budget, lives.  More on this to come.

3.  Complete another round of Whole30.  I'm one day in and have been mostly successful so far.

4.  Keep on reading books.  I'll go into more detail later about the number and quality of books I read last year, but I can tell you now that I read more books in 2017 than I've ever before read in a single year.  And I can tell.  I feel like the wheels in my head spin a little faster, a little more often, and a little less like they're rolling through cottage cheese than they used to, which I consider a win.

I have so much to tell you (which is good, if I'm planning to log more writing days this month), but this post is already long and I'm starting to get the too-much-enthusiasm shakes and resultant spittle at the corners of my mouth.  So for now, I'll leave you with this photo, and the promise that I'll be back tomorrow to tell you more about my reading goals for January (and beyond).

what's up weekly.

I feel like I've already tipped my hand this week and told you about pretty much everything we've done:  Christmas.  Snow day.  Callista moving to her own room.

I guess there were a few other things we fit in, if I'm scrounging for more stuff to mention.

On Friday, Penelope finished weaving her first loom project, and together we turned it into a purse.  She is so very proud!  It contains one item: an index card with our address and phone number, so she doesn't have to memorize them in order to feel better about getting lost in a store.  I have so many concerns about this whole line of reasoning, but at the end of the day, there are worse things she could keep in there.

On Saturday, I got my hair cut.  It's basically the same as it was but with a few more layers in there.  Thrilling stuff.  I'd show you a picture, but it never occurs to me to take photos of stuff like this.  So this is really titillating news, obviously.  Eventually I'll need to get a replacement straightener for the one that died a year ago, and a set of hot rollers, so that I have styling options other than just Messy Bun or Church Hair.  Why am I thirty-one years old and still gimping my way through looking presentable?

Once I got home from my hair appointment, my little Christmas Elf and I cleaned the house.  Said elf had only five dollars more to earn for the Christmas gift they were wanting to get for their siblings, so I gave them a list of over twenty jobs to help me with throughout the day to warrant such a large allowance payout.  And the work was done so well, and without a single complaint!  It was a good, productive day.

In the evening, we made soap to finish up some gift projects before we all snuggled on the couch to watch the Nativity Story.  Watching this movie together is our Christmas Eve tradition every year, though this year it got bumped up to Christmas Adam since we had guests staying the night on Christmas Eve.

Sunday morning was our Miss-Out-On-Church-Slash-House-Church-Slash-Snow-Day Day.  My family arrived in the afternoon, so we got to spend the evening eating, chatting, sewing last-minute projects, and stuffing the kids' stockings.

Then, Christmas in all its high-falutin' glory.

We took a break from school this week, so we've had ample free time.  Tuesday, Penelope busted into the Doodle Crate Atticus had gotten her for Christmas.  This girl can spend hours and hours and hours crafting.

Wednesday was fah-reezing, and we spent the morning up at the Amish, where it is consistently about three degrees colder with a higher wind chill than in town.  It was literally zero degrees out when I got to my friend Irene's house, and she was outside hanging wet laundry on the clothesline.  That is a commitment to laundry I have never been able to muster in myself.  I can barely rouse myself from the couch to go move a load from the washer to the dryer when the basement is below seventy because it's 'too cold' down there.  I apparently live a pretty cushy life.  (The acknowledgement of which doesn't change the fact that I still refuse to get a handle on the laundry.)

At least I redeemed my lazy self on Wednesday night by making homemade ham and bean soup out of the leftover Christmas ham and ham bone.  I soaked beans.  I made broth.  The soup was made entirely from scratch the way Ma Ingalls would have made it.  (Minus the fact that I used my pressure cooker.)  And all I had to show for it was a feisty kid who kept telling me it stunk too bad to eat it.  People don't tell you this, but sometimes mothers aren't appreciated as much as they feel they ought to be.

Yesterday morning, a friend of mine watched the kids in order to give me a morning to myself as a 'Secret Santa' gift.  (Since it wasn't really secret that she was my secret Santa, she ended up just being my Santa.  Which sounds way more awkward.)  I chose to spend the morning hitting up the library and the grocery store all by myself!  It was glorious.  (If you want to see what all I get on a grocery run, I did a quick Facebook video of it all.)

A post shared by Paige Van Voorst (@theminivanvoorsts) on Dec 28, 2017 at 12:11pm PST

And that brings us to today!  I'm planning on hunkering down in our snug little house and finishing the AMAZING book I'm reading, "The Vanishing American Adult" by Ben Sasse.  I'm considering doing a whole separate post on this, but for now let me say this:  Every. Single. Person. On. The. Planet. should read this book.  Especially if you're a parent.  Or an educator.  Or a Parent-Educator.  Or an educator of parents.  But really, I'm just going to generalize and say all people on Planet Earth would be better off in life having read this book.

And that brings us into the weekend.  Play me home, Laurelai.

A post shared by Paige Van Voorst (@theminivanvoorsts) on Dec 28, 2017 at 3:06pm PST

SNOW DAY!

Well, Christmas miracles abound: we got our first snow of the season on Christmas Eve.  Everyone was pretty enamored.  At first, Rocco was relatively enthusiastic, yelling, "COAT?! Ah-SIDE?! SOCKS?! Ah-SIDE?!" when he saw the big kids getting their coats and boots on to go outside.

But then he realized that he, in fact, was not a fan of the snow.

Since that morning, he keeps looking out the window and accusing the ground of "WATER.  WATER.  WATER."  When I try to correct him and tell him it's snow, he just keeps repeating, "WATERRRRRR!"  Well, okay, sure.  I can see why you would find it scary if you think the face of the earth is covered with white water.  That's the kind of stuff plagues are made of.

The rest of the kids were big fans, though.

Finn was the first to come in, after his doggone glasses wouldn't stop doggone fogging up.  Doggonit.  That's okay.  He was comforted with a big mug of tea (read: a mug full of some warm honey that had the vague recollection of having met green tea at one point in its college days).  And then another mug of tea.  He was feeling pretty good about life at that point.

And that was our token snow day.  We are now fully ready for spring.

callista at six months. (and a big move!)

This gal turned six months old yesterday.  An entire half a year.  How on earth has it been that long already?

This is the mile marker I most look forward to during the newborn days: six months is the age where they are finally predictable.  They're well on their way to being a full-fledged adult.

Except she isn't predictable yet.  I mean, she's predictably difficult to predict, if that's a thing.  Just last week, I wrote about the fact that she finally started actually sleeping at nighttime, rather than taking play shifts like she'd been doing for months.  Well, I should have seen it coming after putting something like that in black and white, but the very next night she was up playing and chatting and wanting company from 3:30 a.m. to 7:15 a.m.  Last night, she was up at 3:30, 4:30, 5:30 and 6:30 to snack, and then up for the day at that point.  I'm worn out.

Her head is more often up than down, it seems.

So.  She is moving to her own room.  Rocco moved into the girls' room last night, and Callista moved into the nursery and spent her first night in a'big girl' bed.  (Meaning an actual crib, instead of just the bassinet insert in the pack and play.)  Todd got the nursery all cozy for me last night, setting up the monitor and moving the salt lamp in there so I have some warm, cozy light to sit by when I go in to nurse her overnight.  I'm hoping to decorate the room soon with some fresh paint, some pretty curtains, and a few things hung on the walls.

It is time for this change.  Sleep is so necessary for all of us, including her, and it's a learned skill.  It's time to start teaching her how to sleep better, so that her little mind and body have time to rest and develop, so I'm going to jump in to a bit more of a concerted effort toward sleep training. 

I'll still get up to feed her through the night, but we'll be working on stretching those feedings to happen no more often than I feed her during the day.  If she wants to cluster feed, she's going to need to do it during the day shift.  And our buttcrack-of-dawn chat sessions will be coming to an end; she's free to talk to herself, but I won't be participating in the conversation.

Anyway.  I'm all very principled about it in theory.  But like with any milestone my kiddos reach, it's a bit bittersweet.  I'm going to miss having her close by in the pack and play while we sleep.  I'm going to miss getting to doze in bed while I feed her overnight.  But there are other things I'm ready to leave behind us, and I'm looking forward to an upcoming season of a bit more sleep.

And other than sleep news, there's not much else to tell.  She is still ridiculously happy, and ridiculously beautiful, and ridiculously wonderful.  Nursing is still going really well, though she is still tiny.  She eats twice in a sleep cycle - once when she gets up from a nap, and again an hour and a half to two hours later when she's ready to go back to sleep.  Then she sleeps for 2-3 hours and starts the cycle again.  She is so alert and playful and is starting to really pay attention to toys.  Her favorite activity is kicking in the bouncy seat, and she still takes three solid naps a day.  I seriously could not be more in love with her!  And can you blame me?  LOOK HOW ADORABLE SHE IS.

Oh, LissaLou.  How we love you!

christmas weekend.

Merry (Day After) Christmas, y'all!  This weekend was so fun!

Once I finally got all the presents wrapped, that is.  Holy smokes, was that an undertaking!  And it's not even like we go overboard on gifts - each of the kids got a pair of new jammies, a book, and one other gift.  But because there are so many people in this house to give gifts to, the presents were totally out of control.  I have spent a lot of time over the course of the last few weeks wondering how moms of larger families than mine handle the chaos of gift-giving.

At least the presents looked cute!  Long live the Buffalo Check.

We woke up Sunday morning to snow, snow, lots of snow.  (Well, lots of snow for Missouri.)  As we were headed out the door to church, a gal was spinning out in her attempts to drive up our hill, so Todd went out to help push her car.  We determined at that point that it would probably be best to stay home from church - granted, it may have just been the fact that people in Missouri have no idea how to drive in the snow, but we didn't like the idea of potentially getting stuck ourselves.

So we had 'house church' by ourselves on Christmas Eve morning, singing worship songs and listening to a sermon together.  Then the kids went outside to play in the snow.

My family arrived in the afternoon and made prime rib for dinner.  After dinner, my mom helped me sew stockings for Rocco and Callista.  I would classify my own sewing skills as Slipshod and Mediocre, but my mom is a pro.  And she's gracious: I never saw her wince even once as she watched me gimp my way through the planning and execution of said stockings.

We let the kids open their jammies, according to our long-standing Christmas Eve tradition.

When they woke up the next morning, they were ready for pictures.  (Except Rocco, who took the first opportunity available to pee all over his new jammies.  So, there was that.  Imagine him in grey-and-white striped thermals.)

And then there was this festive lady in her own new jammies.

After our breakfast of bagels and locks (and discussing with my mom the merits of adding mimosas to the mix next year), the kids got down to business opening their gifts.

Atticus got Laurelai this amazing unicorn headband, which she did not remove all day.

To say there was a lot of activity there for a while is an understatement.  There was also a bit of crying, as Rocco didn't quite get the concept of more than one present: he kept getting mad at me as I tried to hand him fresh presents, as the stupid new boxes kept getting in the way of him enjoying the last present he opened.  Honestly, if only my heart was the same way: content to remain enamored with what I've already been given rather than constantly looking for the next new thing.  Either way, whether his intentions in it were noble or not, it resulted in a lot of growling at me for a bit.

Our living room is not large, and between cramming thirteen people and all the gift shrapnel, it was a bit claustrophobic there for a while.

Callista was an enthusiastic fan of the hat my mom made her.

Then we all sat down for lunch.

After lunch, the menfolk finished assembling the trampoline my mom got for the kids.  I am so in love with this thing.  After only two minutes spent jumping, Finneas was full-on breathless.  I think I'm going to like his blurry little form having an indoor outlet for all the winter wiggles.

And that was our very merry Christmas weekend!  What was the best part of Christmas at your house?