what's up weekly.

Hey! Long time, no see!  Since it's been a while, let me fill you in on what's been happening around here.

Basically, nothing.  Also, lots of stuff.

On Saturday, I headed over to a friend's house for a bit in the afternoon.  God has lately blessed me, suddenly and unexpectedly, with a couple of older women at church who have been really generous with their time.  I have been praying for a relationship like this for years - literally, years - and it seems like out of the blue, God has answered that prayer for me, and I'm so grateful for the timing - with this pregnancy, I am just really feeling like I'm in a place where I'm desiring extra leadership and, in a weird way, mothering of my own.  I spent some of the afternoon on Saturday at the home of one of these women, drinking coffee and talking through the beginning of The Pursuit of God, which she lent me to read.  Guys, it was so good for my soul.

Saturday night, there was a marriage conference at church, the first special event in our new building.  Todd killed it teaching (as always), and the whole night gave us so much to talk about and think through moving forward in this season of life.

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had a great time last night leading and teaching at Marriage 101 with @stanhayek at @anthemcolumbia . . . photo credit @theminivanvoorsts

A post shared by Todd Van Voorst (@toddhenryvanvoorst) on Feb 24, 2019 at 5:56am PST

Sunday was pretty normal, and then Monday was so full.  Not only did we complete an entire day of school and make dinner for a friend with a new baby (and start yet another grease fire in my kitchen - what is my problem?! And it seems it's only when I'm cooking for other people), but we also went downtown to get some insurance information squared away.  Apparently, Callista's insurance coverage was dropped in August.  Which I didn't learn until the last week in December, when I tried to take her to get her eyes checked.  For the past two months, I have been trying and trying and trying to get this resolved, and I just keep hitting roadblocks.  So I'm hoping that the visit on Monday did the trick - especially since Callista's digestive problems aren't clearing up at all, and I'm wanting to get her some actual medical attention and would like to make sure she has insurance coverage for that.  (I know, I'm so unreasonable.)

On Tuesday, we did school and went to Connection Group - which really sounds like no big deal, but CG days are always really packed for me.  I'm cooking for an additional guest (our babysitter), I need to find an extra hour in the day to shower and do my hair and makeup, and it's all on a time-crunch deadline that falls directly in the middle of the busiest time of my day, since we have to leave in the middle of dinnertime.  Whew.  So Tuesdays are pretty crazy around here.

Wednesday, we went to the Amish, did afternoon school, and I deep-cleaned the upstairs in anticipation of a dinner guest who works with Todd.  By the end of the evening, after a long stretch of a few full, tiring days, I passed out on the couch early.  I was so exhausted.  This pregnancy is no joke.

Yesterday, we had another full day scheduled: a homeschool trip to the planetarium, and visits with a couple of friends from church.  The planetarium got cancelled due to weather (a lot of the families were driving up from Jeff City, and I guess the roads were really bad down there, though they were fine here), and by the afternoon, I was so tired from the previous few days that I had to cancel our get-togethers with friends.  I spent the afternoon reading, doing laundry, cleaning the basement, and crying about how overwhelming I find my life right now.

Which leads easily into the pregnancy update for the week: thirty-three weeks, yall.  I am so tired.  I told Todd that I have three main life priorities right now: staying on top of homeschool, running our household (meals, cleaning, keeping the kids alive), and sleeping at any and all hours of the day.  Unfortunately, most days only hold enough time for me to do two of those things, so every single day feels like a failure.  Every day ends with me feeling like I've dropped the ball on something important.  And the pregnancy hormones seem to have kicked into high gear over the last few days, so everything just feels like a lot of Too Much.

Luckily, other than a midwife appointment this morning, today is wide open.  I'm going to shoot to get our schoolwork done, and maybe get a nap in, and then revel in the glory that is Pizza Night.  I don't feel entirely guilty saying that I'm glad the book is closing on this week and I'll get a fresh start really soon!

what's up weekly.

I would like to submit for your review the only two photos worth posting this week:

PHOTO ONE:

The weather here (and everywhere, apparently) has been downright CRAZYTOWN.   On Thursday of last week, it was beautiful out - temps in the mid-sixties, sunny, and muddier than the pigsties in hell.  The kids played outside for hours and hours and hours - only for me to discover upon their swarming descent into the house that they'd been spending their time exclusively wallowing in the mud.  Their pants, boots, jackets, shirts, hair, faces, everything - completely caked.

Unfortunately, the next morning we needed to go meet a friend, and I couldn't find a single pair of shoes for Atticus that wasn't completely covered in mud.  In our desire to get out the door, I attempted to rinse out his play shoes and this is the resulting nonsense that accosted me.  The clean white part around the drain hole is the effect of my needing to constantly scoop out handfuls of muddy leaves and sticks.  (To any of you moms out there who are supernaturally more nonchalant about shenanigans like this than I am, or whose kids have grown up and left, and you don't actually remember the anguish that is stirred in your soul when something like this happens the literal day after you just hauled your third-trimester self into the tub to scrub the grout, and took the shower curtain down and actually washed it: you are welcome to think this muddy mess is endearing as long as you're prepared to come help me clean it up.  Otherwise, grieve with me.)

We did finally make it out the door (Atticus was wearing shoes that were two sizes too small, because that's all I could find) to hit up the Burger King Play Place 15 minutes away, so the kids could run around and I could sit and chat with a friend about a local homeschool co-op opportunity (co-opportunity?).  The drive over there was cold (in the twenties!), but fine.  Clear.  About half an hour into our visit, it started snowing.  About 20 minutes after that, we decided to head out because the snow was sticking.  In just that short amount of time, the roads had become absolutely terrible.  It took me an hour to get home, taking the interstate, and I very, very nearly got rear-ended.  A car behind me didn't see me having to slow down for an accident (eight-car pile up), and it lost control trying to slow down, swerving between me and the metal grating along the shoulder.  It finally came to a stop parallel to a car three vehicles in front of me.  In the lanes going the opposite direction, the reigning chaos was even worse.  We saw an HVAC van accordioned between a dump truck in front of it and a semi that had hit it from behind.  There were service vehicles everywhere.  We were so glad to get home in one piece.

The next day, Todd went to shovel a path up our driveway, only to discover that all of our snow shovels had been filled with mud the previous day, which had now frozen into solid bricks, so we didn't have a single functional shovel.  That muddy day was the gift that just keeps on giving.

PHOTO TWO:

I am now 32 weeks along.  THIRTY TWO WEEKS ALONG.  What have I been doing all this time?! It certainly hasn't been preparing to bring an actual baby into our actual home.  I need to get my crap together.  ORRRRRRRRRRR... I need to organize my garage, because that seems more pressing at the moment.  (Pregnancy makes people crazy, but it also makes their hair thick, so I don't complain about it.  LOOK AT THAT HAIRLINE UP THERE.  Let it bask in all its hormonal glory.  Its prognosis is short; after a few postpartum months, there will be nothing to show for it except a very clogged shower drain.  Sigh.)


Other items of note this week:

*Todd taught at Salt last night, and took the three big kids with him.

*We buckled down and got two weeks worth of schoolwork done, to catch up and hopefully get a bit ahead before the baby comes.

*I started and finished Eve in Exile by Rebekah Merkle in under 24 hours.  So very, very, very fantastic.  I would recommend it to every single Christian woman walking the face of the earth.

*We cancelled Connection Group in anticipation of further bad weather that never came.  Whoops.  This is the weirdest winter ever in the history of time.  Luckily, we now live in Missouri, where people are super casual about weather cancellations.  They aren't leaving their houses if there's snow predicted anytime in the next seventeen days.  (It reminds me of this incredible, artfully crafted, hilarious op ed I read recently: "In Case of Blizzard, Do Nothing."  Please take the three minutes it will take you to read this.  You won't regret it.  For one thing, the phrase, "quotidian American crudscape" has been delighting me every time I think of it in the weeks since I first read it.  Absolutely pristine writing.  If you read it and don't like it, I think you need a brain scan.  Something is broken in there.)

*Callista is now fighting off a fever and some really serious stomach issues.  I'm not sure whether to chalk it up to teething, or if she ate something verboten, or if she's actually battling a virus that I should concern myself with, but she was up much of the night on Wednesday, which left me with very little giddyup yesterday.  I'm hoping to finish this week off strong today, but chances are 50/50.

*Here's what's currently in my reading rotation, which is particularly good at the moment:

And that was my photo-anemic week.

our chore charts, allowance, and age-appropriate chores.

One of the responsibilities that I take really seriously as a parent is teaching my kids to embrace hard work.  As members of a family, we all depend on each other and need to work together to keep our home and our life running smoothly.  It's a way to show each other love.  It's also a way for me to instill a work ethic in my kids as they grow to adulthood, showing them that it's important to embrace the difficulty of work and responsibility, rather than to run from it.  Work is good (it was given to us before the Fall), and gives us purpose and a fruitful life ("We are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." Eph 2:10).  To not teach a child to work is to stunt them and frustrate them with a sense of unfulfilled purpose.  Work is a gift, but seeing it as such, and knowing how to work well, requires training.

Over the years, we've tried and adapted a few different approaches to chores and responsibilities.  The main jist of how we do things has remained pretty much the same, but how we've implemented and executed our system has flexed and changed.

We started out with a clipboard system - here's a post with the prototype (pretty rough) and here's a post about how we adapted that system for pre-readers.  This video also walks through the basic premise of the clipboard system, if you're more of an A/V learner.

This year we've tried a lanyard system, which has worked out well for the most part (except for the fact that the kids still somehow seem to misplace their lanyards, as was the besetting problem with the clipboards.  Sigh).  Here's a glimpse at how our system is looking right now.

I hung this giant, hulking, ugly thing in our kitchen.  (Or, perhaps you find it adorable and would like to purchase one for yourself through this affiliate link?  Who knows.)  The kitchen was the best place for it because systems are only useful if they're convenient.  I knew our main work times are all centered around meal times (watch this video for a more in-depth look at how we structure our days and manage our time), so I wanted the kids to be able to put their dishes in the sink, and then hop right to their jobs.

You can get your own here.  Also, you will note all kinds of detritus in these photos.  I didn't clean up for you before taking photos.  Sorry.

Each kid has their own row of jobs: "Before Breakfast," "After Breakfast," "After Lunch," and "Before Movie" jobs.  (I let the kids watch a movie while I make dinner, so this is at the end of the day's play time and before we all sit down to dinner together.)  In each pocket is that time slot's jobs, which tend to take 10-20 minutes to complete, if the kids aren't dinking around.

Since the bigger kids can read, I just printed off and laminated small colored cards with their lists for each time slot.  The littler kids can't read yet, so I found some cute printable cards here.  (I searched 'visual schedule,' if you're looking for something different but similar.)

I got fancy and added a "sticker" reminder with a Sharpie, post-lamination.  

At chore time, each kiddo clips their chore pack to their lanyard and gets down to work.

Atticus' color is blue, so his lanyard and chore pack cards are colored accordingly.  Unfortunately, he's holding them in front of a blue chart, so you can barely see what I'm talking about.

After a chore pack is completed, they get a sticker (or, more realistically, a check-mark, because I'm too disorganized to remember to buy that many stickers all the time) on their personal chore charts.  This means they can earn four stickers/checks on a normal day.

I just made these with a ruler and a sharpie on graph paper, and then photocopied a bunch of blank ones.  I taped them inside the cabinets to keep them close and convenient.

When they finish a row on their chart, they get paid, which I'll cover in a moment.  When they finish an entire box of five rows, they get a 'bonus' payout.

For kiddos who are looking to earn extra money (which often happens around the holidays as they're saving up for gifts for one another), or for kiddos who have been sentenced to Grumble Jobs for the sake of their bad attitudes, I have extra jobs available on popsicle sticks, which makes it so much easier for me to come up with additional chore assignments - sometimes in the moment, it's hard to think of what even needs to be done, and what a particular child is capable of based on his/her age.  If the jobs are being taken on volitionally, the red dots signal how many stickers/checks each job is worth.  (Stickers are not awarded in the case of Grumble Jobs, which are assigned when kids are complaining or bickering.  The satisfaction of a Grumble Job well done is its own reward - and the threat of more Grumble Job assignments is its own incentive to turn the attitude around.)

We do pay allowance for their jobs, which I know is not everyone's cup of tea.  I could dive in deeper, but for now I'll just say that I haven't found that it makes the kids feel entitled, nor does it encourage them to demand payment for every little thing they do around here.  They receive allowance for their daily assigned jobs, but there are lots of little things they're asked do each day as needs arise that they're not paid for.  They just pitch in because that's what family does.  The balance has worked out fine for us.

Each kid has three money jars: Give, Save and Spend.  When they complete a row, they get a dime for Give, a dime for Save, and two quarters for Spend.  When they finish a bonus row, they get a regular pay out, plus an extra quarter or two for each jar.

These are just regular mason jars with coin slot lids I found here.  

Again, everything is color-coded by kid, because we have so many jars to keep track of.  In addition to labeling the lids, I learned pretty quickly to also label the actual JAR, because once the lid is off, there's no telling whose jar is whose, or which category is which, which can wreak HAVOC.  I just slip a color-coded label into each jar, though at some point I could probably bust out the label maker for a more permanent solution.

Okay, if you're wondering what jobs each kid is assigned each day, here's a basic daily breakdown by age:

Click to enlarge; click here for the pdf.

Here are some extra jobs that I will assign if the need arises, but aren't typically expected of the kids on a regular week:

 Click to enlarge; click here for the pdf.

You'll notice I don't really assign jobs before the age of four or five.  Before those ages, I just have the little guys tag along with their big buddies and help in whatever way they can.  For example, Rocco helps Finneas carry laundry buckets downstairs, and participates in exercise time.  I have found that, unless there are older siblings around to set an example and help younger ones, kids can't really be expected to work independently until about age six (or even as late as seven for some boys).  Which means if you're dealing with a firstborn younger than six or seven, they'll only be able to consistently do these jobs with your active supervision and help.

And that is a very lengthy run-down of our current chore system!

happy monday! (on Sunday Funday, and why i don't blog on mondays.)

Happy Monday!

Once again, my favorite day of the week rolls around.  I know it's so weird, but I just love Mondays.  I really do.  It's like New Year's, but it comes every week - a blank page, the chance for a fresh start, the opportunity to decide what I want to do with the chunk of time stretched out in front of myself.

We have big plans for the day: getting caught up from the weekend, doing normal-day stuff, and running a few errands.  Kind of boring, I know, but I'm ready for it.

One of the things Todd has mentioned before is that you know you're doing Sunday right if you end up looking forward to Monday, and I think that's true.  I really think that over the course of the last few years, as we've chosen to be more intentional with how we spend and protect our Sundays, the happier I've been with the chance to get back to work on Monday.

Like the masses, we call Sunday, "Sunday Funday."  We talk it up all week to the kids, we look forward to it, we protect it, we prepare for it in advance.  Church is the obvious and first activity of the day, so a lot of our preparations revolve around that.

I shower on Saturday night so I don't have to spend as much time blow drying my hair before church.  I make a pan of baked oatmeal on Friday or Saturday so I don't have to cook breakfast, and we serve it in paper bowls so I don't have dishes to do.  All the kids' church clothes are kept in one closet on the main floor, so laying out their clothes takes about five minutes.  (I can post a video I recorded a while back with our church closet organization, if anyone's interested.)  We try to streamline the morning as much as possible.

After church, we grab lunch to bring home.  It makes lunch so easy to serve and clean up, and gives the kids the feeling of it being a 'special' meal.  Sometimes it's something small like McDonald's, sometimes it's brisket from a local barbecue place (and currently, with this pregnancy, a lot of times I run into Hu Hot and make myself a to-go bowl because Mama's never not hungry for stir fry).  We get home, and we all change into jammies right away before sitting down to eat.  After lunch, the kids play for a bit, Todd and I spend some time debriefing after church.  After that, it's naptime.

Everyone at our house naps on Sundays, even the grownups.  (Admittedly, I prefer not to nap, but to just sit and enjoy the absolute stillness on my own, but this pregnancy has worn me out and I often fall asleep on the couch before naptime even officially starts.)  The whole afternoon is taken up with naptime, and it's glorious.

After naps, we serve cereal for dinner, which sounds super low key, but is really wonderful.  There's no cooking, no planning, no leftovers to box up.  We serve it in paper bowls, so again, no clean up.  The kids think it's a party, everyone wins.  (Todd and I usually scrounge up leftovers or something, since cereal doesn't exactly fill us up.)

After dinner, we all cuddle up together on the big sectional and watch a movie together.  I usually spend the time folding the week's clean laundry so I don't have to do that throughout the week.  Plus, I really get restless just sitting in front of the TV with nothing to do with my hands, so it's a great time to kill two birds with one stone.  After the movie's over, I pass out stacks of folded laundry for kids to put away, and everyone heads to their beds for their bedtime routines with Todd.  (I don't really do bedtime - praise the Lord for a husband who is willing to muster the energy required for those shenanigans).

And at that point, Todd and I do whatever we need to in order to wrap up the weekend - sometimes we still have Family Table stuff to go over, sometimes we read for a bit, and often we just curl up on the couch and watch Netflix.

We almost never waver from this routine if it can be at all prevented.  We don't go to Super Bowl parties or after-church lunches.  We avoid pretty much anything we can that takes away from family time, and we don't really work around the house on principle.  The entire day is so restful and slow and recharging, but it's also sufficient rest and slowness to feel ready to get back to our normal pace of life, which is what I love about it.  It's not the kind of leisure that makes me feel like continuing to indulge past the point of helpfulness.  It's limited, and it feels limiting, and that's actually one of its best qualities.

Sunday Funday is actually why I've stopped posting blogs on Mondays.  I actually write each day's post the day ahead, and I wasn't enjoying having an obligation hanging over my head to get accomplished at some point on Sunday.  (And I'm not organized enough to write one further in advance than that.)  So Monday posts are a thing of the past (after this, obviously), and I couldn't be happier about it.

Now.  Now that Sunday's over, it's time to party it up for MONDAY FUNDAY!  Trip to Drop Off Old Crap at Goodwill, here I come!

'what's up' weekly.

This has been a great week.  We took the week off of school to rest, recover, and spend some time catching up on things that kind of get overlooked when we're hitting the books.  I cleaned the bathrooms, including the showers!, which was a major feat.  (Atticus wipes down the upstairs bathroom every day, but it needs adult attention occasionally, and the downstairs bathroom was so very scary after the stretch of neglect it's been facing.  To give you an idea, I was informed today that one child has been working perfecting what has been dubbed 'fireworks peeing.'  It explains so much of what I encountered this week.)

I washed shower curtains, mopped floors, bleached grout.  It was freeing.  Also exhausting.  I plan on giving it another six months before any of that happens again.  (At which point, I'll have a newborn, so then I'll put it off another six months.  So my bathrooms will be clean again sometime around next February.)

I worked on laundry, got caught up on the kids' homeschool records, made a bunch of appointments I've been putting off, and tried (and admittedly failed) to get some medical insurance issues squared away.  I was a regular lady-on-a-mission.  Plus, an incident early on in the week necessitated taking the LEGO collection away for a while, so the house stayed relatively tidy on its own accord.  *Patting self on back for job well done.*

On Monday, I had a midwife appointment early in the morning, so I chucked the kids in the van and hauled tuckus over there, just to spend 2 minutes in the exam room being weighed and measured, and then told to return for more of the same thing in two weeks.  I really hate this part of pregnancy, when they expect to see your face every seven seconds, but they don't make it seem all that worth it.  At this point, I'm kind of like, "I'll call you if anything comes up; otherwise, plan on seeing me next around the time that the baby is crowning."

In order to make our outing seem less pointless, we hit Hobby Lobby on the way home.  I got some felt to make a puzzle mat (over the weekend, a friend gave us a puzzle, and I'm wanting to get it started and maybe even done before spring.  Which seems like a realistic hope, considering winter seems to be just now getting its legs and cajones), and I got a few supplies to make some beeswax candles.  I have developed a strong reaction to paraffin and soy candles, but I'm wanting to create some more ambiance around here, so beeswax it is.  Unfortunately, they're crazy expensive, so I'm hoping to head into Hobby Lobby every once in a while with a coupon to buy the wax and hopefully cut costs that way.

On Tuesday morning I hung out with a friend, and then Todd and I spent some time in the evening working on the church building.  Anthem has a home!  (For the last two and a half years, we've been meeting in the conference center of a local hotel.)  This will be our first weekend in our new space, and there was a lot of last minute stuff needing to be done, so the Connection Groups met out there to work instead of doing their regular thing.  We left the kids with a new babysitter, and I think the sheer number of them ended up being a bit overwhelming for her.  At one point, Callista found herself unsupervised and promptly started brushing her teeth with the toothbrush we clean Stumpi with.  So the fact that she hasn't come down with Legionnaire's disease this week is pure miracle.  Praise hands.

Wednesday, we headed up to the Amish in the morning, spent the afternoon with a friend, and in the evening I called my sister for her 30th birthday!  ('What's so special about a 30th birthday?' asked the kids, to which Penelope responded, 'Thirty is when you stop being a young adult and start just being an adult.'  Astute observation, Eight Year Old Child.)

Yesterday was Valentine's Day, and we tried to elevate the day a bit.  I'm not really a celebrater-of-things by nature, but I'm trying to get better, and what better gateway holiday to observe than Valentine's Day, I ask you?  So we did a popcorn party for lunch, at which I surprised them with expired bags of M&M's I bought for a quarter apiece at the Amish store.  Surprise!  Then Todd came home over his lunch break to carry on our yearly tradition of encouraging the boys to give each girl a flower.  The boys love being chivalrous, the girls love being doted on, the whole thing is so much fun.

Things turned south for Laurelai for some unknown reason.  At least she didn't get overly dramatic about it.

Then for dinner last night, I made stir-fry, which was nothing special in and of itself (especially if you were to ask Callista, who was so determined not to eat it that she somehow managed to fling it all over the walls, the china cabinet, the curtains, the table, the floor, etc., etc.) but we presented the kids with a small gift each.  This is NOT typical for our house - first of all, I'm not really a natural gift-giver, and second of all, anything I give them I then have to store and keep organized, so I have a lot of incentive to not give gifts.  But I'm trying to grow.

A couple other items of note regarding yesterday: it was in the mid-sixties outside, so the kids played outside for like three hours and came in just COVERED in mud.  Of course it was right after I'd washed the shower curtains... sigh.  But also, an older mom from church came over and chatted away the afternoon with me, and it was so wonderful.  What a great day.

And that brings us to today!  We have plans to meet up with a few friends - a family with nine kids in the morning; a family with five kids in the afternoon.  It's going to be like an all-day party.  (Are you seeing a theme here?  This is how we spend our off-school weeks, because I don't really do many meet-ups anymore during regular weeks; so we get super social for one very intense week every couple of months).  But the weather is supposed to be bad again - five inches of snow in the forecast for today?? - so we may or may not have to cancel our plans.  I hate driving around here when the weather is bad, since they don't clear the roads and I can't guarantee I'll be able to get up our hill on the way home.  So we'll play it by ear.

In pregnancy news, I'm in the single-digit countdown now.  I'm gaining a ton of weight, we haven't picked a name yet, I haven't even started planning freezer meals or pulling out baby clothes.  I think I'm in a bit of denial still... I'm hoping the reality that THIS BABY IS COMING SOON will hit me sooner rather than later so I get my tail in gear.  But I'm going to just remain in blissful ignorance a liiiiiittle longer.

Hey, remember how my hair used to be naturally curly?  This photo makes it look like that's still my default state, but sadly, no.  You have no idea how much blackmail and coercion and bribery went into getting my hair to show any sign of life.

Apparently, my hair's natural level of buoyancy is a direct reflection of my own.

And that was our week!  In case you didn't see it, there's a quilt raffle currently happening to help us with the expense of purchasing a passenger van in which to fit us all once the new baby comes.  Entries are just $5, and a winner will be announced next Wednesday - so go here for details on how to get in on that while you still can!

our best-loved quilts (and a RAFFLE!)

When Finneas was born, my friend Emily made him an amazing quilt, with paper-pieced foxes in honor of his middle name (Foxe) and chevrons as a subtle homage to the V's in our last name.  It was so thoughtful and personal, and adorable to boot.

Finneas has grown up with this quilt as his special blankie.  He has loved it from Day One, and it's his biggest source of comfort.  (I joke with Todd that if there's ever a tornado, we need to make sure we get all the kids and Finneas' blanket into the basement, because it's that necessary to his peaceful existence.)

Over the years, it's become quite, um, personalized.  It started with one frayed corner that he would rub against the side of his face... then the corner turned into an entire edge... then the edge kind of migrated around some other corners... then they started working their way toward the center... until it now currently looks like this:

Those poor little foxes have seen better days.

I am constantly finding tiny, ripped pieces of his quilt floating around the house, but heaven forbid I should throw any of them away.  He has a whole corner of a dresser drawer devoted to housing frayed, orphaned Blankie Bits.  "Love" is clearly not a strong enough word to describe his feelings for this quilt.

Recently, Emily also sent us a quilt for the new baby, which was meaningful for so many reasons: first of all, we have a soft spot in our hearts for "Emily quilts" because of how much the first one has been loved; second of all, it's beautiful and it was so kind of her to think of us and to put all the work into making it; and third of all, it's the first gift the new baby has received - the first thing that's really and exclusively 'hers.'  As we have each new baby, I am more and more committed to wanting them to have things they're able to celebrate as their very own - things that illustrate the fact that they're not just one of a crowd of kids, but that they're unique people with gifts and stories and items that are only theirs to claim.  So I love that the very first item that is truly, only this baby's is so incredibly personal and beautiful.

Gah, I'm getting all sappy over this quilt!

But to top of all of our love and affection for Emily and her quilt gifts, she also approached me with the idea to raffle off another quilt she's made, as a generous way to help us save up money for the crazy-big van we're needing to buy soon in which to schlep all these kids around.  I am just in love with this quilt, and I wanted to extend an invitation to you guys to enter the raffle to win it if you'd like to have one of Emily's quilts in your own home!

Raffle entries are $5, and you can purchase as many entries as you'd like!  (Think about how amazing it would be if you were the one who snagged this handmade quilt for five dollars.  Can you even imagine?!)  Proceeds from the ticket sales go to our van savings fund.  So every time you see us driving around in our massive van, you can think, "I helped to make that circus happen."  And that will be a good feeling.

If you'd like to purchase a raffle entry (or two! or more!), you can send money through Paypal (send to emily@the-vardemans.net as a friend) or get in touch with her through this Facebook post.  A winner will be announced next Wednesday, the 20th.

We'd love it so much if you'd consider supporting us in this way - and join us as a member of Emily's fan club by entering to add this awesome quilt to your own home!

what's up weekly.

What a week, what a week, what a week, what a mighty good(/okay) week.

This week's weather was downright crazytown.  65 degrees each day over the weekend, single digits and school shut-downs by Thursday.  We did head up to the Amish on Wednesday, which was all fine and dandy until we hit the gravel roads.  It was like driving on a skating rink: just a solid, glassy, Zamboni'd sheet of ice.  Plus it was raining, plus the temperature was dropping quickly, so everything was perilous and becoming perilouser by the minute.  But the gravel roads comprise the last five minutes of our forty-minute drive, and they're relatively straight and level; it seemed like such a waste to turn around at that point, so onward we ventured.

I skipped stopping for butter and cream at Irene's house, and I skipped stopping at the bulk store for oats and salt and local honey and discount tortilla chips, and went straight to the bakery.  I grabbed up our milk, eggs and bread for the week, and hightailed it out of there.  And by "high-tailed it," I mean, "drove six miles an hour up the Devil's banana peel that was the gravel road until we hit pavement."  Non-eventful, but not non-stressful; though we were listening to the last chapters of the Chamber of Secrets the entire time, so the kids were dead silent (as though petrified by a basilisk?!) while I commandeered our vessel to safer waters.  Quiet kids always make stressful driving a little easier.

It continued to rain and snow throughout the rest of the afternoon and through the night on Wednesday.  We had been planning on attending a little homeschool gathering at the public school planetarium on Thursday, which the kids were excited about, but it was cancelled since the schools were closed.  The kids were bummed, but I was secretly cheering.  Introverts, I know you hear me when I say cancelling plans and staying home instead is the most soul-satisfying thing that exists in all of God's creation.  I can physically taste the glory of a well-cancelled plan.  I wish I could write "cancel plans" on my to-do lists as an activity in itself.  Ahhhhh.  Anyway.  Our planetarium visit wasn't totally cancelled, but merely postponed, so I guess that's a good thing, since we really did want to check it out.

I've tried to spend a bit of one-on-one time with the kids this week.  (There are a lot of kids milling around over here, so I didn't get to them all yet, but I've at least started the ball rolling.)  Penelope and I played a rousing game of Scrabble, which was actually, genuinely fun.  I love this process of watching my daughters become my peers before my very eyes, and sharing interests with them.  I beat her, but not by much, and I wasn't holding back.  Should we spend much more time playing together, I'm confident she'll be better than me before long.

Piggy back rides!  Sisters aboard!

Finneas and I spent our one-on-one time playing Go Fish, and I was really impressed by how well he re-directed his disappointment at losing.  He is really growing in maturity lately: taking initiative to help others with their chores, speaking unprompted encouraging words, and making the effort to be in charge of his emotions.  He really is growing into a leader, and I couldn't be more proud.

Piggy-Bat rides.

Laurelai and I spent our one-on-one time doing her very favorite thing of all: running math drills.  She loves mathematical word problems.  She's also a genius at puzzles.  (Sidenote: I'm thinking of starting a sizable jigsaw puzzle with the big kids.  Has anyone done this before with kids?  Any tips?  Any experience with using a roll-up puzzle mat?)  I'm excited to see how this analytical part of her mind continues to develop!

Hmmmm… what else...

The girls and I attended a baby shower for a sweet friend, at which Penelope jumped wholeheartedly into playing the games.  (Laurelai refrained, due to the fact that she is a chipmunk-human: tiny and adorable and SKIT.TISH.)  She had fun playing Pictionary; she almost barfed playing "Guess the Baby Food Flavor."  She's now been officially hazed into baby shower culture.

Todd preached a double-hitter: Salt on Thursday last week, and then Sunday morning at Anthem.  The biggest two kids went with him on Thursday, and had a blast.  I love that they're getting to grow up with the example of their dad being a leader and a teacher, and getting the privilege of hearing him teach from the Bible on a regular basis.  What a strange, cool opportunity for them.  (To hear his Sunday sermon on the cost of building our lives on the foundation of Christ, go here.)

At Salt Company, our college ministry.

At 'big church' on Sunday.  Todd thinks he needs someone to photoshop a Jimmy Johns #9 into his hands so you can really get a feel for his passion.

Atticus is, as ever, completely obsessed with the World Wars, and military machinery.  He is also continuing to pursue his passion for drawing.  I found a couple of really great war-meets-art books at the library (Dazzle Ships: WWI and the Art of Confusion, and A Soldier's Sketchbook: The Illustrated First World War Diary of R.H. Rabjohn; both affiliate links) and he has been absolutely inspired.  The main thing happening as a result is his dedication to now keeping a diary - full not only of descriptions of his day, but of illustrations of his daily life.  It is INCREDIBLE.

Drawing our piano.

And, as always, the kids are just an absolute joy.  Words really cannot describe how much delight they bring me - and each other - every single day.  This time with them is such a gift.

This brother had a hard week that included a major head cold, a fever, and explosive guts.  It meant more snuggles for me, which I refuse to complain about.  He even slept on a toddler mattress next to my side of the bed one night, and I got to reach out and rub his back or hold his hand whenever he needed it.  Swoon.

Blurry, but awesome.  She plays classical music on the Baby Einstein phone pressed against one ear, while she waggles her finger around and dances like a maniac.  Dancing is her absolute joy.

World's Tiniest BatLady.

They built a man out of antique Tinker Toys (AnTinquer Toys?) and then posed... as him.

Bathtime Buddies.

In pregnancy news, I am still as large and lethargic as ever.  More so, even, if that's possible.  The couch is my constant companion, ever a true and faithful friend in times of exhaustion.  Food is a total bane, sleep is ample and yet still inadequate.  BUT.  I think the baby has dropped, which means I can breathe easier, which is an incredible blessing.  And, as I've gotten bigger, something as mundane as Todd removing the pantry door so I can actually fit through the pantry doorway has been a life-changer.  So things seem to be headed in a good direction.