what's up weekly.

It's time for the rundown of our week!

I am beginning to feel like the news is always the same, and if you haven't noticed that already, I won't judge you but I will tell you to prepare yourself for many more posts that run along the lines of, "The kids are fantastic, school is going well, life is stable-bordering-on-the-mundane, and Coronavirus and all its implications can go to hell."

1. The kids are fantastic.

What can I tell you that you don't already know?  The kids are a gift.  This week we got to celebrate so many milestones!  Juni turned 18 months - her half birthday.  She is a year and a half old.  Full-throttle toddler.  HOWWWWWWWWWWW.  She started signing and saying "please" this week, and has finally started saying anything specific besides Dada.  (Why say anything else when the most important things are communicated so clearly already?  She loves Dada, end of story.)  She will now occasionally, begrudgingly, say Mama, and will sometimes say, "No, no, no."  But honestly, she mostly just nods at anything you ask her - such an accommodating little nugget.

We celebrated the two-year anniversary of Atticus' baptism...

...and the three-year anniversary of Penelope's baptism...

...and the fact that Finneas is just so very Finneas.

2.  School is going well.

As has been the case this school year, everything is just running along like clockwork.  We are loving this school year with all our hearts.

3.  Life is stable and boring.

In the best way possible.  I just finished reading Gone with the Wind again, and it is so engrossing, so haunting, so sad, so riveting, so good.  I don't feel ready to start another work of fiction quite yet until I sort through All the Thoughts.  If it wasn't such a hefty book (700-900 pages, depending on the formatting of the edition), I'd consider starting it over immediately.  I'm also still reading "You Who" and "Heaven Misplaced" (both nonfiction) and am planning to start Booker T. Washington's "Up from Slavery," once I can find my way out of the grip of GWTW.

Other than that, no news is good news, right?

4.  Covid can shove it where the sun don't shine.

If you want me to consider shanking you, just utter the words "pandemic" or "unprecedented" in my hearing.  I am absolutely serious, just try me.

And with that friendly threat, I leave you to enjoy your weekend.

what's up weekly.

Well.  I thought last week's news was sparse, but apparently my noteworthy life updates are following the trend of the viewers of the NBA finals: just when they hit the fewest ever seen, they somehow managed to go lower yet.  What a feat! 

To wit: I took nary a photo this week.  NOT A ONE.  And that is reflective of the overall state of the union over here.  Nothing to see here, folks.  So I'm just going to post unrelated, but adorable photos of the kids taken previously.

On Saturday, we were supposed to go up to Iowa to meet my brand-new, precious, perfect niece (!!), but then Penelope woke up with the barfs.  Not exactly the 'Welcome Home, New Baby!' gift we were looking to give, so we sadly stayed at home.  More than one Van Voorst cried over it.

By the end of the afternoon, everyone was back to normal, but I hadn't planned any food for the day since we were supposed to be gone, but I didn't want to put a recently-barfing kid in the car for a half-hour drive to an out-of-town park for a picnic, just to potentially spread our germs and risk car-puking far from home.  No to the thanks.  So we were a little stuck.

But then Todd came to the rescue and ordered food for pickup from a nearby town's wing place.  Sick kids opted not to eat, the rest of us ate like kings, and I didn't have to cook.  It all worked out.

We had nothing else of note until Tuesday night, when a sweet friend came and watched the kids so Todd and I could go on a date to a local Mexican restaurant.

On Wednesday night, I made chili, even though it was 87 degrees outside.  (That's literal.  Hello, October?)  This was a big mistake, not just because it was way too hot to be eating chili, but because I had no idea Atticus was getting ready for gastrotechnics.  Another one down with the barfs for a few hours.

Then yesterday, everyone woke up with headaches and sore throats, including myself.  No fevers or anything, just a rundown, ragged, slow-going kind of day.  We got our read alouds done for school, but we skipped out on our table work.

It honestly hasn't been that bad, and I can't even remember the last time any of us was sick, which is saying something because in a household this size, it seems like we can spend months just recycling each others' germs.  But we have stayed crazy healthy (for large family standards) for almost a year now, maybe longer.  I spent a lot of time yesterday reflecting on the fact that this week's sickness really just served to highlight how blessed we've been this year.  And now that we did get something, it seems to be pretty mild.

And that was literally the entirety of our week: sickness, interspersed with some hot wings and some margaritas.  Actually, when I put it that way, it was actually pretty noteworthy after all.


(Oh, P.S., just for posterity's sake: Let the record show that the city's mask ordinance was extended this week.  Hey, Future Paige, remember when you emailed your city councilman to voice your thoughts, and he LIED DIRECTLY TO YOU and said it was no longer an issue that the city council had anything to do with, and then he voted on that exact issue the next day at the city council meeting he failed to mention?  Those were good times.  2020, unflaggingly working hard to endear us all to our representatives.)

what (very little) was up weekly.

Hello, hello! How you doin' this fine Friday?

I'm fantastic, thanks for asking!

There was little of note this week, so I'll blitz through our lives as though you can boil 168 hours, and nine human lives, into a bulleted list like it ain't no thang. Watch me gooooo!

1.  Yesterday, I was like a woman possessed.  I painted my nails, took a shower, put on real-person pants, AND put on makeup, and never went anywhere.  I did it just cuz.  And the kids were spooked.  "What kind of ill wind is blowing...?"

2.  A while back, we bought Callista a wagon with her birthday money.  Well, the darn thing was a complete beast to assemble, so it's been sitting in the garage in half-done misery for a couple months.  Todd finished it up this week, and the kids have had a ball pulling her, and each other, around the yard.

3.  I started and finished A Tree Grows in Brooklyn in less than 48 hours, which was a feat considering I've really been lagging in my reading lately.  I realized I need more fiction right now, so I started the next book in the Anne of Green Gables series (I'm slowly making my way through those for the first time) and Gone with the Wind.

4.  I'm still reveling in Fall - I haven't yet got up my hackles against winter, so I'm just luxuriating in leaving the windows wide open, lighting candles, sleeping with the down quilt on our bed, and walking around in slippers.  I'm also loving the fact that the poison ivy has almost given up the ghost for this season - only five new plants spotted this week.  I like to think my CONSTANT VIGILANCE! had something to do with it, but I secretly know I have the cooler weather alone to thank for it.

5.  Four words: PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE - OOFDA, AMIRIGHT?  I feel a bit sucker-punched, but also weirdly optimistic now.  If the debates don't matter, as they clearly don't, then all I have to do is vote based on the candidates' records.  Who knew it could be that easy?!

And that is literally all the news that this week held.  Not that I'm telling you how to live your life or anything, but I wouldn't hold it against you if you bragged to all your friends that you know me.  "Yes, that Paige Van Voorst.  The one who lives such a jet-setting lifestyle, all from the comfort of her own threadbare bathrobe."  It's this kind of name-dropping that just might help you land that promotion you've been coveting.

Hello, hello, fellow Friday Femmes and Fellas.

I have a few things to tell you about this week, so let's dive right in.  My first topic: FOOD.  I have been making Food (most of which I don't have photos of, but that shouldn't shock you).

In the words of Penelope, I have gotten crafty during quarantine, and much of that creative energy has been channeled into kitchen activity.  First, I checked out a book on raw milk cheesemaking from the library, and it got my wheels spinning.  I started with yogurt cheese, and it was a big hit.  But it turns out that yogurt cheese is a gateway cheese.

First of all, it's spreadable, so I clearly needed to start making bread.  But if I was going to make bread, why not dust off the old sourdough know-how?  So I got a sourdough sponge started with some incredible locally grown whole wheat and whole rye.  I have now tried a few different bread recipes, including a no-knead recipe and one that takes literally three days of intermittent but intense home-nursing.  Also, have I mentioned I don't eat gluten, so I can only surmise the results by the smell, the texture, the density and the general reception by the peanut gallery?  It would seem the hospice-care bread is a much more successful recipe.

But back to cheesemaking.  The book recommended trying some of the recipes with kefir-cultured milk, so I jumped back into making kefir after a long, long hiatus.

But did you know you can make a kind of wine/kombucha with milk kefir grains in juice?  Neither did I until I JUST DID IT.  It is fantastic, and much easier than kombucha.  Juice + kefir grains + sealed container + 3-4 days = bubbly, fizzy, sweet-sour goodness.  You just need to feed the grains milk again every so often.

Okay, but then back to sourdough.  I had all of this sourdough discard made with pristine flour that I didn't want to just toss in the compost, so I made sourdough crackers.  (Not really a hit.)

But then back to cheese.  In addition to simple, spreadable cheeses, I've also made cultured whey ricotta, paneer (SO fabulous with breakfast, fried alongside my eggs in bacon grease), and a fresh/slightly aged, firm calf-rennet cheese.  I feel so Ma Ingalls, and I love it.

But then back to bread.  Now that I have all this delicious cheese, but no gluten-free bread with which to enjoy it, I had to go ahead and try Simple Kneads GF sourdough.  (I'm not so Covid Crazy that I want to try my hand at anymore gluten free baking; that's the kind of stuff I still hire out.)  It is okay - actually, it's SUPER sour; it almost tastes like beer.  But it's much better toasted. (Which then forced me to buy a new toaster last week, when my old-as-my-marriage, $9 Chefmate toaster crapped out.  This has all kind of spiraled out of control.)  But now that I have sourdough GF bread, I'm experimenting with the cheese recipes using only skim milk, to see if I can make a THM-approved bread-and-cheese meal.

Whew.  I told you had some news to share about food.

It also turns out I have some kids I'm having to tend to occasionally, so let's get to those.

First of all, let me just say for those of you who had no idea: Callista has opinions about some things.  Like, for instance, hanging on the monkey bars after she asked to hang on the monkey bars.

Or, as another example, her thoughts regarding the placement and overall volume of her first-ever piggy tails.  

(The tears came, not as a result of the piggies themselves, but of the fact that one piggy wasn't full enough for her liking.  You're free to guess which one.)

Juni also has opinions about things, but they're mainly of the Everlasting Optimist persuasion.  Seriously nothing can ruffle this child.  At least, "sliding down the slide one million billion times" can't, nor can "handing me Every Last Woodchip on the Face of the Earth".  See what I mean?

Penelope sold her first 'not-sold-to-Mom' bouquet of zinnias this week, and could not be more proud.  With this bouquet, she actually moved from just recouping her investment costs to making an actual profit, and with that, in addition to her allowance, she has procured all the funds projected for her Christmas gifting needs.  She is quite the little economist.

In final news, we celebrated the Quinceanera of my baptism yesterday with a trip to Booneville to eat dinner looking out over the River.  It has been a good week!

As a parting gift, I would like to burn this image in your mind for you to noodle on throughout the weekend.

You're welcome.

back to school!

Well, well.  Look at that.  I didn't post when I said I was going to.  So, as a peace offering, I give you the kids' Back to School pictures that I promised six weeks ago.  See, I sometimes follow through.  Eventually.

In school news, we have finished our first six-week stretch, and are on break this week.  Things are actually going well - really well.  We have hit a rhythm that seems to work for everyone, and our days feel so smooth.  

The only thing I haven't figured out is when to fit piano practice into the days for all the big kids.  I'm thinking I would like to get a piano for the basement family room, so they can practice there while I'm doing read-alouds with other kids in the upstairs living room.  If you have any leads on a local, small-ish upright piano that's in good shape, let me know!  (And yes, I've thought of just getting a keyboard, or moving read-alouds to the basement to free up the living room for piano practice.  Neither option is a good fit for us at the moment.)  I've been on the hunt on Craigslist, but none have been listed in town, and I haven't been able to hunt Marketplace since I got off of Facebook.  (And good riddance - FB is a crapstorm right now, am I right?  Stay safe out there, web surfers.)

We spent our first day of break yesterday enjoying the beautiful weather.  I got some fertilizer down on the front lawn, the kids played outside for hours, and I cleaned out the garage.  I got the houseplants ready to come back inside later this week, and I made soup for dinner.  The seasons are changing, and I'm loving it!

Happy "Back to School"!  (Or, should I say, Happy "Still in School, but On Break, but Back to School Next Week.")

wait for it... wait for it...

Good morning!  I AM still planning to post today - I just haven't gotten it finished yet.  (Blogger's new platform requires literally three times as much time to get a post up than it used to, so it's been challenging lately.  What used to take me about an hour is now taking 2.5-3.  Yes, really.)  But check back later today!  

what's up weekly.

Ooooh, girl.  For not really doing a whole lot this week, my butt is KICKED.  It has been a full, tiring week, and I feel accomplished reaching the finish line.

Last Friday, we met up with some friends from church for a nature study group.  I have been praying for something like this for a long time - nature study is something I know I need to be incorporating into our school time, but I've been super inconsistent about it.  So I've been hoping for an opportunity to participate in some kind of low-key nature group, and look what God has provided!  It has only taken seven years of homeschooling first, haha.  This week, we met at a local park with a few other Anthem families (twenty kids and five moms - glorious), and the kids did a seed study and a scavenger hunt.  So fun.  We're hoping to get together once a month.

I took a bunch of adorable pictures of it, and then realized once I got home that the memory card wasn't in the camera.  Doh.  So let me show you some pictures of Rocco and Callista "reading" Frog and Toad books instead.

 

On Saturday morning, I headed out of the house by myself for the first time in a really long time.  Since the mask mandate went into effect, I spend most of my Saturdays in my bedroom with coffee and a bunch of books.  But I was feeling the need to get out of the house, so I went to an antique mall just outside of city limits.  It was so fun, and I felt so subversive.  Have you ever read 1984?  An important theme throughout the book is true history - and the storyline highlights this through actual, human items purchased in a junk shop.  The question, "what does it mean to be human?" is answered, in part, by our relationship to history, which is also our relationship to truth.  So even seemingly purposeless items that link us to history are important, because they represent something true, they make a statement.  And I loved being surrounded by old, sometimes weird things, and among other people who wanted to spend their Saturday surrounded by old, weird things.  We remain rooted because it's satisfying and it's necessary and it's human.   

End of philosophical tangent.  I had fun.  I bought a baby dress, a beautiful pair of hand-painted Dutch shoes, and a vintage Cub Scout shirt for Rocco's birthday.  (He saw Opie Taylor wearing one and was bit by the green-eyed monster.  I figured there are worse celebrities to try to emulate, so I'm fine with it.)  And just like that, I did my Saturday morning part to crush the deeply antihuman sentiments of the cultural moment.  And then I went home, and loved my kids and my husband, and read some good books, and kept driving that sword in deeper into the side of the revolution.  I am woman, hear me roar.

Saturday night, we grabbed pizza and discovered a new obstacle course playground in our favorite neighboring mask-free community.  I know I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I am falling truly madly deeply in love with this little town.  I LOVE it.  So very, very much.  (Um, sad to say, we forgot the camera.  This is destined to be a pretty poetic post: just use your mind's eye to imagine the things I'm describing.)

Sunday was Sunday: COVID church, lunch, naps, FINNEAS HAD HIS HALF BIRTHDAY!, pasta for dinner, family movie night.  You know the drill.  

I HAVE to give you a movie recommendation, while I'm thinking of it: Heidi on Amazon Prime.  Filmed in German, dubbed in English.  Six out of five stars.  The acting is great, the scenery is breathtaking, the costume design and set design are beautiful, the music is memorable, it's very true to the book, and you have never experienced food envy the way you will when you watch these people eat bread and cheese.  I highly recommend it for your own family movie night!

This school week, we hit the ground running.  We are still working on getting caught up after missing a few days a couple of weeks ago, and so we just jumped in on Monday, even though it was Labor Day.  If we can buckle down, I think we'll be all caught up by this afternoon.

I tried to get some work done around the house and yard this week - I am still working on getting grass to grow in some big spots in our front yard, and fighting poison ivy in the back.  So I got down some grass seed and fertilizer in the front (the grass around the bald patches is very deeply green, the grass further out is less green, and the bald patches are dark brown with compost and mulch.  Sexy stuff.), and I put liquid aerator down on the back yard, hoping to get it prepped for some grass seed in the fall.  I put a pumpkin out on the front porch already, so sue me.  It's September, people, and for once I am actually ready for the change of seasons.  I'm lighting candles around the house, and I made chili and homemade cornbread for dinner last night.  Things are getting real, folks.

Some friends and I are going through a couple of books together, so I had some great discussions on those this week.  I also got to visit a friend with a new baby, which was fan-flipping-tastic.  I hate to admit when I'm wrong, but I'll admit it now: it turns out newborns are the very best and I want a million of them.  I held out for a long time, not naturally being a 'baby person' myself, but you can only resist the obvious for so long.  Babies are wonderful, and snuggling them is the most enjoyable way to stick it to the man that I can think of.  Especially in uncertain times, babies are such a great way to "laugh at the days to come," like it says in Proverbs 31 - we are guaranteeing ourselves future joy and blessings when we invite children into our homes.  What a comfort in times like these!  (Not to mention the fact that the world's problems could use a few more Christians in the mix, lending their minds and hands to the task of problem-solving.  I am doing the future a favor by creating people, and raising them to be God-honoring, compassionate, virtuous, and well-educated.  You're welcome, Future America.)

Oh, and sassy.  Did I mention sassy?

And with that, I leave you here so I can go nurse a headache and clean up the kitchen.  (Hard things to do simultaneously, but I am nothing if not unflaggingly stoic and uncomplaining about bearing my burdens.)

Go have a fantastic weekend, and consider having another baby.  You'll be storing up future blessing for yourself, and making the world a better place for the next generation to live.  Just my two cents.

what's up weekly (and Laurelai turned seven!).

What's up, party people.

I only have a few items of note this week, but they're BIG items of note.

First, we are continuing to party like it's 2020, which means CoronaSaturdays at the park (#covidcares).  This week we ate gourmet food overlooking the.most.picturesque. view - we sat high on a bluff overlooking the Missouri River at Golden Hour, and could see trees and farmland for literally miles around.  It was indescribably beautiful, and photos of it just seem so lifeless compared to the reality.  Also, in true Missouri fashion, this particularly scenic area is called "Boone's Lick."

The kids have spent their playground time perfecting their monkey bar form.  Penelope is really getting it, Rocco is really not, and Juniper hasn't even tried because she's too busy looking like a perfect park angel to bother herself with trivial feats of physical prowess.

We hit the week running, trying to get as much schoolwork in as possible before leaving on Wednesday to head up to Iowa for a few days.  With Todd working remotely now, we decided to spend a few more days than we typically do, since he can work from anywhere.  So we drove up Wednesday night.  On Thursday, I took the kids over to my sister's in the morning, and we played Clue and spent some time outside in the afternoon.

Juni discovered the joy of swinging.

On Friday, my mom and I took the kids to a nearby park where they played on the playground, waded in the lake, and many of them got to experience peeing in the woods when they suddenly realized they hadn't gone potty before we left.  (Park bathrooms freak me out, so I'd much rather just let them find a private spot to pee in the grass.)

Saturday was full of fun - first and foremost, this perfect, precious, tiny girl of mine turned seven.  

She is just the sweetest thing, always looking out for others and looking for ways to serve.  She loves hard, and hugs harder.  She has a funny giggle that sounds like "kkk-kkk-kkk-kkk."  She has a tender conscience, and hates to let anyone down.  She is whip-smart, and has taught herself an entire year's worth of math without help.  She has listened to The Mouse and the Motorcycle on audiobook no less than ten times.  She loves telling jokes, and is the best bed-maker in the house.  She is a magpie, storing literally everything that has ever held value at some time in the distant past, might possibly hold value in the distant future, or, on the flipside, that is so inherently valueless that it's pitiable, which then makes it valuable.  She has the heart of Christ toward all the worthy and unworthy junk in this house.  She is a fast runner, which makes sense because she's fueled by all the candy that she loves so much.  She is beautiful and fun and pocket-sized, and we couldn't love her more.

Back to Saturday news, my brother-in-law was also kind enough to take family photos for us, and I will share those with you soon.

After that, we came home to celebrate Laurelai's birthday with a whole day of "her."  She chose donuts for breakfast, and then grilled cheese and Spaghetti-O's for lunch.  For her llama-themed birthday party, she requested that Penelope bake her a cake with Skittles on top.

Penelope saved up her money to splurge on this sweet jewelry box for Laurelai's birthday - something that she knew she has been longing for.  Lolo has filled it with 'treasures' already, including the ripped styrofoam padding from an empty ring box.  #luxe

Somewhere in there, Juniper fell in love with this Coke bottle, and from then on, the only way to get her to go to sleep without crying was to let her cuddle it in her crib.

Todd didn't know it at the time, but he captured on film the moment Juniper fell in love for the first time.

After naps, we headed to my sister's house for dinner.  While the grownups chatted, the kids had a blast pretending to drive a pickup (Atticus' dreeeeeam), blowing bubbles, and doing a bunch of yardwork.  Kids are weird.

These cousinsisters were thick as very cute thieves.

On Sunday morning, we made the drive back home, and basically collapsed into bed the moment we walked in the door.  We had a popcorn party for dinner, and then hit the hay again in preparation for Monday. 

And since then, life has been pretty uneventful.  Catching up on last week's missed schoolwork, resting, cleaning, and making the world's most beautiful loaf of sourdough bread that I forgot to photograph (doh!).

Whew.  So few days to cover with so much news!  I think I need to go take another nap just thinking about it.