what's up weekly. (Princess Bride edition, for no real reason at all.)

Tyrone, you know how much I love blogging, but I've got laundry to fold, sheets to put back on the beds, a kitchen to clean, and Guilder to frame for it.  I'm swamped.

So I'm going to keep it short and sweet.

Last Saturday, my family came down for our Second Annual Chinese Food Day.  We all sat around rolling egg rolls and wontons, and then gorging ourselves on fried food and stir fry.  The kids played with cousins, I got to see my sister for the first time in months.  Finneas and a couple of the other kids got to open birthday gifts.  It was incredible.

Cousins folding wontons

Cousins taking a snack break

The OG Egg Rollers on a reunion tour

Listen to me: this is the stuff great childhoods are made of.  Deep-fried pockets of meat and soy sauce.

On Monday, we jumped back into school after Spring Break.  Finneas started his new grade level, and things went really well.  He seems pretty unfazed by the transition; his workload seems pretty similar, actually.  It does make for very full days for me, though, and I'm feeling a little stretched thin, but I am telling myself that we only have eight weeks left until the end of the year - I can juggle it for eight weeks.  Maybe at some point, in all my free time, I'll write a "Day in the Life" post again like I used to, just to document what these wild days look like at this moment in time.

Our current Wednesday Read Aloud is The Secret Garden

Tuesday, the babies turned ten months old!  They are just so much fun.  Eulalie is waving and chattering and crawling all over the place.  Knox is blowing raspberries and learning how to beat his chest on command like Tarzan.  The other day, I laid them next to each other on the floor for diaper changes, and they really saw each other.  They were each talking and smiling and grabbing at the other's face.  They were mesmerized.  Now, they've started moving to the touching ends of their cribs so they can be closer during naptimes.  It is so, so, so sweet.

They are both just tiny beans - Knox is 12 lbs, 13 oz, and Eulalie is 12 lbs 12 oz.  All our babies are small, but they might be vying with Laurelai for smallest Van Voorsts at a year.  We'll see what happens!

My milk supply hasn't seemed to fully recover since my bout with mastitis a couple of weeks ago, so we've started supplementing the babies with raw goat's milk.  I'm thankful that it sits well in Knox's tummy, and doesn't make him vomit like cow's milk does, but he's not super interested in it.  I'm glad to know we have it if he needs it, though.  Eulalie has been taking a bottle of it at night before bed, and she's willing to drink it cold from a sippy cup when she's in her high chair.  (Knox can't really be bothered with either a cup or a bottle.)

On Wednesday, I got sucked in to watching a series of YouTube videos about a rescued box turtle, and now I'm convinced Stumpi has been woefully neglected and needs daily baths, among other things.  She needs a manicure, and maybe a good scrubbing, and probably some Vitamin A supplements so she doesn't get turtle measles? I'm mostly kidding.  I don't really know about these things, as evidenced by the fact that she actually hisses at me when I try to take care of her.  I don't know why she won't just let me love her, but whatever.  She does seem to really enjoy her soaks in the Turtle Tub anyway.  

So, that was our week.  We are now a few school weeks into experimenting with a four-day week.  (Well, four days for me - some of the kids still have independent schoolwork to tackle on Fridays, but I have relegated all the direct instruction responsibilities to M-Th.)  I just didn't have time to tackle housework and errands when we were doing school all five days.  So today I'm hoping to take my workday to wash the windows, wash the walls, shop for shorts, take the kids to Dollar Tree to shop for my birthday presents, take Atticus to a yardwork job and to the DMV, pull out the kids' summer clothes... I think my plans may be a bit too ambitious, so we'll see how far we get down the list.  But the tasks aren't going to do themselves, so I can't just sit around chatting with you dingdongs all day - I gotta go!

Have a wonderful weekend!

what's up weekly. (photos of butchering a hog - look away.)

Last Friday when I left you, I mentioned that the boys were off to a hog butcher day.  A family we're friends with at church raised hogs for a few families this year, with the understanding that we'd all participate in turning them to meat when it came time.  Since we butchered them ourselves, we basically got them for the cost of feeding them.

They went Friday morning, and Atticus was the one who killed our pig.  I saw video of it, and I was so thankful to the Lord that it was so humane.  Atticus was a dead shot with the rifle, and the pig went down so quickly and without pain.  The guy who was walking everyone through each step of the process, who estimated he'd personally processed tens of thousands of pigs in his lifetime, said to Atticus, "Nice shot, kid!"  Of the four pigs done that day, ours was done the smoothest and Atticus held his own with the men.  He felt really proud of himself, as he should.

After that came the gutting and skinning and all of that loveliness.  Then the meat was hung up overnight, and the boys spent a little time practice shooting at our friend's range before coming home.

The next morning they were off again, this time to part the meat out into usable cuts.

The younger brothers were in charge of bagging the cuts.

I got two giant hams (which I'm going to cure and hopefully smoke before Easter), twenty pounds of bacon (again, the plan is to cure and smoke it), pork chops, bones, lard and a tonnnnnn of ground pork (we eat a lot of sausage).  I lost count of the bags as I was loading them into the freezer, so I need to go back and count them to find out just how many.  But I think we ended up with about 200# of meat, and we only paid $300, plus we know how our pig was both raised and killed.  I'm really happy with how it went, and I think we'll plan to do this again next year.

So far, I've made pork chops..  The flavor was really good - not "piggy" or "farmy", you know what I mean? - but I overcooked them so they turned out dry.  Wamp wamp.  After all that work the boys did, I dried out the meat.  Luckily we have plenty more for me to practice on.

On Sunday, we all made it to church, and it actually went well!  We are in a season where church is really hard for us.  The babies don't do well missing nap, and it's hard for me to wrangle them both.  Todd has his hands full with the other eight in service (most of whom do fine, but the littler ones need a lot of supervision), and Penelope has been having some health issues that make church difficult for her to manage.  But while the babies did cry for much of the morning, by the time service was over, they'd calmed down, and Penelope felt well enough to stay a bit longer, so we all stayed for the fellowship meal instead of some of us needing to come home early.  So that was really wonderful.  As the babies get closer to a year old, and as we learn more about managing Penelope's health, I'm starting to catch little glimmers of normalcy returning.

On Monday, we kicked off Spring Break!  It's been a nice breather, and the weather has been beautiful, so we've been soaking it in.  We had some friends over for a play date, and another family over for dinner.  I went grocery shopping and had an eye doctor appointment.  We washed and deep cleaned the van.  Atticus started some spring yardwork for some of his mowing clients.  We cleaned up our own yard.  This morning we're going to go to the yard waste site to get some compost.  This week has been both restful and productive, which I feel is the best way to spend break because you don't feel like you squandered it by the end.

The kids wanted to ride bikes, but they need supervision out front and I often don't have time to just sit there, so I decided to multitask and fold laundry while watching.  I was quite the spectacle to the neighbor kid, who just calls me Ten Kids Lady and who wanted to know how much laundry I have to do each week.  A lot of laundry, Twenty Questions Kid.  A lot of laundry.

Today I need to get some school planning done, because Finneas is skipping to the next grade starting on Monday.  When he started school, it took him a little while to get his feet under him, so we moved slowly.  But how he's really accelerating, and I think it's time to move him forward.  It's kind of a weird time of year to make major changes, but I think we'll be happy we did.  So I need to print off our syllabus, pull out our books, and rearrange my daily schedule to fit in yet another grade level of instruction - he's currently working in the same grade as Laurelai, so now that they'll be in two separate grades, I'll need to carve out more instructional time.  I don't know where it's going to come from, but we'll figure it out.

The younger kids have nine weeks of school left, the three oldest have twelve.  We are getting very close to summer break and I'm getting excited!  Okay, now I'm off to figure out how to smoke these hams.  Have a great weekend!

Lunchtime spent in the front row of this gentlemen's duel.  Nonplussed.

what's up weekly. (there's a lactraitor in our midst.)

Oh gravy.  This week has been a wild ride.  Just grab yourself a cup of coffee, settle in, and get ready to hear about how my boob tried to kill me.

Last Saturday, Finneas had some friends over for pizza and hanging out, to celebrate his upcoming birthday.  (He's not the boob who tried to kill me; I'm getting there.  Just let me cook.)  There was a specific moment when I was standing there talking to one of his friends when I suddenly thought, "I do not feel good," but there wasn't much I could do about it at the moment.  The friends went home, I made Sabbath dinner, and I felt like I was getting a cold but not much more.

But by the evening, I had a headache and was feeling less well, so I made the decision to keep the babies and Oey home with me from church the next day, which was good because I woke up with a low fever and I felt like crap.  And the cherry on top was that I had developed a clogged duct overnight, so I even woke up early to pump because it was starting to get uncomfortable.  Through the day, I continued to feel unwell and headachey, but I mostly just felt like I was getting the recurrent chest gunk I've been fighting with all winter. 

By Monday morning, I was pretty sure I had influenza.  I was achey and headachey and had spiked a really high fever - it was up to 105 at one point, and even with Tylenol I was only able to get it down to 103.  I could barely get out of bed or off the couch.  I slept on and off most of the day, and other than feeding the babies and then laying them down for naps, I asked the big kids to watch them because I was so sick.  I couldn't get myself in and out of the tub or shower without my temperature spiking painfully.  I barely was able to eat or drink anything and I puked a couple of times.  I had texted my midwife to ask what I could take for the fever, and she said it didn't sound like mastitis, even though the clogged duct was getting more painful, because with mastitis, fevers don't typically go that high and you don't barf.

But by Tuesday, my fever was still just as high and I was sweating profusely all day.  I was able to smell infection coming out of my pores on my left side, and the mastitis swelling and rash had started.  By the afternoon I was puking up everything I swallowed.  My milk supply seemed totally drained by the fact that I hadn't had much to eat or drink for two days, and everything I did consume came back up.  The babies weren't eating and were crying.  It was all so much.  So Todd ran out and picked up some antibiotics from a nurse friend of ours.

By the time we went to bed that night, just a few hours after taking the first pill, my fever had broken, the pain started to ease off a little, and I had stopped puking.  I woke up at 4:00 a.m., hungry and able to eat for the first time in days.  I chugged a whole quart of water and stood in front of the fridge in the dark, eating cold rotisserie chicken like someone in an ad for depression meds.

By Wednesday morning, I was feeling so much better, I half-jokingly asked Todd if I could just take all the antibiotic pills at once because they made me feel so good.  He half-jokingly compared me to Johnny Cash and said "they make me feel good" is the reason everyone gives for taking too many handfuls of prescription meds.  So we came to the mutual agreement that I'll only take them as prescribed.

Anyway, by yesterday I was still on the mend.  The thrill of feeling better has worn off a bit and I'm feeling tired and still very sore and in pain, though that's improving.  My main concern is getting my milk supply back up for the babies.  Eulalie willingly takes a bottle, but I'm running low on stored breastmilk to give her, and Knox won't even take a bottle.  So it's been a challenging couple of days.  I've tried to increase their table foods, but Knox seems to have food sensitivities, and I'm afraid of giving him the wrong thing or too much of something, which would cause him to vomit and end up emptier than he was before.  Eulalie tolerates cow's milk, but too much gives her a rash, and even a little bit makes Knox puke.  I think I'm going to ask our milk farmer for some goat milk this week and give that a try, but again... risking new things with Knox makes me nervous, and also, I don't even know if I could get him to drink it because again, he doesn't take a bottle. 

I really just need my supply to come back up, but I worry that won't happen.  Prayers would be appreciated.

OKAY.  Now, on to better, less boob-centric, news.

1.  Todd started Academia Latina with the younger crew a couple weekends ago.  He had taught the older two kids the introductory levels back when we lived in Columbia, and they've continued to self-instruct since then.  But it was time for Finneas and Laurelai to jump in, and Rocco was capable of joining them... and then since Todd was already right there teaching, the younger girls decided to join in... and thus was born The Academia.

The little girls paying close attention in class.

2.  Eulalie can now sit.  Yes, that is late.  Yes, I know it's kind of weird she can crawl but she couldn't sit yet.  But anyway, we're all squared away now.

Pretty girl.

3. Laurelai had her half birthday.

4.  AND FINNEAS TURNED THIRTEEN!

To be honest, I'm a little surprised he survived this long.  Or not at all surprised.  One or the other.  

He is quick-witted and funny.  He's competitive.  He's charismatic and always has a little gaggle of followers.  He's diligent at his schoolwork and values doing well.

He told me once that he wanted to get in a fight sometime, just so he could get the chance to feel what it felt like to punch a bully in the face.  When I said that it meant he'd probably get punched in the face, too, he simply shrugged and said, "Oh, that doesn't scare me."  While I think it shows he's still young and a bit naive, it also shows something more deeply true about him: he's genuinely not afraid of things that I assume people must be afraid of.  He's brave in ways I don't fully understand.  He doesn't go along with the crowd, and often gets the crowd to follow him instead.

He's loyal and committed, and he and Rocco have such a tight, unique bond.  He is tenderhearted with the babies and loves helping to dress and hold them.  

As Todd wrote here, it seems like God has singled him out for special work.  I'm excited to see what that is.

The kids dressed up Knox like the Stars and Stripes.  (Or, really, I dressed him like the Stripes, and then the kids got the idea to top him off with the Stars.)

Well, there's the news.  Today, Todd and the boys will be off butchering a hog, and the girls and I have some house cleaning to tackle, so it looks like a great start to a great weekend.  Hope you have a good one, too!

what's up weekly: Valentine's Day is obviously all I care about.

Hi folks!  Brace yourself: I'm about to just absolutely slam you with Valentine's Day details.  Are you ready?

Todd took me out to dinner the night before (I hate crowds and would rather rip out my own fingernails than be caught dead at a restaurant on Valentine's Day, so it was perfect to go the night before when things were comparatively dead).  We went to a local place that makes the best fried mushrooms and smoked rib tacos, and they sent us home with to-go cups of Diet Coke and it was just the best.  We stopped at Walmart on the way home to get some flowers and decor for the next day's celebration.  (And also Pringles, because one time when we went out we brought home some Pringles for the kids to reward them for doing a good job, and now Juni thinks date nights = Pringles nights.  So I guess we're doing that now.)

After the kids went to bed, I decorated for the morning and wrapped presents.  We don't go huge or anything, but I have enjoyed making our Valentine's celebration a little bigger and a little prettier each year.  I love getting to do something special for the kids to celebrate how much we love them, and I also love that it has become a bright, sunny spot in the middle of February.  We decorate, we get each of the kids a small gift, we make waffles (or, this year, pancakes) with whipped cream and chocolate syrup and sprinkles for breakfast.  Like I said, not huge, but special.

My fatal flaw is that I refuse to iron tablecloths.

The younger girls got Best Friends necklaces and bracelets...

...for obvious reasons.

They younger boys got accessories for their WWE ring.

Lolo got a jean jacket she has been dyyyyyyyying for.

Penelope got a bookshelf and tiny books for her dollhouse.

Atticus got a Metallica CD.

And Oey got a new princess dress.

Ope, things are getting intense over here in the arena.

Later in the morning, each of the boys gave each of the girls a rose, and because even the babies got in on the festivities, we needed three dozen roses to have enought!

The boys handing me the roses they picked out specially for me:

After lunch, the girls had some friends from church come join them for an afternoon of baking.  They made brownies for the Psalm Sing later that evening.  Their mom, Brooke, is a good friend and an esthetician and she kindly waxed Penelope's eyebrows for the first time.  (Hey.  I am a millennial and I have seen my share of badly done eyebrows, some of which were my own.  We weren't leaving this first foray into facial grooming up to amateurs.)

That evening, instead of doing a cheeseboard like we normally do on Valentine's Day, Todd and some of the kids went to the Psalm Sing, and I kept some of the others at home.  The Psalm Sing was being held out of town at a church we'd never been to before, and since I needed to stay home with the babies anyway, I kept Oey, Juni and Callista with me so Todd didn't have the youngest ones to keep track of in a new place.  Penelope also wanted to stay home, so she joined us as well.  We had pizza for dinner, popped some popcorn, and watched Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets while we waited for everyone else to come home.

The next morning, I woke up kind of congested and worn out, so I didn't really leverage my Saturday the way I should have.  I just kind of laid around and read books all day, which was both delightful and exhausting.  In the evening, we had our Valentine's Day cheeseboard for Sabbath dinner, which was so nice because I didn't have to cook anything.  Such a lowkey weekend.

On Tuesday, the twins turned nine months old - NINE MONTHS.

It's Pork and Beans!

They are just wild lately.  Since recovering from being sick in January, it's like they've been trying to make up for lost time by hitting all kinds of milestones at once.  Since their eight-month update, Eulalie is now waving, crawling, sitting up, cutting lots of new teeth, and even saying 'hi' (I swear... I think).  Knox is playing peekaboo and growing the longest, funniest hair by his ears.  

He looks like he thinks she's hilarious.  In reality, they don't really seem to pay all that much deliberate attention to one another yet, other than the cutest cutey cute habit that Beans has of turning around and looking for Knox whenever she's laid down for nap.  She wants to see if he's in his bed.  And then, without fail, over the course of naptime she will wiggle to the other end of her bed so she can be closer to him.

Their personalities summed up in one concise photo.

Is that not just the butteriest biscuit you ever did see?

They're still in 0-3 month clothing (Eulalie is 12 lb, 13 oz, Knox is a whopping 12 lb, 15 oz), and they're still taking three naps a day, so in some ways they still seem so little.  But things do seem to be getting easier - I recently dropped their nightly baths, since it created so much chaos during dinner time, and now the evenings feel significantly more manageable.  Nursing is still going well, and we're playing around with solids.  I gave the babies eggs this past week, and Knox did not tolerate them well - he was barfing everywhere for a few hours afterwards (not spit up, actual real puke) and I even had to nurse him in the bathtub so I could rinse him off when he'd barf while eating.  But once the egg was out of his system, he was totally fine again.  He reacted similarly when I tried giving him dairy a while back, so I think his tummy just isn't ready for those things, though Lalie doesn't seem to have any issue.

Anyways.  We sure do love these babykins.

Beans is on the move, on the move, alleluia!  Beans is on the move in many tiny ways.

Juni LOVES holding the babies.

Now that Eulalie can crawl, she loves going over to the spot on the floor where the fireplace key inserts and stealing the metal guard.  Here she is chewing on this most precious of treasures.

And speaking of girls who love babies, Callista has been in the parenting zone this week.  Todd came upstairs the other day to find her "nursing" Strongdor (her special doll), and when he asked her if she was nursing, she shrugged and said, "Yeah, and I pumped earlier."

Here is a photo of Strongdor joining us at the table, with her own miniscule pancake on her own miniscule plate.

And that was our week!