The UPS man came for a pick-up today, my first ever! This is my third attempt to get Drew’s cell phone to him. Between his and my luck, it will probably be sent back at the border, lol. He’s officially in Canada and we are going to find out today where he is serving, and I’m so excited to hear from him!
Anyway, back to the UPS man, he caught us in quite the moment. Maia and Eli were cutting the corn off the cob from last night’s dinner with a ton of corn from the neighbors. Xai and Liesl were helping to add the salt and lemon juice to the tomato jars that held tomatoes from our garden and our neighbor’s garden that we were processing. Havala was rotating tomatoes through the hot water bath to scald them so they would peel more easily and Piper and I were skinning, quartering and stuffing jars.
And Penelope had decided moments before to lose it and start screaming at the top of her lungs.
I had just reached down to pick her up and try to calm her down when I happened to see the UPS man coming to our door. I was a little stressed about whether I had followed the packaging directions correctly so had waited to attach the documents. Once he assured me I was good, I started to tape on the forms when he stopped me.
“I can tape it up, ma’am.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I have plenty of tape.” Then, with a significant glance at the house that contained a wailing baby and clouds of steam from processing tomatoes and working children, “I am happy to do it. You have your hands full.” As he respectfully took the package from me and walked away, I thought ruefully, I bet he doesn’t walk into a home environment like this every day.
It was a fun moment.
The kids rocked out with Looney Tunes to celebrate being done with picking and processing (and jobs and basics); Hyrum was busy driving comps for Quinn and grabbing some last minute goodies for Lily, who is departing for the MTC in Provo tomorrow (and Australia the week after that!!!!!); Piper was watching political debates; so Quinn and I decided to head out for a little run. Well, hard for me, little for him until we parted ways and I headed back and he headed on. We’re both out of shape but that means two different levels of expectations ;). It was good to get out together. The day wasn’t too hot nor humid and there was even a slight breeze at first.
Penelope is now sleeping. Liesl is insisting that she needs to learn how to read RIGHT NOW. Eli is resting on the couch, relaxing to the quiet time YouTube video we have on; Maia is relaxing in her room, as is Xai…one reading, the other doing math, most likely. Piper is back to political debates, Havala helped me get some Rhodes rolls going for Lily’s last dinner for a long time with us (trying not to be hugely heart broken about that), and now I’m going to go out and play a game with Lily until we start video messaging with Drew in about 30 minutes. I did sneak a shower in; the laundry is almost as high as an elephant’s eye; my closet is trashed, the house is relatively straight. I am feeling peace in my heart as God teaches me how to accept and love myself…He’s actually quite good at it once I really opened my heart to listen.
A couple of nights ago, we were kneeling in prayer with Quinn being our voice when I heard the distinct sound of liquid drops rapidly spattering on a plate. I looked over to see Eli trying to hold in his urine, while it freely flowed onto a plate as he stood over it on the couch. Yuck! Crazy kid. Poor kid. I know he doesn’t like to have bladder problems just as Xai doesn’t like having bugger problems.
Lily has started writing in her journal more regularly. It’s cool. I’m excited for her and her posterity.
Yesterday was a good day. I woke up late (Penelope was up with a thunderstorm a bunch and we went to bed late) and hurried out to let the chickens out. (Whom I forgot to close all the doors to last night so hopefully they are okay!) Speaking of chickens, we have caught two raccoons in the hen run in the past two weeks! Eli technically caught them in his empty, unbaited trap, crazy kid. Hey! I used that again! He is a sweetie!
Yesterday we also started our “Secret Sibling” exchange here at home since the girls (and soon Hyrum) will all be going to camp and the younger ones wanted something to look forward to. So they did that. Lily and I dropped off Maia and Havala at the girl’s camp drop-off at the church and then went and played pickleball and basketball. I beat Lily at pickleball and felt a little bad. I have had a lot of racqueting experiences and wanted her to have fun and want to get better at it and not just feel defeated. She won the first game pretty soundly but I won all the ones after that. I don’t like playing too hard because it feels mean. I guess I know how Quinn feels now?
Well, she got a turn to school me at basketball after that. I also arranged to pick up a booklet for Havala while we were there, we picked up some plants to fill in the holes in our garden and then grabbed some food at Wendy’s.
We have also been trying to donate a lot of shoes and clothes and books that we don’t use or need anymore and I think we finally got the last of the current batch out after Hyrum dropped some books off at the FVRC last night when he was driving through Stewart after working out with the football team.
I have a lot of worries for my kiddos: mainly worried that they won’t have the experiences they need to have a fulfilling life. I guess they don’t have some things, but it seems like even having those things (social, athletic, scholastic, etc) still doesn’t preclude success in later life if modern young adults are the measuring stick.
Hyrum watched the kiddos yesterday while Lily and I were gone and they played games (including the running and screaming and laughing hysterically kind :D!) and watched some Bluey. He is such a good kid.
I feel bad that I didn’t take the time to braid Maia’s hair tightly for camp before she left.
I ate too much and poorly yesterday. I’m having a hard time doing this “intuitive eating” thing when I’m tired and feeling down. My arm is also very sore. Whenever I do a lot of work with it, it starts hurting. It’s my right arm and I think I must have injured it while falling on it when chasing Eli at the temple grounds back in March. I’ll have to ask my brother Jon about it.
Lily and I cleaned up the house, which was still a little off from our painting project in the basement last week and our Fourth of July celebration with a BBQ with friends, going to the lake and watching fireworks. So fun! But time to clean.
I spent a long time herding chickens with Quinn last night. We have been losing a lot of them recently and are trying to slow down the trend. They are pretty spooked and don’t come as easily as they used to to the coop.
We are still trying to find a good home for Kujo. He needs someone who wants to hunt with him. That is what he is, a hunting dog.
We have a huge garden. I may have planned for too big of one. We also have all sorts of root rot happening since we have such a humid climate, but spent a good amount of time this morning trimming out the bottom of the plants so the sun could reach them and hopefully dry them up. Last year we lost all of our tomato plants pretty quickly to it. This year, we have already lost all of our cucumber plants. :( Maybe I can plant them again?
The kids have been troopers. Lily has been the corn weeder (a HUGE portion of the garden). Piper has knocked out the sections with cucumbers, butternut squash and canteloupe and they look amazing. Havala has been taking care of the tomato plants very well, Maia the peas and lettuce, Hyrum the super hard onions and carrots and Xai the peppers. I have been helping here and there and it's wonderful to come back later and see no weeds growing where I weeded. Yay for in depth weeding! I still have kiddos who don't bother to get the root out and we have to weed and weed and weed some more. I think they are starting to see the benefit now.
After we took care of some weeding and culling, we straightened up the barn for Mirabel, our pregnant cow, to have a place to lie down out of the rain. Elijah used the push lawn mower for the first time and did awesome! Maia took up the push mower and finished up the area and also did awesome! Hava, Liesl, Penelope and Xai helped me weed the strawberry plants and then we put a net over it. We are finishing all these projects that I've just been putting off.
Maia is mastering her math facts! She knocked out addition, subtraction and multiplication very quickly! She is super frustrated with not being a genius in 10 minutes, but I KNOW her genius just takes a little time and love to manifest itself. She read all seven Harry Potter books in about a week of reading. I think her favorite character is Snape. Or Moody, actually, even though he dies. She loves fashion, ice cream, friends and Oreos. She had a great time at camp, and made several friends in the Stake.
Havala and Maia are currently taking voice lessons and love it! Their teacher, Gracious Pack, struggles emotionally and mentally, but they enjoy when they can meet. :D Maia is singing a French song and Havala an Italian one.
Xai is super sweet. I just love him. He is a pretty good worker, loves math and science still and is learning how to not exact perfection from everyone around him :D. He and Piper did VERY well on their end of year scholastic tests. All the other kids rocked their tests, with strengths and weaknesses in different areas. Those two just seem to take tests better than the others.
Maia has been fun trying to help our new little kitten. We have a strange situation where our mamma cat had another little kitten before her other two kittens were full grown. Now they are nursing from her, too! It's really weird. Hyrum found the little baby mewing from the back of the trailer that is full of wood. I trust that the momma knows what she is doing.
Lily is starting the online MTC next week. Drew is still in Provo, leaving next Tuesday, which is a week before Lily arrives. SO fun. I am actually missing him a whole bunch and am trying not to think about missing Lily so much :S. Hyrum has also started his mission papers...so much fun! And so sad, all at the same time.
We have a new treadmill. Piper told Quinn that if he would purchase a treadmill, then she would tell him her deep dark secret from Medina, NY. $200 later Quinn got himself a secret and Piper had a treadmill! Well, we all do, but she is super excited about it!
Hyrum is trying to help save Federal Hocking football so he can play his senior year. We went to a school board meeting to support any action the district could take to make it happen. We'll see!
I love snuggling with Eli and Liesl before they go to sleep at night. And Penelope still goes to sleep with Quinn and I and then we move her to her port-a-crib where she is happier. Eli and Liesl still struggle to not wet the bed at night. We lost the previous two devices that alerted them when they wet the bed so I just ordered two more. Liesl is going to be super sad (and maybe Lily too) when Lily leaves to sleep on her own soon.
It's crazy to look at the picture at the top of the page and see how much everyone has changed. I guess this is fresh on my mind because Reka sent some old videos from Kel's phone and one had all the kids younger by about 2-3 years, so it's like everyone went back to the next younger person's age...and it was so sweet! We also received a bunch of digitized videos in the mail and enjoyed watching some movies from when the oldest kids were younger. So fun!
We had some stomach flu last week. Penelope got the worst and threw up for almost three days off and on....mainly at night. She was definitely lethargic.
Bigger news, Lily and Drew have been called to serve in the Melbourne Australia and Montreal Quebec French speaking missions respectively!! So happy for them. Drew leaves end of June and Lily the end of July. Pretty much opposite sides of the globe, I believe. Drew is learning French like mad and Lily is focusing on finishing up her school classes. Drew is going to sell his car and try and maybe get a job.
Hyrum and Piper are doing seminary right now. I love having the sounds in the house!
Quinn is up early attacking his appraisals. I am going to go down and paint after this, my "Family History" for the day. Then we are going to prep for our cow that is coming tomorrow. I am excited to give Havala a voice lesson today and play games with Eli and Xai. I might help Maia get her room and wall prepped too! We are hopefully going to build a climbing wall this week as well. So many good things!
Piper just got a new baby goat for free from a friend. In return she is going to help at their farm when they tag the herd and do a few other things. She called it "Hobbes" after the philosopher. We are going to take the other goats in later this week for processing. We are also prepping for our 24 meat chickens and 12 egg-laying chicks that are coming in two weeks. And getting the garden going and the basement finished up. And the wood shed. So much to do and so much fun, eh?
I loved snuggling Elijah to sleep last night during scripture reading.
Lily is up and prepping for the day with the three littlest. Super happy about that!
Oh, I need to remember to get her money and also pick up $900 for the cow and delivery fee for tomorrow. So much fun!!
Lily just got her wisdom teeth out and has "enjoyed" a few days of puffy cheeks. Unable to resist, Quinn told her, "Some chipmunks came to the door last night, but I told them that you weren't available until after your mission..."
"...but I only talked to the 'stud'munks, of course." He expertly threw in a little jibe at Piper, who once asked where all the "studmunks" were for the "chickmunks."
We were watching "Tall Girl" where she wants to have reductive surgery, and Hyrum commented, "Maybe if they stick more dead people in me, I would get taller!"
We were gathering up after church yesterday with our usual craziness and I asked Quinn where Xai (9) was.
"He's out in the van, jamming to music."
Intrigued, I had to go and see. Xai has "Heart of Courage" pumped up to full blast and was standing outside of the van doing some interpretive dance moves. He was completely into the music! Apparently, he did it for over 20 minutes, starting the song over again and again. I am sure everyone else in the parking lot enjoyed it. I know it made my day!!
For science, we are putting together Xai's new periodic table puzzle while he reads us facts about the elements from a book that came with it. (Thanks, Usbourne Books!) He finished reading about a particularly potent element that disintegrates EVERYTHING...."even human cells."
Elijah paused and looked up from his section of puzzle. "Even ketchup??"
Yup. Even ketchup.
******
I love being home.
I really enjoyed my precious two weeks reveling in the joy of being able to just love my grandson and his parents in Hungary and was able to recenter.
I can connect with God daily in the morning through prayer, feeling His peace as I make plans.
I can seek to love first, without fear, and for the first time in, well, ever, I am enjoying parenting without fear of the future. Feels so great.
I enjoyed waking up slowly from the couch I currently sleep on next to Liesl in their room as I try to help her stop wetting the bed at night. I also linger there so that I am there when she wakes up. (The two weeks away was pretty traumatic for her. When people asked her last Sunday when we were coming home, she told them, "Never." So sad!) I did have to sneak out to wake up Maia, Havala and Xai so they could finish their dinner help from the night before. (Okay, it was before 7 am...they weren't thrilled.) I threw on some peppy church music--starting with "Good Day"--and went back up to the couch to savor some scriptures and journal a bit, recording impressions from the night before and during my morning thoughts to organize my day.
With this fun music flowing and the motion felt, Elijah also started stirring from his bed next to Liesl. "Are they watching something without me??" was his first sentence of the day. Talk about built-in FOMO, lol! "Nope," I answered. "They are just doing their dinner help with some jammin' music!"
After a couple seconds, he replied, "I want to help!" A quick prayer together and making his bed got him off to a good start and then he was down helping Xai sweep with such a great attitude.
Wow. Didn't see that one coming.
Liesl woke up more slowly, but I didn't mind studying about the first years after creation and the fall of Adam. So much to think about! Main take-home point: involve God in the process and it'll be AWESOME. Not without pain and suffering and even death, but perfect. (Greek root of "perfect" meaning ="complete"!)
Got going with basics and kids--brushing teeth, critical shower for me, self-care. We had bacon, eggs and "mom's pancakes" (whole wheat--yum!) for a later breakfast and tucked in a CNN 10 for good measure. Nothing like a little COVID update! Also, some terrible stuff going on in Kazakhstan. So grateful for the peace we enjoy and praying for them!
Devotional after breakfast included a video from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints youtube channel about the creation and then a creation scavenger hunt. Each team of kids had five minutes to find something to represent each of the seven days of creation. So fun!
Xai loves to give speeches, so he gave one about the creation. (Super stirring with some great analogies between the sun, moon and stars and Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost respectively...love that kid.) We had a great song for our closing song, our favorite dance version. Quinn came in the middle of me and my middle-age uncoordinated body trying to dance like a cool kid. (He definitely had a smile on his face.)
After devotional, our new schedule includes a jump into math. Everyone does their own. Xai and Maia did multiplication practice...appropriate after our discussion of the creation, right? Get it? "Multiply and replenish the earth?" Multiply? Awesome. The other kids did their things and then we headed out to run. Every day. We run. The kids have different routes--older and younger. There is an ice cream bucket set out at the turn around point by the fastest person from the day before and everyone else takes a bandana with them of a distinct color and drops them off in the bucket of their age group...indicators that they made it that far. They can actually walk...or even crawl...if they wanted to. But I've learned that their is no "inspire not require" for running in this house. (TJEd reference.) Running is a form of work and it's just something we do. The kids have actually really loved it, surprisingly. Elijah had run there and back before any of the rest of us even left the first day! I go out and back with Liesl running and Penelope in the stroller, all bundled up. ("No such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing..." shameless endorsement of a fantastic book.)
Then when Liesl has someone with her either on the way back or at the house, I head out again to retrieve the buckets. By that time, even a snail could have covered the distance, but I have successfully incorporated regular jogging into my routine. Voila!!
Maia ended up getting into it slowly, as she was planning on taking some of our excess eggs to a neighbor that loves to buy them from her. I enjoyed a leisurely walk back with her since I hadn't bothered to change after putting on non-exercise clothes after my much-needed shower from earlier. Embracing it! We walked back to where she stowed the eggs and on a whim I decided to walk up with her to the house.
Good thing!!
I got the best soil prep lesson I could have ever got from someone who not only taught it for years, but actually lives next door and applies it! AND he's going to give me blackberry starts!!
His son, Jim, who lives across the way was up there and gave us a few pointers as well then headed home. As we walked down the driveway with our heads full of ideas, we heard Jim call out, "Come on over if you want to see a brand new calf!!"
So cool!!
We spent the next hour and a half learning about cows, pigs, meat chickens and pigs while watching this new little calf enjoy its first moments of life. SUPER cool. And another one was born while we were there! Talk about great science opportunity for the morning!
We headed home to Xai's much anticipated previously referenced Periodic Table lesson, complete with Drew's perfect prep song:
Xai faithfully read through a book full of difficult words and ideas while we did the puzzle...well, I got sidetracked recording this one in a million great homeschooling day so I didn't do much of the puzzle. I helped Liesl on the side with her Elsa puzzles that we brought back for her from Hungary. As she put it, "You LOVE this puzzle because you love me!!" Amen, sister! Always remember that...
When we reached something in Xai's book that referenced "radioactivity" we all decided that the following song would be the perfect mood music:
A little behind my loosely structured schedule but totally happy. Chose the highest truths, the best paths and feel peace. I love the little rudder in my heart that tells me I'm on course. Peace is the indicator. (Great video about that to follow!)
As President Russell M. Nelson says, "The only way we will survive these last days is by learning how to receive and act upon personal revelation." Love it. And I love that loving my children--and not fearing about all the things I am NOT doing--is among the highest truths I must honor right now. To love without fear. So beautiful.
I am learning that I can follow where my heart wants to take me and not always second guess it with all my years of learning about different learning styles, systems and "ways to raise your kids the best." I can just trust my heart and the way that leads to the most peace. That is all I can do. And I can be happy doing it.
*NOTE: I have to say that Hyrum, Piper and Lily are doing AWESOME in their three week tour of Europe. I am so proud of them and happy for them! They even handled getting pulled over by a policeman without breaking too much of a sweat...ended up just being a check for passports as they crossed a border. I can't wait to hear all their stories when they get back. Lily created a great photo journey on her Instagram account that reflects her ability to capture art. She has the knack! I will be so happy to see them next week.
Drew just hear me
say, “We have too many windows open!!” In his sick mind, he
wondered for a solid few seconds, “What do windows have to do with
the computer?”
Liesl just spent a
few moments making her stuffed white alligator eat Piper's arm up and
down while Piper played the piano. After the alligator was done
eating, Liesl consoled Piper.
“Don't worry. I'm
the headmaster. I will make your arm come back.”
