Piper’s Win

There are few things that make me kick-in-the-gut proud than seeing something I love about myself blossoming in my children.  Since becoming a homeowner, I’ve prided myself on fixing/problem-solving/engineering what is not working.



Tonight, Piper was microwaving her frozen strawberries, but the platter wasn’t turning.  She allowed me to be her advisor and assistant, but she was going to fix it.  Within an hour, we had removed the bottom layers of the appliance, all to get to the little piece that connects the upper plastic dohickey to the thingabob underneath that rotates it.  Not only did we fix that, we cleaned out all the years of collected grease, and to understate the complexity of this, put it all back together.  I got to show Piper the time honored tradition of putting tricky pieces together only to realize you forgot a piece.…and redoing everything. 


In fact the only one in the room more proud of Piper than me, was her. 

Three Day Weekend at the Cabin

We were so fortunate that the cabin was available for MLK weekend!  Kyla was going to be at Winter Camp all weekend, but I had already been asked to watch my niece and nephew for at least part of the weekend and also was going to take Piper's BFF to the cabin for the weekend.  So I had 2 of my own, and then 3 extra kids (plus the cabin neighbor girl I would adopt in a heartbeat, who is Wesley's age and is distinguished by being adored by all my children, even when they don't adore each other).

The boys shared a room the first night together before Cecily got there, and this is what it looked liked after about an hour of arriving.

Piper and Abs took it upon themselves to clean it up while also minding their 3 dolls.







I got talked into taking all the kids down to "our" beach (again, before Cecily arrived).

Yep, the older girls took off their shoes and rolled up their pants while playing with the beach clay...in January.  Go ahead, you can shiver while you read this.

I tried to read, blog, and prep Math Team that weekend, but that many kids in a small space doesn't give me many places to hide.  Next cabin project...

Happy 9th Birthday, Wes!

My baby turns 9 tomorrow, but we had his party after school today.  When he was younger (and had less than the current 27 classmates), we’d invite his entire class.

This year, I let him invite 8 friends to walk home with him (and the 5th  grade sisters of half of those boys), shoot Nerf guns at each other and eat Oreo ice cream cake for 90 minutes.  No gifts, no fuss,  and the cleaner is coming tomorrow.  Maybe happy unbirthday to me!

Stupid Tall Tree

And by “stupid tree”, I mean “I don’t want to carry up the ladder from the garage again”.  Luckily, a folding stool atop a barstool—and no one else around to give sounder counsel—let me reach the star on top.  See, this is what happens when I have a chore and no one to supervise.  Or bring me a ladder.

Starting 2019 at a New Low!

He made his first major goal;  sub 200!!

Year’s End Audible Stats

It’s funny that *I*  get virtual credit for our audible awesomeness.  Since it’s digital, it’s very easy to keep track of how much we read.   All the kids and I use Audible to listen to many books, but Kyla uses it far and away the most often.  [And I have relied more and more on Libby, an app that downloads library books; it’s both easy and free, but you can’t always get the books you want right away.  Being part of the library system, there can be holds and waits.  Still, very worth it, especially for a books I want to explore, but not own forever.]

Books added this year:  64 (for a total of 164 books in our Audible library)

1278 Hours listened –that’s over 53 days! (mostly Kyla!)

Good-Bye 2018, Hello ‘19!

From our family to yours!