January stuff

40th birthday party of a childhood friend of mine in DC

We got a new computer (for the kids)

Our first snow day… with 1/4 inch of snow. Roo's teeny snowman

Advent adventures

We made salted caramels at some new friends' house this week. The mom, Amy, is in my Bible study. Six of us moms baked and chatted while our combined 21 kids played. Super fun afternoon with an outstanding end result.

Next up: Nutrcracker performance this morning in Richmond. I took Roo and Goose while Monkey had a playdate and a babysitter watched the kids. Amazing performance, perfect for kids. Abridged, but the whole story (which I'd never gotten before); 50 minutes long. We rode down with two friends and their daughters and met two other families we know there; afterwards we went out for pizza lunch and went window-shopping. Fun and special girls'  Advent day.

Homeschool co-op Christmas party

Potluck lunch including hot chocolate, live group caroling, marshmallow roasting, s'mores, caroling, Night Before Christmas reading, and make-your-own gingerbread treats (in our case, Christmas "tree" comprised of sugar cones covered with green frosting and candy decorations). Now that's what I call a good party. Lucky us!

Fall "learning events"

Last month we took a field trip to Jamestown Settlement with the homeschool hybrid class of the eldest two (plus parents and siblings). Gorgeous day - fun time… Despite the fact that Goose had sprained her ankle the evening before and was in a stroller and otherwise hobbling the entire time. (Never a dull moment).

Ten days ago HF got his first deer in a decade in our back field. Our friend Ricky from church is a professional butcher and came over within two hours of the kill to butcher it for us in our backyard. Homeschool biology class for Monkey and Roo!

Monday we went to Luray Caverns, again with the homeschool crew from Monkey and Roo's "school." Amazing sights there! Well enjoyed.

(Though I must say… I'm glad to now have 8 total hours of solo field-trip-driving with 4 kids in the car behind me! All in a 3-week time period, to boot. Whew.)

September stuff

I'm not going to try to fill in the blanks - descriptively or pictorially - on the past 6 weeks. Too much stuff! Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, alumni family camp at Brookwoods in NH, and a 5 day canoe trip in northernmost Maine on the Allagash River by HF and two old friends. Full! Blessed.

Instead: picking up from last week. Monkey and Roo are back in school at the same hybrid as they did last year. Goose is doing a pre-K class at her preschool, though she is technically a kindergartener (doing homeschool kindergarten with me). And - drumroll please - this fall Mouse has kicked off preschool as well! She's in the T/Th class Monkey was in last year with the same beloved teacher. She's so excited to be big enough at last.

Our first week back in action was immediately after we returned from New England, and HF was still away. That said, it went extremely well. Now we are getting into soccer, gymnastics, AWANA, Little Flowers, and homeschool co-op. Ramping up! And I start "back to work" next week myself.

Quiet reading time in the evening when littlest two are in bed

Within 6 hours of HF's return, we got a flat tire in the van! At soccer practice

Homeschool PE started up at the Y; this year the oldest three participate

DC outing day

Yesterday we took a pass on swim team practice and the kids and I met up with some old friends from NH days for a Washington DC outing day. They live in Frederick, MD and have been in the area for quite some time; they are very familiar with the ins and out of DC (unless us). Cari and her three kids - boys ages 8 and 7 and girl age 5 1/2 - took us through the Museum of Natural History and the bottom section - lit-up moving walkways! - of the gorgeous National Art Museum. (We'll have to go back there for real sometime; what a place! Artist Roo in particular is eager.) Added bonus: there were some phone booths, now empty of phones, for the kids to pile into and play around in. Funny archaic items… Good fun on a HOT, hot day. We rounded it out with the fountain and some ice cream, and everyone was happy!

Events and Easter

Monkey is on a soccer team this spring, the "Giants." So far so good:

The two oldest rocked their science fair presentations on Thursday; tons of hard work put in on the experiments, the boards, and the oral reports. The judges were impressed! So proud.

We went to DC yesterday, the crew and I. No trouble getting in and we parked right on the mall in a free, 3-hr space (then instantly found another, 3 spaces down, when the first 3-hour slot was up). Amazing. The mall merry-go-round was a big hit:

We had some time to wait to meet up with our friends the Schumans, and we spent a lot of it running up and down the steps of the National Gallery of Art, Rocky style, and timing ourselves:

Great time on the mall with the Schumans and their crew, including picnic, soccer and red-light/green-light, Air & Space Museum, and ice cream.

The dads were off on a surprise 40th birthday hiking venture with a bunch of other men in the Shenandoah Valley (not pictured here. But good times!)

Easter today was fun! The Johnsons came up from Richmond to share Easter dinner with us, and play, and do a farm egg hunt. Gorgeous day! Gorgeous kids--

We are blessed! And He is risen!

Firehouse, Alabama and infants, science fair, peacocks

Goose had a field trip to the fire station! Siblings came too (her best friend Abby has twin brothers)

Roo and I went down to AL for four days to help Aunt Katie & co with adorable new baby Charlotte while Uncle Mac was out of town. So fun! And great bonding time for Roo and me to be off together on a venture like this. Rest of the family went to CT to hang with Nona, Grandpa, and the crew up there.

My dear friend Christie from CA moved to AL (her home state) with her family of 7 two months ago to become full-time farmers. I took Roo and her two oldest cousins to visit them at their new site for the day. So very fun and refreshing to be with them.

April is science fair month for the two big kids. Monkey is doing "which kind of wood burns the fastest?" and Roo is doing "what liquid cleans pennies the best?" Here we see the wood-burning-experiment (round 3):

Our neighbors have a peacock, and he's been frequenting our yard. Here he is on our (theoretically) screened-in-porched off our bedroom. Hilarious:

In mom news… I ran a 15K race this weekend! My farthest distance in 10 years. Made good time (for me) too; I was very pleased. 

Sheep and snow

On Sunday HF and Monkey set out to bring home our three new sheep - one ewe, one buck, and one lamb. They were sufficiently small for him to elect to bring them home in the back of the van (with the seats taken out). Evidently the ewe, the largest one, was extremely loud in her bellowing, earning her the name "Bellow." Both men wished they had ear muffs. Otherwise the pick-up went well. HF told the kids they could pick whatever names they wanted - Roo was at the helm of naming, I believe - so long as their last name was "Whom We're Going to Eat." So that settled it. We have Bellow, Checker, and Snowball Whom We're Going to Eat.

Eighteen hours after they arrived, it started snowing. HF had set up a shelter/pen for the sheep under the carport so they could stay warm. They're tough; they were fine. Here they are with Roo toward the end of our snow-day (we got four inches):

Today is (of course) another snow day because our town has a one-step snow removal strategy for its roads - as I believe I've mentioned before. That is: 1). Wait for the snow to melt. Which is what we - and our town - are doing today. Here are two of our snow-happiest kids outside making a snow blob:

Here's Roo working on her homeschool work (we got ample this time from our teacher, as the quantity of snow days is meriting this) with a colossal pencil:

And the happiest part of our snow hiatus this time around is that we borrowed the entire set of Star Wars movies from a kind friend. Monkey - who has been extremely anxious to see them - was ecstatic. We have watched nearly all six movies since we borrowed them Friday. I have to say, the've saved the day this time around!

Winter comes to our house

It's been one year since we moved to Virgina; we had our Virginia-versary last week. Then, ironically, we had a do-over of our MLK week from last year: a rash of back-to-back snow days. The way it worked last year was this:
We arrived at the house last January on Wednesday. We unpacked and got organized from then through the following Monday, which was MLK Day. Then the kids started school - first day! - on Tuesday. Big news. But short-lived… because Wed, Thurs, and Fri were all snow days. So their 4-day school week turned into a 1-day school week, and we basically had to have a do-over first-day-of-school the following week.

It was hard. The whole first half of the year was hard, but the start - what I've been remembering so much this week - was hard too. We knew no one. Our house and household were barely functional; mess and chaos were pervasive. We had no outlets or community or routine.

I've thought so much about it, because this time around has been so different. So very much better. Such irony that on exactly the same holiday, the circumstances have been so nearly identical one year later. Tuesday it began snowing around 1 pm; school had already been canceled (of course). It snowed 3 inches before midnight. But school has been canceled ever since. They don't really plough here - not much anyway - and there are so many dirt roads. Little has melted due to below-freezing temps. Result: 3 inches of snow, and 4 days off of school. (Schools are still closed today, because there's too much ice on the country roads for buses to run.) 

Our homeschool-hybrid follows the town for weather-related closures, so our kids have had the whole week off "school" too. But this time it's been fine. Wednesday we had some local friends over for 4 or 5 hours (two boys 10 and 12, and a 4-year-old girl). Thursday Monkey went over to his fellow cub scout friend's house for the day, and Roo and Goose visited other friends' girls for the afternoon while Mouse napped and I worked. And this morning we had our homeschool co-op, so it was a normal Friday.

I am so thankful. So thankful to have a life and enough contacts and community now to not feel stranded and isolated. So thankful to have a house that "works" and feels cosy and home-like. So thankful for the difference a year can make.

And of course -- the snow has been nice. Beautiful and somewhat fun - though it's been too powdery to build anything (snowmen or snowballs), and too shallow to dig into much. We don't have sleds, and they sold out fast in town, so we didn't do much of that. It's also been so darn cold outside that the young set doesn't last out there very long anyway.

Some wintry pics: