You'd Think The World Was Ending

Tomorrow (Friday 1/23) my beautiful wonderful daughter Becky turns 8. She's excited, I'm excited, we have a party planned with cake and all the things..,

Yet, the day after tomorrow (Saterday 1/24) at 8pm there is supposed to be a snow apocalypse and all of central Virginia where I live is apparently freaking out. Okay, okay, they are calling for 14-24 inches of snow and maybe some ice and I get it, that's quite a lot but THERE IS NO FOOD AT THE STORE. 

Okay, there was some food. But no onions. NO berries for Becky's party (I'm going to look tomorrow at another store) and we might have got one of the last boxes of size 6 diapers. What is going on? I don't understand. WHERE IS ALL THE FOOD? My town has lost its mind. This is crazy. 

I know they will restock, but really, GERAD DID YOU need to buy all the onions? 

It's giving 2020-2021 pandemic vibes. Anyone else remember when everything was gone from the store? 

Today was such a beautiful day. We went to nature group and enjoyed beautiful balmy 40 degree weather, which is the high for the week...I looked at our weather app and saw things like "5" and "15" and decided I'm not leaving the house until spring comes. I will hibernate with my babies and drink hot chocolate with my raw milk and eat lots of fresh sourdough bread. I need more blankets, or perhaps I need to move south. Both sound like very feasible options. 

Anyway, today was great. We all got some sun in nature group!

Poor Esther decided she didn't want to walk back to the car and so Becky gave her a piggy back half the way and Lina (Becky's friend from nature group) carried her the other half of the way. It was so sweet. I am so glad they helped because my mom-meter had reached boiling and I just wanted to leave... I need to learn more patience. Esther's only two. And she's wonderful. Mom guilt is hard... I'm not good with stubborn two-year-olds sometimes. 

Our Nature Group is the best. Two of Becky's little friends will be at her birthday tea party tomorrow! 

I hope I can find onions. And strawberries.

If today was this crazy at the store, I wonder what tomorrow will be like?!

As I was braiding Becky's hair tonight I told her it would be the last time I braided her hair as a 7-year old girl and she was like oh no! I don't know how to braid my own hair! And I was like...it's because tomorrow you will be EIGHT silly and I"ll braid your 8 year old hair!! And then we all laughed and laughed and I love my family. 

I turned 39

I had a wonderful birthday yesterday. It was hard (because poor little Esther woke up with a cold) and also fun... I made my favorite cake with einkorn flour and topped it with raspberries. That part of my birthday was delicious. I finished the cake off as a brunch treat after church today while making lunch for everyone. Yum.

I woke up to snow on my birthday which was fun! It all melted by noon which was also great. 

Brian took the kids to swim practice so I could have a quiet coffee date with my friend. I got matcha and so did she. It was great to catch up. I'm so busy homeschooling I barely have time to remember I have friends sometimes. I hope we can all get together in the summer again. Summer seems so far away what with having a two year old, planning a garden, homeschooling and taking the kids to cognitive brain therapy...cooking and cleaning...I love my job, and my choice to be a stay at home mom, but everyone gets overwhelmed sometimes. The Sunday school teacher at church today reminded us in class that even Jesus took breaks from everyone and went off to be alone in the desert and that everyone needs time away. 

I need to remember that. Sometimes I push too hard and forget to rest. 

Matcha is pretty, isn't it? Alas, it definitely had a lot of caffeine in it and made the day a little interesting. But I'm excited I got to have one. 

Poor little sick Esther. She had a rough last two nights with a little cold that kept her up. And she mostly slept on mama and it's been so long since that has happened that mama didn't sleep well. But who needs sleep? It's not like I'm busy.

That was a joke. Everyone laugh with me.

Anyway, I did have a great birthday. Becky made me two beautiful cards and Reuben drew me three amazing pictures that I think I will treasure forever. Brian bought me a skirt and a new Chromebook which is perfect, since our old one broke! I use the Chromebook all the time when I'm homeschooling or to pop a movie on for the kids. 

The kids and I are doing a screen free week next week, I might be the only one excited. We have a full week, including a new osteopathic manipulation appointment on Monday for me. 

I have been feeling a little down. Sometimes I have the problem of thinking I am the sum of my unfinished to-do list and when that list gets quite long I feel like a failure. Anyway, I am reminding myself that since I'm a sinner, it can't get any worse and I should keep my eyes on Jesus and on his unending mercy and goodness, which covers even the pile of unsorted laundry that hast been in my living room for three days... and even my bad attitude and grumpiness. The laundry bothers me, but it's the attitude I want to work on most. God is good, and I need him. It's been a hard season of finding my way through Christ and I know it isn't over yet (because I'm still here...) and I now my children need me. I hope I can point both them and my husband to Jesus.

Here is to another week! I need to plan some crock pot meals, the treasure that warms the heart of all mothers through every stage of life.

Here is to the last year of my thirties! It went by so fast and was chock full of babies. Each of my darlings spent some of their babyhoods in the third decade of my life... it's been a whirlwind. Reuben born in 2015, Becky in 2018 and Esther in 2023. It's been a crazy 10 years.

I ended the day by playing some animal crossing on my lovely island with Mint, my favorite resident. 

Two Weeks with Equipping Minds, and Other Life Updates

This equipping minds cognative brain program is intense. After two weeks I can already notice some improvement with Reuben. For one, he doesn't cry anymore at art time! He usually dislikes art. After the first week he's enjoying it! And drawing extra! It's been amazing to see even such a small change.

Another change is he has started reversing letters. This is his brain working. He never reversed letters regally before. I think it is part of the healing process as his brain grapples with understanding what he is doing. For a bit he started writing the number 4 for the letter F and then he erased that and wrote F backwards. 

There are still 10 more weeks left, and the teacher hasn't even started the reading or writing portion of the program with him... I can't wait to see how he progresses as the program continues, and how many more positive changes I will see in him. Reuben is so brilliant and I am so thankful as we walk through this program together! 

I still have not memorized the first steps on the tic-tac-toe game which Reuben committed to memory in two days... my challenges are different then his though and I think I will need to tell myself a story about the number-color-animal sequence in order to remember it correctly. But I can see it is helping me too. My brain is a little clearer and I am noticing more details with less effort. 

I already know I will be including some of these games daily in our homeschool, even as Reuben graduates from the program. It is so fun and stimulating to the intelligence, and it is so good for my kids. I'm intrigued on the why, and also tired because I still have a chronic illness and 3 kids.

School resumed this week. I have not been able to get to math with Reuben so I am setting that aside (the teacher said it was okay to wait) so I can continue to work on the cognitive brain development with him...we will pick up Math again in April. We are doing all his scheduled readings and I will try to add in latin and grammar next week. I also quit doing written narrations with him as well as dictations, we will resume those after he is done with the program.

I am still doing math with Becky but not a lot, as she is doing the Barton Reading Program with Grandma Julie who is so thankfully taking that over for me because I cannot do one more thing. It is a blessing to have my mom retired! 

My birthday is this weekend and Becky's 8th birthday is next weekend. It's hopefully going to be a magical two weeks if no one gets sick, and I can't wait to see my little girl blow out her candles for the 8th time. Okay, she didn't really do that at 1, but you get the idea. 

The kids are hoping for more snow, I am hoping for more sleep, and we all tumble around in the middle. How are you guys?