7QT: Stormy Friday Report

Hi, friends.  Well obviously this Disney recap thing is a little too much for me to handle right now.  I think the amount of time required to write down all the details is daunting enough to have kept me away from this blog for almost two months.  Not that I've had much time to even think about it, really.  That's the way life is these days, eh?  Breakneck speed.  But in a good way.  Most of the time.  ;}

Anyway, I do hope to come back to the recap of that amazing and magical trip, but I think it will just have to be pictures and no words.  For today, I feel the need to get back into journalish day-to-day type blogging, so I'm going to just include a few quick updates on the way things are, currently.  We are in the midst of a nor'easter and our afternoon activities have been cancelled, so I'm finding myself with a bit of extra time on my hands today!  So far we are riding out the storm okay-- just a bit of high winds and slushy rain, but I know our friends closer to the coast are facing the prospect of heavy flooding, so our thoughts are with them all.

Here we go!

--1--

I think I chit-chatted with you recently (or not-so-recently, since blogging has been so sporadic) about this little one and what a handful she can be.

I am happy to report that things are finally starting to feel easier with her.  With gentle and consistent guidance, she is gradually getting a bit more maturity and ability to listen and follow directions, and just a tad more self-control when it comes to her mischievous streak.  I knock on wood as I say this, and of course whenever I mention this out loud to anyone in public, that's exactly the moment that she decides to steal chewing gum out of my purse behind my back or something like that.  She definitely has her moments, but overall I feel that life has gotten a bit less chaotic managing her constant activity.

She is starting to play and imagine really well on her own.  She LOVES Barbies, her new dollhouse that she got for Christmas, and Legos.  It often happens that an hour goes by and I have been able to fold some laundry or help a big girl with school while she has been happily entertaining herself.  I am even able to shower with very little interruption these days!  Maybe that doesn't sound good... of course I love to play with her when I can.  But being able to entertain oneself as the youngest of four is admittedly a valuable trait.

And oh, the wonderful things she says and thinks about and remembers!  It can be so much fun having little conversations with her all day long.  She has the greatest sense of humor and really is a little spark of joy and light in our day.

--2--

Speaking of J, I really think the good Lord knew how much I lovelovelove fine soft baby hair, because he gifted what will be our last child with hair that has stayed fine and baby soft well past the point when her older sisters were growing more coarse, older-kid hair.

It gets wonderfully spiky and fluffy after she's just had a bath, too.

And her cheeks are still pretty chubby and buttery too, which makes her wonderfully kissable.  As a result, she still gets the MOST kisses of anyone in the family, not just from Mom but from big sisters too, who seem to have inherited my lovelovelove for the softer things of babyhood.  I mean, could anyone resist that, really?

--3--

The picture above reminds me that, despite her misciveous tendencies, she does seem to have a natural knack for being neat and tidy, and for that I am rejoicing, because my first three girls certainly do NOT come by that naturally.

J will often pick up pieces of discarded trash or food off the floor and carry them to the trash can.  She also loves to wipe the table, as pictured above, and always asks for a paper towel when she has spilled something, happily cleaning up after herself.  YAY!  I'll take all the help I can get!

So that's three takes about J; guess we better move on to other news!

--4--

I kind of think of our February 2018 as the Sugar and Spice "Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Month".  In fact, we checked the book out of the library the other day in celebration of being almost done with it.

First it was the flu (influenza).  C came down with it first, then L followed, and N a few days later.  High fever, bad cough, body aches, and poor appetite.  Miraculously, J never caught it!  But we had to cancel everything for over a week since, as a homeschooling family, we all travel everywhere together, we couldn't go anywhere if anyone was sick.

We did a lot of laying around and watching movies.  One day we ran out of oil because the gauge on our oil tank doesn't show the correct amount (and who is really watching their oil tank when three of their children have the flu?) so we were without heat for one whole morning.  We huddled together under lots of quilt and... you guessed it... we watched a movie.  And drank tea.

I kept finding girls like this--

...asleep in random places, because they simply had no energy.  Cheeks flushed, sometimes shivering.  So sad.

But I am so very thankful that J never got it, that nobody had it bad enough to be truly scary (only one episode where L had some trouble breathing), and Mom and Dad managed to stay healthy too.

Just as L was coming down with her second round of fever, I slipped and fell on the ice outside our house.  Somehow I managed to land on my face and the rim of my glasses split my eyebrow open.  Fun times!  M had to come home from work and I drove myself to the ER and got stitched up.  I managed to get some nice bruising over the next few days as well:

About a week after that happened, J came down with the stomach flu!  It's never fun for the teeny ones when they're sick like that, but J was so very brave.  She barely cried and seemed totally recovered within a few minutes each time she got sick.  I waited for the rest of the girls to start in with it for 24 hours... then 36... then 48.  Thankfully, nobody else ever got that one!

So despite having a string of terrible, horrible, no-good very bad luck, we did have a lot of silver linings within.  I actually enjoyed the chance to just snuggle for a while and veg out and cancel some activities.  It's a good thing we all love being home together and enjoy each other's company :)

--5--

One other silver lining in the month of February was C's first dance competition.

C has difficulty sometimes because although she absolutely adores her teacher, her teammates, and everything about dancing, even long practices twice a week, she is still our shy girl and the competition aspect of team dancing is pretty scary to her.  I feel like this first competition really got us over the hump, though.  She came into this competition tired and sad, having been barely 24 hours without a fever.  She was very nervous and tearful as we arrived at the competition.  Her teammates were amazing though, cheering her up, making her giggle, and encouraging her.  She rallied, went on stage, and along with her teammates was awarded the Ultimate Diamond trophy!

She was all smiles the rest of the day and insisted on staying to watch most of the rest of the competition, although it was another 5-6 hours of dancing and she was still pretty under the weather.  At long last Mommy convinced her that we should head home, since I had just had my fall the day before and was exhausted and had a monster headache and a sore arm from my tetanus shot.

But I was so very proud of her.  It's hard to find the words to describe it.  She conquered a big thing that day, and I'm so happy I was there with her to see it.

--6--

Another silver lining to our February was the Olympics!  We had many a picnic dinner, like this one pictured below:

while watching figure skating, snowboarding, skiing, and the girls' favorite: biathalon.  So enjoyable!  What was your favorite event?

--7--

Last fall while training for my half marathon I discovered fitnessblender.com and started incorporating a few of their workouts into my week.  Back in January when we were making our New Year's resolutions, M and I decided that, since running in the winter is always so touch-and-go, we would purchase one of Fitness Blender's workout programs.  We had done two of their free 5-day challenges together during the holidays and it was always a great motivator to be doing it together, and much easier to have a workout we could both do at the same time (time-efficient) and at home (easy).  The five days were pretty challenging for both of us (I can remember doing a workout on Thanksgiving morning that left us both agonizingly sore for three full days afterwards!) so it felt good to be working some new and different muscles and keeping things fresh with both of our different fitness levels.  Their purchased programs are so cheap (we paid $9.99 for a four-week program) that we figured we had nothing to lose!

So far I have really been enjoying it!  We finished the four-week program (FB Sweat) in January and ended up purchasing a new one (FB Burn) to do in February, and we're almost done.  There are several things I love about it: 1) I get a built-in at-home date (albeit a sweaty one) with the hubs every single morning.  2) Having a workout calendar laid out for me that I can do at home means that all I have to do is set my alarm for 5:30, pull on some workout clothes, and stumble downstairs to the TV room (none of the planning ahead for the weather, laying out special clothes, etc. that running requires).  3) The workouts are challenging and varied enough that I feel like my whole body is in better shape than it ever has been.  4) The workouts are pretty time-efficient-- on average, we're finished in 40 minutes or less.  5) Daniel and Kelli (the couple who design these videos) take a really great realistic, balanced approach to nutrition and fitness, and include a lot of that information as part of the workouts.  It's like chit-chatting with a personal trainer while you work out.  Pretty cool.

I do miss running outside in the fresh air, and I hope to do more of that come spring.  But as far as keeping me motivated and strong through the winter, when I typically have a fitness slump, these programs have been great.  So... just had to share my excitement about that!

So this was started on a stormy Friday but finished on a Saturday.  At least I got it done, yay!  Enjoy the weekend, all! :)

For more quick takes, visit thisaintthelyceum.org!