Snow Day! | Mom Life Journal

 Yesterday we had a lot of fun in the snow we got from winter storm Orlena. 

                                                          

We did school in the morning, then went outside to sled during our lunch break. Then back inside to do school and chores, then a coupe kids went back outside again. 

I finally got around to making a video for the YouTube channel. A few of us have been feeling under the weather, hence the sniffly noses in the video. I'm considering taking up making more videos again. I know for a fact that life is going to be one crazy roller coaster ride this year, and I'd like to have video evidence of it in later years. :) 

Yesterday was one of those days that you really remember later on in the year. The type of day that you dream of having when you think about winter coming to town. Sledding, snowball fights, attempts to make a snowman, hot chocolate, and if you are Alex you body slam snowdrifts. Ha, teenagers!

My legs are sore from climbing hills with the kids yesterday! shew!

 Today the snow is still out there, but slowly starting to melt. It is pretty darn cold out there, but it is sunny and that is nice. I love the sun, too bad it barely feels like the sun this time of year. 

It's all down hill until the time changes now! We are gaining 2 minutes of daylight a day right now. It has been light all the way up until 6pm the last few nights. That brings me serious joy. :)

I'm including some pictures of all of the snow we got, some sun in the snow and the you tube video that I made.

Happy Wednesday!

~Lyndsay

Alex found a new sledding hill. It's fast and you have too bail out of the sled before you slide into the creek!

A woodpecker has been hanging out on the front tree.

A couple inches of ice plus 8+ inches of snow!

Alex did a lot of shoveling!

Poor Pool...the steps almost disappeared.

First Day of Homeschool Co-op 2021 | Homeschool Life

Co-op started last Friday. It was nice to get back to seeing friends and learning together. This is not our normal co-op, but it has some of the same friends. 

I know we live in a totally different world now, and I sometimes wonder if things will ever be the same again. However, a first day of co-op picture felt necessary this year. Even more so than on other years. 

We all had a great first day, and Anna even cried when it was time to leave. That's a major change from our last co-op experience when she cried the entire time we were there. 

I really enjoyed teaching my literature class and can't wait to go back next week. I've never taught middle school grades before, and I'm pleasantly surprised. 

We are all looking forward to a fun semester! 

First Snow Storm of 2021 | Winter Storm Orlena | Mom Life Journal

Today is Monday, we are in the middle of a  storm that started Saturday night. 

We got 2 or so inches of snow, then a ton of rain. It turned it all into a few inches of slush Sunday. We managed to get out and about for church Sunday. It was nice to have a few hours if rain so we could make it to church. There weren't a lot of us there, but it was a good morning of worship non the less. Then home to settle in for some nasty weather. 

It turned back to snow Sunday night and has snowed non stop since then. They keep changing the forecast, and can't seem to make up their mind. 

The temperature dropped throughout the day today and all of that slush is now a solid sheet of ice. We have gotten 2-3 more inches today, when they said we would only get 1. 

They are saying we could get another three inches tonight and one more tomorrow. They original said this would end tonight, but now have pushed it back to Tuesday night. 

Dustin went to work today when the roads were mostly clear, tonight it was pretty slick when he got home. We are currently at a level 2 snow emergency, and I'm crossing my fingers for a level 3. At level 3 you are not allowed to go out on the roads and that means Dustin will have to stay home with us for the day. :) I like when he is home with us. 

  Today was one of those days that the temperature dropped throughout the day. It has been a slow drop and won't reach its lowest until tomorrow evening. It started close to 40 and will end around 16 degrees. I don't know why but I find days that the temps drop like this to be absolutely fascinating! Something about the temperature doing the opposite of what it normal should is just down right entertaining for me. I'm a nerd, I can't help it. 

(I didn't get a picture of Addison. Please note a rare sighting of Alex.)

We skipped school today, because the house needed cleaned and we haven't had a snow day yet this school year. :) The kids played outside in the morning before it got crazy cold, and then we cleaned house, did laundry and worked on projects. I also gave Alex a haircut which was way over due. It looked like someone murdered a chia pet when we were done. Haha. 

I started working out again today. Lifted weights, did squats and crunches. I will probably be sore tomorrow. 

It was a good Monday. I didn't take enough pictures. We will probably pop outside tomorrow after school, and I'll try to take more then. 

It will finally be cold enough tomorrow to do one of my favorite science experiments with the younger girls. Addison has done it before, but Anna is too young to remember. We are going to turn hot water into snow in an instant! It's fun! 

I'm very thankful we have no plans until the end of the week. With these low temps it could take a few days to clean up the roads enough for me to want to go anywhere. I'm not a fan of going out on snowy roads. 

Here's hoping we don't lose electric tonight, the lights have already been flickering today. 

-Lyndsay 

Well... | Mom Life Journal

Here I am after making a commitment to write and it has been six days since I last wrote. Yep. I failed. Oops. It's a good thing I didn't set parameters to all this, right? 

In my defense, I was sick most of last week and a lot of the time when things are quiet here online there's actually a lot going on in my real life. 

We started back to school last week, and I managed to power through not feeling so hot and we got it all done. We kept the house clean most of the week and stayed on top of laundry. Yay! 

We had a new employee start at work, and I had to go set that up. We also had to make some big decisions regarding the business, which took a lot of number crunching and prayer. 

Like I said, it was quiet around here, but it wasn't quiet in real life. 

We were supposed to start back to co-op last Friday, but it got postponed because of a funeral. Postponing was a small blessing for our family, because last week was full. Speaking of back to co-op, I'm teaching a middle school literature class...and the book list was already chosen before I got the class. I haven't heard of or read a single one of the books. Which is ironic because I read a LOT of books every single year, and my kids do too. You'd think we have had heard of these books before. 📚 I'm looking forward to teaching the class and plan to have some fun with it. I haven't really taught middle school at co-op yet, so this should be interesting. I used to always teach under third grade and then I taught mainly high school. Wish me luck! 

Speaking of books, a friend told me about a book challenge group she joined with another friend. They are doing an alphabetical book challenge. You read a book that the title starts with each letter of the alphabet. Um, I find this kind of cool. It would be good to help you get out of a book rut. My friend said she also joined a challenge with a friend to read 80 books a year. Knowing my friend, this will be no challenge for her. She and I got to discussing it and we ended up doing a quick count of the books we had already read this year...I'm up to 15, not including books of the Bible I've been reading. I told you I read a lot.

I'm half tempted to keep a yearly count of the books I read this year. Maybe I will, although I have a feeling I'd lose track eventually. But it would be nice to know my total count for the year. Hmmm. I'll have to think on that one. 

Church was amazing on Sunday. It had been a couple weeks since we got to go, and and we definitely missed it. I snapped the above picture of anna while she was praying at the beginning of church on Sunday. Let me tell you, this little girl has been blessed with a heart for prayer. One of the elder women in the church stopped me a couple months ago and said she was surprised to hear Anna truly praying while she was at the alter on Sunday mornings. I'm also surprised how much she pours out for the Lord in her moments of prayer. Such a blessing to witness the Lord at work in my childrens lives. It's only been two days and I'm already ready for next week's service. Why can't everyday feel like Sunday?

 Today I went to get my hair cut and dyed, I didn't take a single picture of the process like I normally do. I need to take more pictures of daily life again. I get swamped in actually living life and forget to take pictures of it.

Tonight was carnitas rice bowl night for dinner. 

Something kind of sad happened yesterday. My friend has been inviting me to join her at a women's conference hosted by her church for years now. I've always wanted to go, but it never seemed to work out. This year it finally worked out for me to go, and I logged on to sign up. It was sold out, when an hour before it had openings. :( They placed me on the wait list but said they were taking half the women than last year because of new virus restrictions. What a bummer. I really kind of hope someone cancels so I can go, but I'm also aware of the fact if I don't get to go then I must be because someone else needed to go and hear the word more than I did. I'd love to go but will understand if it isn't the Lord's will for me to go. 

Dustin and I are planning to attend our churches Valentine's dinner early in February. I'm excited about it. They said they play their own version of the newlywed game, and it's their favorite night of the year. I'm really looking forward to attending. 

Well, that pretty much catches everyone up on life at our house. I'll try me best to write more later this week. We have plans every single day this week. We aren't used to our weeks being this full anymore. It's an adjustment for sure.

I'm also realizing that even though we went on vacation in January, it didn't keep us from getting the January blues. All of us are a little sad and really hoping for some sunshine soon. Springtime, hurry up! 

Happy Tuesday!

~Lyndsay

Tips to Streamline Candy Land | Mom Life Hacks

  Ah yes, little kids and board games. They love them, especially Candy Land. 

  Board games are great for kids, they help teach many new skills and promote problem solving, strategy, hand eye coordination and increase brain growth. 

 

  Yep, all of that from playing games with a sibling or parent. :)

  However, with all of that positive stuff to gain from playing board games with our little ones, it can be hard to remember all of that on the tenth time through Candy Land on a rainy afternoon. 

  I discovered early on that there was a way to make the game go a little faster and more smoothly when you have negotiated for 'just one round' before bed or naptime. 

1. Take out all of the single color cards.

  Yep, take them out. They slow the game down, and are annoying. That leaves you with only the double colors, the game moves much faster after that. 

2. Take out any of the special cards before the the peanut. 

  You heard me, Gum drop, Candy Cane and the dreaded Gingerbread can all take a hike for the speedy version of this game. 

  Has anyone else had a tired preschooler be three spaces from the end and pull a Gingerbread card. The meltdowns are fierce sometimes. Yes, I'm all for learning how to lose graciously, but sometimes Mama just needs the game to be over and done with so naptime can happen. There are other days times to learn those lessons. 

3. Stack the Deck.

 You bet I just said that!

 Tell your kiddo you are shuffling the deck and put those special cards at the top. Imagine the light in their eyes when they pull the infamous Lollipop card on the second turn. It great, and you are done in no time. 

  These tips also help when you are first teaching a little one how the game works. I start all of my kiddos out with this modified version of the game, and add other cards in as they age. 

  

  This really does make the game go a lot faster. Give it a try and share these tips with another mom in the tranches. 

You can thank me later! 

~Lyndsay

P.S. Since we are on this topic, I'd like to know how many kids you have and how many sets of this game you have gone through? 

I'm on my fourth kid and probably the fifth set of the game. No matter how hard we try to take care of it the board tears and the cards just don't hold up. If I was more organized I would laminate the cards or something. 

Those of you that only had one set of this game throughout all of your children, please tell me your secrets to life. Because I'm clearly doing something wrong. 

Back to normal life | Mom Life Journal

We got home from our little adventure on a Monday and still had one more week before returning to work and school.

Dustin worked on the utility room, while the kids and I worked on some organizing and cleaning. We also found time to fit in some movies, games and rest.

The utility room did not get finished. We knew it probably wouldn't be finished when we decided to take our little adventure. 

That's ok, that's how life is sometimes. As much as I wanted it to be finished, it is a lot better than it was. The stacked washer and dryer, new freezer, one of the walls, ceiling and flooring are installed. The tankless water heating is working great and Dustin reworked the intake for our furnace to have an easier way to replace the filter. The new furnace intake took a lot of metal bending and framing, it took the whole day. He also had to rework part of the floor, because the main plumbing drain clean out is in the floor of that room as well.

A lot of these tasks are time consuming and don't seem to change the appearance of the room all that much, but each little job gets us that much closer to it finishing. Once all of these small jobs are finished the room will go quickly. 

The very last day before he returned to work he build the cabinet parts of two of the cabinets that will be in the room. One it larger for bulk appliances and laundry sorting, one is smaller for a pantry unit. It holds canned goods and bottles etc. These new shelves made for the ability to put some things back into the room where they belonged, which opened up some space in the rest of the house. 

We were able to go back to work and start back to school with our house feeling mostly normal again. It is a good feeling. 

We will continue to work on the utility room every weekend until it is complete. 

I'm looking forward to it being finished in the near future. 

It would have been nice to finish the room before our time off ended, but I wouldn't trade the memories we made for a dozen utility room remodels. 

Today is Tuesday, we are on day two of normal life being in full swing again. It is going well, and I think we all were ready for school to begin again. 

I have bread in the bread maker, it's bedding wash day, Anna is watching a Veggie Tales movie for quiet time, and the older three are finishing their school work. Then it will be time to send people outside for a few minutes and chores. We are probably having cheeseburgers and fries for dinner and I need to try to do some sewing this evening.

Happy Tuesday!

~Lyndsay

January Vacation 2021 | Day 3-7

 Once we reached Tennessee and our cabin, it was a much more laid back vacation. 

There was a lot of games of pool, board games, hot tub lounging, naps, and yummy food. Dustin got a Door Dash pass and we had a lot of fun trying the local restaurants. We also went out to eat a few times. We spent the morning of our last day in Tennessee at the Titanic Museum in Sevierville. 

Loved this cross!

They called for an unexpected major snow storm to hit the area while we were there. While sitting in the hot tub watching the snow fall is something I have always wanted to experience, being snowed in in Tennessee is not a person dream of mine. We made an extra trip to the grocery store to make sure we had provisions incase we truly got snowed in like they were predicting. Thankfully the storm shifted more to the south and we only got a dusting of snow with a couple days of flurries. We did get to sit in the hot tub and watch the snow fall around us. A winter mountain vacation is something we have always talked about experiencing and we are so thankful we were able to make it happen this year. 

Proof of our crazy couple of days. 

Our cabin was crazy high off the ground. It was over two stories down from the deck.

Teenarger in their natural habitat

We had Joe's Crab Shack for lunch one day. It was Anna's first time eating it in the restaurant. It was so delicious. 

One night the guys had BBQ delivered and the gals had a sushi feast. 

Emma and Alex are becoming pool sharks like their Dad. 

The only pic from the Titanic Museum. Pictures were forbidden.

Anna loved napping in this recliner.

Girls only hot tub hang out. 

We were supposed to stay another, but we had had enough of our cabin by the time we left a day early. We actually almost left two nights early. Here's why...we have dubbed this cabin the 'Half Broken Cabin', haha. While this was a nice cabin, and it was comfortable and beautiful, it had some issues. There wasn't enough blankets and sheets, one of the toilets was broken, the plumbing gurgled, and lots of things were nice, but half broken. Such as, we tried to move the pool table slightly to be able to open a pull out couch, and one of the legs fell off! All of this probably explains why this particular cabin was $20-30 cheaper per night than all of the others we found available in the area.  But...the main reason we left early is because of the permanent residents who were not happy to have visitors.  There were some raccoons who lived in the area who were not happy about us visiting. They showed up the second night we were there there, they woke Alex up by tapping and scratching to try to get in the window by his head. Then the next night they were on the roof above the hot tub while we were in it, and they were not happy we were there. We got out fairly quickly before they got anymore upset. The third night we were there we started hearing scratching and chewing inside the cabin walls late at night. 

The final evening we were there we were all in the hot tub relaxing and having a lively conversation. We thought all of the noise would keep them away.  We heard a couple noises, but nothing alarming. Then, all of a sudden we heard a high pitched growl/hissing right next to the hot tub on the outside near the railing. I have never in my life seen people bail out of a hot tub so fast! 

By the time we had that run in with the racoons we were more than ready to head back to the comfort and safety of our own home. 

All of that craziness aside, which I feel happens with every vacation no matter who you are, we had a wonderful vacation. We really needed to get away and have some family time, and to have a minute to think and reflex on life. Dustin and I find that we are better able to think about the big life choices we need to make when we are away from home and work for a little while. It was a good vacation. :)

We ran into some beautiful snow on the drive through the mountains on the way home!

All in all we had a great winter adventure vacation, and we ready to come home and prepare for life to resume again. We took an entire month off from school and our business was closed for over three weeks. It was a wonderful break and so worth the loss of income and little bit of time from school. With some life events coming up we are not sure when we will be able to go on vacation again. We were able to experience a lot of firsts and we made so many wonderful family memories to carry with us forever. 

We don't know what the next few days, month and even years may hold but we know that a few things will always be true. God is in control, family should always come first and the snow always comes up in the morning. 

Blessings!

~Lyndsay

Now that I have finished updating everyone on our January adventures, it will be back to normal posts from me starting tomorrow. I have been thinking and realized I have been semi consistent with posting for a little over a month now. How exciting is that? Hopefully I will continue to be consistent. I have some post ideas for recommendations and tips for life and homeschooling to make in the near future. I will work to try to make those happen in a timely manner. 

January Vacation 2021 | Day 2

 Day 2 of vacation we had a delicious buffet breakfast at Great Wolf Lodge, loaded up into the car and headed back over the river to Kentucky. It was a little over an hours drive to the Ark Encounter.

Our family had never been to the Ark, but we have all always wanted to go. It was so worth the wait! It was so amazing. Half way through the exhibits I was hit with the urge to consume the Bible at a more rapid pace. We all learned so much while we were there. Dustin is very interested in wood working and he stood for a very long time at Noah's wood shop, just taking it all in. I think I enjoyed the exhibit with the families living quarter the most. I love learning history about how other people went about their daily lives.

 

Everyone enjoyed the Ark, Addison did well with reading all of the signage and even Anna was a real trooper. There is a lot of reading and things to see, but a younger childs' patience can grow thin at this type of a museum, that being said Anna did wonderfully. Although we did stop for a snack and she accidentally dumped more than half of a bottle of water all over my lap and the floor. Oops!

At the end of the Ark tour we visited the gift shop and headed back to our car to head towards Tennessee!

We rented a cabin near Gatlinburg, so we spent another four hours in the car after leaving the Ark. It was a pleasant drive and we enjoyed the scenery. We stopped once along the way for lunch at Skyline. 

Once we arrived at our cabin we unloaded and then headed out for diner at Cracker Barrel. I can not ever remember eating at a Cracker Barrel and had been wanting to try it. Turns out, it's not my new favorite place. Go figure. 

 Also, real life moment, at the end of our meal I certain five year old who had been struggling with constipation informed me she 'had to go'. We were in that bathroom forever, she literally said she figured we would just have to stay there until she found a way to go. Seriously people, this is my first child to struggle with this and it certainly has been a learning curve. I was finally able to convince her to get up and leave the bathroom after about half an hour of not being able to go. 

 We went to the grocery store next to get some snacks and drinks to keep at the cabin. 

After getting back to the cabin we settled in and tried out the cabin...

January Vacation 2021 | Day 1

We left Ohio around 9am, and headed to Kentucky to visit the Newport Aquarium. We haven't been there since Anna turned one, and she is five now. Everyone was old enough to remember it, yay! 

Everyone crossed the shark bridge, it was a big deal! It's really nice having kids who aren't tiny anymore. No more strollers, no more naps, no more diaper bags, etc. We are enjoying it. 

After the aquarium, we walked by the waterfront, it was snowing slightly and very chilly. Then we meandered into a candy store for some fudge to snack on as a bedtime snack. 

    

Crossing the shark bridge.

We got back into the car, crossed back over the river to Ohio, had a late lunch at Outback and had an early check in to Great Wolfe Lodge. 

This was our first time staying at Great Wolfe, and we loved it! It has something for all the age groups, and we were pleasantly surprised to find that Anna could ride some of the bigger tube slides. That means we don't have to split up most of the time to accommodate all of the ages. It helps that the younger two are thrill seekers, who are always up for a crazy rude, slide or adventure. Teenagers are a blast to hang out with, it's even better when the whole family can participate. 

After we swam, we changed clothes and went to the arcade. I'm impressed with the arcade. Actually I'm impressed with most of Great Wolf. After the arcade we ordered in some pizza and wings (Salad for me), took showers, ate fudge and got ready for day two of our adventure vacation. We are hitting a lot of different places, and most of them are new for us. 

Onto the next adventure.....