7 Quick Takes! A Recap of Life in the Tiny House This Week! Tears Over Ice Cream, The Couch Ate It, And The Surprise Gift Reveal!

 Hi! How was your week?

Ours was good, interesting and different. How's that for an answer?
 

1. Happy January!

 Most of us rang in the New Year sick.(Dustin and I have avoided it thus far.)

 Alex was healthy and took an invitation to stay with friends and ran for his life to get away from us. Can't say I blame him. No one wants this bug that is going around. Jokes on him though,  he came down with is a few days later.

I don't have a lot of pictures from this week. Except for this...

 
Poor Addison. She got my hair. Addison, Anna and myself included are doomed to have their hair look like this from now until March. 


2. Girls Night

I have one cousin by marriage and an ex co-worker that I am close with. LOL It sounds funny when I describe them that way.

 They are a couple of my longest friends and we have been through a lot together. Kara, Julie and I have spent a lot of years, laughter and tears together. Prayed each other through trials, help with a couple of each others weddings, held and gushed over our babies together.

 We try to get together a few times a year. It has gotten so hard to get together with life, family and literal miles. So we started doing sleep overs a few years ago. It gives us more time to truly share and chat after the kids all fall asleep.

 It is extra special when we get together this year. We have a new member to our group. Remember that little baby I asked everyone to pray for a while back. Well here he is... Kara and I fought over him, because he is the last addition to our group. We have ten kiddos between us (4 boys and 6 girls) and baby Owen seems like the perfect one to round things out. 

 



P.S. Kara, he obviously, still loves me more. ;)


 

It also snowed while we were there. It was beautiful..the drive home was not.


3. Forget the dog, the COUCH ate it!

 As much as I have loved our furniture. It was our first matching set and we paid cash for it, brand new. Plus it was made in the U.S.A. It has been through a lot in the last few years, and is slowly starting to show the affects of 4 kids.

We have a Roku and got rid of our cable a while ago. The only issue with the Roku is the remote. It is small and sleek. Something I am sure the designers found appealing. Not so much to a large family with a toddler that likes to hide things. It gets lost ALL THE TIME!

 It went missing Christmas night. I did a major organize and purge on the house the two days following Christmas. It was gone. I searched everywhere short of the trash, because it had already been picked up. We even looked into buying a replacement remote. They aren't cheap people!

 Finally, I did something I had been threatening to do for a year. I flipped the couches over and slit the bottom! I have to say, they weren't as scary inside there as I had feared. Just some napkins and random trash and toys....and this stuff!



 The cable remote that we had to order a replacement for, the TV remote that had been missing for I don't know how long, part of one of our spelling curriculums, a rather expensive flashlight that Dustin had replaced months ago, scissors, and the Roku remote.
 I now wish I had cut the bottoms out of the couches sooner. The plan is to hopefully replace the furniture in there this year. We have one small couch from Home Reserve. We love it for all it is and also what the company stands for. Seriously, go over there and check it out.


4.  Let's move!
  
  Some friends of ours moved back to the area over the weekend. This was their third move in four years and they always seem to move over Christmas week, when it is freezing and usually right after a snow storm. It was cold people...freeze the balls off a brass monkey, kind of cold. (It's a historical term, look it up!) Also known as perfect major construction weather! It is nice to have our friends within a 20 minutes drive now. Compared to an hour before.

 The cool part is the fact that they are renovating a really old house like we did here with our little old house. Her husband has been kind enough to post pictures of the progress. Dustin and I have loved watching the work progress, from the comfort of our almost finished house. I wouldn't take back all the work we put into this place, but I wouldn't want to do it again anytime soon. So we shall live vicariously through them. 

I took a peek around while I was there. They have a lot of work to do on it, but it is one amazing old house! There are fireplaces, and original built ins in all of the downstairs. I can't wait to see what they do with this house! There is something about an old house that's about to be brought back to life that makes me so excited and happy.
 
*I have to say that my friend looked around while I was there the other day and I saw the same look on her face that I had a few times. It was the "What have we gotten ourselves into?!" look. Ah, yes. I know that look well!* It will all be ok though. These old houses are always worth it!
 
5. The broken cat.
 Have you ever seen the videos of the cat that freak our over the cucumbers? They are quite entertaining! While as the girls night mentioned above we were discussing these videos. Kara has a cat now. It took thirty seconds of video and two seconds of us looking around between the three of us and we sprang into action to find the cat and a cucumber. 
After about forty-five minutes(off and on) of us trying to surprise the cat with the cucumber we decided she must be a defective kitty cat, or the fact that she lives in a house with a lot of kids has desensitized her to basically everything. 
Since our cat cucumber video didn't pan out, here is a generic one from youtube..from people with cats that are not broken.

  


6. Ice cream and tears

I think we all can collectively agree that toddlers are confusing. Especially when they are sick. 
On the third day of Anna being sick, her fever spiked up(after being down for most of the day), she was lethargic, her breathing was super heavy, she hadn't been eating or drinking and I was afraid she was getting dehydrated. The doctor squeezed her in for a check.
She was not dehydrated, at least not enough to be too concerned. She tested negative for flu and strep. It was just a really nasty virus. They ended up giving her an oral dose of prednisone in the office. Then sent her home with breathing treatments and instructions to get any and all foods and fluid in here that she would take. 

She went out to play in the snow

 for five minutes.

Later that evening she asked for ice cream. We get her a scoop, present it to her and she fell into a puddle in tears. Because apparently it was all wrong. This is how all of Anna's meals went for the next few days. She would beg for a food item. I would give it to her. She would cry or throw it on the floor and stomp on it..and ask for it again. 

Where I spent most of my week.

This was all likely due to the side effects of the pred and the fact that she had a sore throat. But it still made life rather different...as I have been typing this she keeps coming to the computer, grabbing my face in her hands and asking for a pickle.

 The younger two both ended up with ear infections before the week was out. Thankfully they are both on the mend. The older two caught it a little after the younger two. Emma is holding her own and heading out the other side of it now. Alex is 12 and part fully grown man now..so I am working on his funeral arrangements as we speak. The man flu is strong with that one. 
 
7. The gift reveal!

Remember last week when I told you about the surprise gift that Dustin said was coming? Well, it got stuck in transit due to a snow storm. It finally arrived almost a week late. 
He kept giving me hints and even told me the price and weight of it. I really had no clue what it was. He even told the kids.
Then the package arrived. He told me not to get the mail that day. Well, they delivered it to the house, instead of the box and I saw the box. it was from one of my favorite stores. Christian Book Distributors.
He made me wait all day to open it. He came home, took a shower, ate dinner and then opened it. He hid in our room with it forever. 
When he finally came downstairs, he presented me with a Henry Morris study bible! He got us both matching bibles with our names printed on the fronts. He even wrote a message to me in the front. 
I cried a tiny bit. It is amazing! He might just be a keeper. <3
We have been reading through our bibles together for the last year...we like to sip coffee, read and then share what we learned together. It is one of my favorite parts of the week.
 

 Well, that pretty much sums up our week in a nutshell. I told you it was good, interesting and different. :) That tends to be how we do life around here.
Well, I need to go and make a menu, and grocery list. I found a way to order most of our household and grocery items online. (If it goes well, I will share it in a video or post for you.) I am picking up one of the orders and making a run into Aldi tonight. If I plan it right, I will be going all by myself! Yay!

Happy Friday!

  ~Lyndsay

7 Quick Takes, A Recap of Life in the Tiny House This Week! The Great Trash Can Debate, Toxic Tomatoes and Why I Hate Technology

 It's Friday! 

That means it is 7 Quick Takes day! The day every week that I entertain you with the happenings of our life in the tiny house this week. There are almost no pictures this week. 

Read on to find out why.



1. Technology fail

  Anna got her hands on my phone  this week. Typically this wouldn't be an issue. However, she has recently discovered how to 'clean' things with baby wipes. She is not supposed to play with the wipes or my phone.
I left the room for a couple minutes and returned to her squeezing wipe juice onto my screen and wiping it. I took it from her and dried the screen. Didn't really think much about it. Two minutes later my phone started acting completely possessed by demons. The screen became striped (think original nintendo screen), tinted green and would randomly blink black, red and green.
I had about 2000 pictures that were not backed up. Plus as much as I hate to admit it, my life is in my phone. Phone numbers, calendar of events, schedule, school schedule, all of the links I use and even some of my writing. *Sigh* I was a little lost without it.
I'm also very frugal and do not like to have to replace my phone, even though we do have insurance on them. I dislike change and that especially includes technology.
After freaking out, slightly hyperventilating and doing all of the usual things to fix it. I said a prayer over it and put it into a bag of rice for about twelve hours. It helped some. At least enough to remove the images and some important info. Then I put it back on rice for another entire day.
Amazingly it is now fixed! No more crazy screen and it is right back to normal. Praise the Lord!
 I had already decided I would just live without a new phone and use the old back up one we keep on hand.

*That is why there are basically zero pictures from the week. 


2. Rotten tomatoes

We visit our beloved local farm stand often.  The owner of the stand is named Tricia. We love Tricia.
Last week were gifted some tomatoes from a lady at homeschool co-op. We also visited Tricia on the same day that we received the tomatoes from co-op. 
Somewhere in the mix of the influx of tomatoes and the craziness of co-op day... (Co-op day is SO CRAZY!)  tomato was lost in the shuffle. I of course was oblivious to this until yesterday (the next week's co-op day.) It was late afternoon and we were at cross country practice. I kept smelling something strange. Addison was hanging in the car with me and helped to hunt down the smell. It wasn't the baby, I checked her twice. It wasn't a lost sippy cup, or a stray fast food bag.  Nope, none of the usual offenders. Plus we had just cleaned out the van earlier in the week.

It was this lost tomato. 

 Since I'm pretty sure most of the people we socialize with outside of homeschooling already find us strange, un-socialized and slightly weird...I decided to wait until after we got home to deal with it. They already stopped practice last week to watch Anna screaming and watch me throw a carseat out of the van and peel out of the parking lot in my haste to get Anna to the Dr said. They didn't need to see me removing toxic waste from my mini van also. 


It was organic, but I still felt it wouldn't have gone over very well.



3. Lots and lots of painting!  

Dustin finished putting up the wainscotting over the weekend. I also started painting. It is looking really good! I still have hours of painting to do this coming weekend. Dustin is also putting the final coat of grout on the backsplash. It is coming together. We can not wait for it to be finished and I can not wait to make a post about it for you all to see!


4. We walked in circles all week

In the process of finishing the kitchen and making space for some really neat shelving. (AHH!!! I'm so excited about the shelving!)  We moved the trash can out of the kitchen. I am a firm believer that there are two types of people in the world. Those who strongly believe trash cans should not be in the kitchen, and those who don't really care. Dustin is one of those people who really feels strongly about it. I, being the person who does most of the cooking, prefer to have it in the kitchen. It has been a frequent topic of conversation at our house for the last 15+ years.
Well, Dustin finally won the discussion and the trash can has been moved to the utility room. Mainly out of lack of space for it in the kitchen, because of the shelving! EEK THE SHELVING!!! **Can you tell I'm excited?**

The trash can had stayed in basically the same place since we moved in three years ago. It has maybe moved three feet as the kitchen has been renovated and finished. Now it was a good 10-12 feet in the opposite direction.
I am not even joking when I tell you that most of us walked in circles half the week, looking bewildered and carrying an arm load of trash. Emma and I especially struggled. We are the main cleaners and chefs in the house. There was even a moment where someone (it was me) threw an egg yolk and shell in the general direction of where the trash can used to be.
I am positive that I took no less than 1000 extra steps a day trying to find that darn trash can all week!

5. One of the reasons why I love being married to a diesel/mechanic technician

We recently opened a new business location in our new town. It is going well and Dustin is so much happier working for himself again. It is also nice having him closer to home. He used to over a two hour commute each day. Now he is less than ten minutes away.
My favorite perk of him being so close by, I can have him look at my van any time it starts to make weird noises or do strange things. Which is what happened yesterday. He is so great. He stops everything he is doing to take a look.
 

If he happens to ask though, my favorite perking is seeing him more and having lunch with him a couple times a week. ;)

6. Handicrafts

 Our homeschool has a strong Charlotte Mason approach. Part of that is every child learning a handicrafts. The kids each pick a few to try each year. They also have to complete a project from each topic they choose.
The girls are easy. They love to bake, sew, crochet etc. We are even trying pottery this fall!
 Alex is a little more difficult to find a thing for him. I am requiring that he work on cooking. He is also helping his Dad with Precious. We are still looking for another couple of things for him to try.
That being said, Alex has done a very good job at coming up with ideas that he wants to include in the handicraft that are definitely in fact not a handicraft. Such as, Minecraft, Xbox, etc.
We'll find one for him.

7. At least he is still proud to be married

It has been a long standing joke in our house that Dustin can not remember birthdays or anniversaries. He is usually good to remember the month the child was born, or at least the season. I guess I can't blame him, there are a lot of them. I even get a little tripped up sometimes.
He doesn't post much on social media but posted this. I think it was so sweet. I'm so glad he still loves me enough to post it on social media..but I couldn't help but laugh.

Either way, he's still a keeper.

Happy Friday!

~Lyndsay

7 Quick Takes, A Recap of Life in The Tiny House This Week! Tooth Fairy Fail, Shockingly Accurate Emoji's and Meet Precious

 It's Friday! 

That means it is 7 Quick Takes day! The day every week that I entertain you with the happenings of our life in the tiny house this week. 

It might be funny (It tends to be funny), entertaining or down right bizarre! But that's why you keep coming back to read it..because no one wants to read about boring. 

The scary part? All of it is true. Yes. Our lives really are this ridiculous, goofy and weird. Every. Single. Day.

Welcome to our tiny little part of the world. Pull up a chair, but wipe it off first...because it is probably sticky...Everything is always sticky.



1. Tooth Fairy Fail

I have never been great with the whole tooth fairy thing. My children are convinced that she is a busy, frazzled, unorganized, disheveled and forgetful little fairy. She tends to forget their tooth for a night or two. She sometimes neglects to collect their teeth and she even sometimes makes an appearance after they have gotten up in the morning.

I told you I was bad at this. Really, really bad. That being said, this is about Addison, age 6.

She has managed to LOSE two teeth. Not lose in the 'Yay! I lost my tooth!'kind of way.

No. No. We are talking 'Mom, My mouth feels funny. I was picking and eating apples and now there is this weird space.'

AND

While eating popcorn this week 'Mom, I lost my tooth. But I think I ate it.'

Yes. She has lost/eaten two teeth in the matter of a two month period!  
(I have considered googling the possible dietary repercussions, but I'm not sure I want to know.)

The tooth eating situation has made the fairy visits a bit more complicated. Addison resorted to making teeth out of paper. The fairy remembered the paper the first time. The second time, not so much. I told her the tooth fairy emailed me and told her to just hang onto it for the next time around. She efficient like that. 
Yes, our tooth fairy has an email address. She is a busy little thing and is sometimes up to three days behind on her email and tooth pick up. I told you I was bad at this! 

Also, for those who are curious. Our fairy is old school. She pays out $1 per tooth. Anyone who tells my children differently are subject to inflicted injury.  Seriously people, who ever came up with the idea of paying $5-20 per tooth?! 

2. First Week of School


 

School started at the tiny house this week. This year we have a 6th, 4th and 1st grader. Plus a fun filled and spunky toddler. So she has to be kept busy, organized and on schedule.
The first week went well. Everyone was very worn out by our last day.(They are currently still sleeping while I type this at 8:15 am)  This year's school curriculum has seen a lot if changes. Good changes, but a lot of new things to adjust to. They all handled it well and have been rising to the challenge. We are all excited to see how much we learn and grow this year.  
I know that a lot of families take the super relaxed, sleep until 10, do school in your pajamas route. That was us at one point in time, but now there are just too many kids in older grades to be so relaxed.

Everyone is up, dressed, morning chores, and breakfast by 7:45. School starts at 8. There's a lot to learn this year. Structure is necessary.
That being said. We still have a lot of fun!
We do fun science experiments, go on field trips and laugh a lot. Structure doesn't necessarily mean strict.

Here are a couple of pictures from our first week. The big excitement was for Addison. She earned an A+ on her first ever spelling test.

3. County Fair



We have lived in our new town for almost 3 years now. We love our new town. This was the first time we went to the County Fair.
We all enjoyed it. Dustin goes for the food. Funnel cakes, steak sandwiches, lemonade, elephant ears, Italian sausages, pizza, French fries...you get the idea. It was a real treat for the kids and the husband.

I fell in love with the barns and exhibits. It was laid out well. At least compared to our old town. I was quite impressed. (We bled green for 4H when I was a kid. So, my fun version of the fair is the exact opposite of my husband.)

The kids convinced us to let them ride some rides. The oldest three are adventurous and love anything that spins. They went on this at least twice.

 

 They played some games...which I was a bit disappointed by. Apparently you win a prize every time, even if you suck. Yep, that's what our world has come to. It's sad. Basically it worked like this, pay $3-5 and they hand you a fidget spinner. Rant over.




Anna rode a pony ride and walked with me through all of the exhibit buildings. Plus it took me a little while but I found my happy place. The rabbit and poultry barn!



Over all, we really like our new county Fair. I Definitely see us attending again in the future.

4. Park Day

We went to the park with some friends one afternoon this week. We visited the biggest park in our town. We hadn't been there in a while. We tend to be park hoppers.
The oldest kids ran off to be wild and free and we played with the littles and chatted for a while. It was good for the kids and the moms. The only thing missing was some iced coffee.

* The older boys couldn't be troubled by standing still for pictures. They were far too busy for that.*

5. Fun Science

Have you ever microwaved Ivory Soap?!

It is so much fun!
 It is of course a science experiment and there is actual science behind it. However, the best part is what actually happens when you do microwave it.
You can find the science behind it here.
You can also read about the happy accident that created Ivory Soap, here.
Here are the pictures from our experiment.
The kids really enjoyed this one!

 

If you homeschool or even if you don't....you should consider giving this a try!

 











6. A Shockingly Accurate Emoji

Poor Addison. She has had a bit of a rough summer. She caught some strange 'Scarlet fever like' virus along with poison ivy. Lots of meds including steroids.
She managed to get poison ivy two other times. Bad enough for meds. She is a tad bit allergic to poison ivy.
Last month I noticed she had picked up a fungus on her thumb nails. We've been treating that.
Two weeks ago I found one really swollen lymph node on her neck. Apparently she had three very large lymph nodes. Yet another trip to the Dr to find out she has 'Cat Scratch Fever'. Yes. Not only did they make a song about it, but it is actually a real thing. More medicines and a new med for her fingernail.

She is tired of all this and so am I. She has however enjoyed picking out the Band-aids to cover her finger nail. Her most recent choice was themed Emojis.

As much as I do not get into all of the recent fads. This one pretty much sums up how we feel right now.


I am officially in the market for an Addison sized germ bubble.


7. His Precious

A couple weeks ago this conversation took place between Dustin and I.




*He never did reply back with the cost to fix it.*
 
Of course you can imagine that this rather interesting  and slightly frightening creation is now parked in the office garage.
Alex and Dustin are starting work on it tomorrow.
It has since been dubbed 'Precious' and it has stuck. Even the toddler is saying it. The kids are not up to date on why it is funny, but have played along. We have shown them the short video clips, but have decided that it just doesn't do it justice.




A Lord of the Rings binge watch is scheduled for the first rainy weekend in September.

Raising them right. ;)

For those of you who understand why this is funny. I have included the clip. Just because. It made me a little sad to realize that there is now an entire generation of kids who know nothing about this. Not because we are that into Lord of The Rings, but because it mad me feel SO OLD!

Happy Friday!

~Lyndsay

Toddler Busy Boxes

I mentioned on Friday that I made busy boxes for the resident toddler. 

 

I've done this a few times over the years. When Anna turned 18 months and started to give me a glimpse of the type of toddler/preschooler she was going to be. I instantly knew we'd be breaking out all the tricks to keep her occupied during school time.

 The fun thing about toddlers is, they find even the most boring stuff entertaining! Especially...trash!

We filled a water bottle with pom poms and she played with it for close to an hour. 

Hand them a little bit of a leftover streamer roll. That give you 30 minutes of free time! Toddlers can be such complicated creatures, yet oh so easy at the same time.

We gathered items from around the house, and made a trip to the dollar store. As well as a couple of choice items from Walmart. Our busy boxes are ever changing, and no two are alike.

Each box has an item from a few topics.

Something crafty; Crayons, watercolors, playdough, stickers

Something challenging; Puzzle, bottle with pom poms,  pipe cleaners stuck inside a cardboard cone.

Something fun; Toy animals, Fisher Price little people, a tea set.

Then there is the mother of all busy boxes...




The rice box! 


 
 This was originally supposed to be filled with sand. It is getting later in the year, and Walmart only had colored sand. I opted for rice instead.

This box only comes out about once a week and is a highly supervised activity!  

We made five boxes this year. Four that she can do mostly by herself or with a helper. As well as the rice box mentioned above. 






If you type busy boxes on Google or Pinterest it brings up so many ideas!

If you are a 'Crafty McCrafterson', you can go hog wild making games, crafts, busy work etc .
I am not that crafty of a person. At least not when it comes to items that the toddler will probably rip into shreds in about two months. So I opted for the 'trash as a craft' and 'what does the dollar store have ready made' variety.

I am more of the 'Lazy Busy Box' kind of person. ;) 

These boxes are subject to change and transform all year long.

She will grow and be smarter(Hopefully).

 She will tear stuff up(Yep.)

We will lose part of it or neglect to put it all back in the correct box(Most definitely).

Sorting the busy boxes will probably become an item on the weekly chore list.(It's on my mental to do list)

I've mentioned before that we do real life here. I refuse to pretend that these boxes will stay fully intact and or organized in any way. By Christmas they will probably contain empty sticker papers, empty playdough containers, two half pieces of a crayon, the remnants of fifteen paper cutting crafts for the 7 year old,  seven goldfish crackers and a petrified cookie. I also fully realize that we will always be stepping on and sweeping up rice. 

At least I can say I tried. 




 Today was our first day of school. We pulled out one of the boxes during the first part of school. It definitely did its job. It kept her busy for almost an hour. Then she started pelting us with crayons.

 Oh, the joys of living with a toddler.




Happy Monday!

~Lyndsay