Well, I fell off the blogging train again. Really, I don’t just feel like I fell off the blogging train. I felt like I got completely derailed of anything resembling my usual routine/schedule. Getting back into the school routine has been more challenging than I expected, honestly!
But here we are at the beginning of October and it has been a long time since I’ve done a Life Lately recap. So here are some of the highlights (and few huge bummers) from the last few months:
- Back to School! I am still teaching in 1st grade (at our hybrid school, so it is technically a part time job!). Tera is right next door in 2nd grade, and my boys are down the hall in the 2s class and the Pre-K 4 class.
2. We got to attend a wedding! A sweet couple in our church got married so we all got to go. The kids were disappointed with how “boring” the ceremony was, but had a BLAST hanging out with their friends at the reception!
3. Hosting friends. It is always such a delight to host friends who are traveling through! We had three of our missionary “family” stop by for the night, and we also hosted dinner for anyone else in the area who grew up or lived in Niger. It was such a fun little mini reunion! The bond between missionary kids runs DEEP, let me tell ya!
4. The second the cooler temperatures hit, we were back out on the hiking trails! It’s just such a wonderful way to spend an afternoon!
5. This kid heard about something called a child tax credit and decided to see if he could spend it all (and his siblings share) in one day. Success! Overnights at the hospital are not cheap! And this kid continues to struggle majorly with his asthma. Thankfully, he usually recovers fairly quickly once they give him the right meds, but its always scary and very stressful to juggle one kid in the hospital and two kids at home.
6. Lesson Planning, lesson planning, lesson planning! You would think that since I also taught last year, this would be easy, but I am finding that it still takes me about the same amount of time to plan and prep for the days and weeks ahead.
7. Creativity. I love that my kids play together so creatively. They discovered that the magnettiles can stick to our fireplace.
8. When you try to re-seal your driveway with a 2 year old around……
9. Have I ever mentioned how much I love our school? Tera got selected to be a school ambassador (basically a student leadership program). She had to interview and everything! Ezra loves his little class and is just learning so much. Kiah also loves his class but I just didn’t happen to have any pictures yet!
10. Our sweet cat Patience had surgery and when I went to pick her up, she curled right up in my lap for the drive home. She’s such a sweetheart and recovered so quickly! **not driving while picture was taken**
11. Soccer! This is the first year we have put our kids into an organized sport! Both Tera and Kiah are in soccer (Ezra is the best team mascot!). So far it has added a lot of busyness to our schedule and I’m honestly not sure if we will do it again next year. TBD…
12. Career Day! Tera had career day at school and had to make a model of herself as what she wanted to be when she grew up. She wants to be a zoologist! Theo also got to come to school and share about his career.
13. Popcorn Festival. This festival has been a family tradition for us for a long, long time! In fact, we have a picture of Tera at about 4 weeks old with this same fire truck…
14. Up North trip! We took a weekend trip Up North to celebrate Jamie’s birthday! It was a fun weekend enjoying the last of a Northern Michigan summer!
15. Church friends! We have been attending our church church plant for about a year now. It has been a huge blessing for us, although with all new things, it is also an adjustment. The super nice thing is that there is no shortage of kids!
And that’s life lately for us. It’s been a mix of really crazy busy but also really, really abundantly full of good things. Hopefully I’ll be back with some more blog posts more consistently! For my own sake, honestly. I find I am usually at my healthiest when I am able to sit down and write each day. It gives me some consistency and makes me feel like I have accomplished something.