Life as a Yowler

Even with all the relaxing I did this week, I still managed to get a lot done. I had two major goals for this week. The first was to get Caed fully potty trained. I think it’s safe to say I accomplished that. He’s doing great.

My second goal was to get the basement organized. The basement is our playroom/school room. I wanted to get rid of some extra toys the kids don’t use. The time to do this is when Joah is gone……Trust me. I went through everything and kept what they use the most. I organized all of the books into categories(school books, animal books, people books, history books, science books, chapter books, Joah’s first reader books, Bible story books, holiday books, baby stories, and stories for the older kids). We try to do a lot of reading. I’ll keep reading to the kids as a part of kindergarten this Fall. I went through all the school supplies and organized them, making them easily assessable for the kids. I put puzzles in one spot. I put blocks and legos in another spot. I organized the doll house, wooden barn, and toy kitchen set and food. I went through the art supplies. I set up an art station upstairs and downstairs, to encourage the kids to keep being creative. I separated markers, pencils, pens, crayons, and everything else art related. I narrowed down the ciriculum we are going to use for Kindergarten, and finalized ordering all books and workbooks. The younger two kids loved helping me and working along side me.

This time it was Brandon’s turn to be blessed. His tractor came back from the repair shop yesterday. Oh happy day. We worked all day today getting a bunch of outside projects done. As much as I dreaded it, it needed to happen. It was actually great to get fresh air and a workout. We got tons done. Brandon took out a couple stumps and trees. We cleaned out our gutters. We did the math and I’m afraid to admit we hadn’t done this for three years.

I stood in the loader bucket and Brandon drove the tractor while I cleaned out the gutters. At one point I switched Brandon and he worked on repairing one of the gutters. A couple months ago we had a tree fall on the house. The only damage it did, was put a hole in one of the gutters. Brandon finally got around to fixing it today.

This is everything that came from the gutters. It was a pretty gross cleaning project.

Brandon held Isla the whole time. She wore herself out cracking up at me and waving to me constantly. She was so excited to see me up in that bucket. I could see her laughing and laughing through the window. Caed only rode about half the time. He wanted to get out and play in his sandbox. On his way to the sandbox he yelled “mommy I’m sorry dad put you up there like that. That wasn’t nice.”

When we were done working around the house, we drove to the shop. Brandon had a hunting blind and stand there. We needed to load them in the trailer and drive them back to the house.This job is much harder than it seems. We realized we needed fork extensions to lift everything. We had to drive over to my parent’s house to borrow my dad’s. My parents are at a wedding today, so we didn’t even ask them. Surprise, dad. We promise to return them. Then we had to drive back to the shop and load with the fork extenders in the forklift. It was my job to direct Brandon as he loaded. I always hate the pressure. There were only a couple inches of wiggle room. I came through and everything went smoothly. Phew!From start to finish that was a 2.5 hour job.

Today we also managed to pick some raspberries. We cleaned off the front porch. I cleaned out Brielle’s playhouse. I picked up sticks. I would say it was a very productive day and very productive week. I’m thankful for this time I had with just my two youngest. We really bonded and had lots of fun. I can’t wait to get my oldest two back tomorrow. I miss them like crazy.  They add a lot of noise, but a lot of joy and entertainment.

They had such a fun week. They hung out with their second cousins(Brandon’s cousin’s kids from his mom’s side of the family). Here is most everyone. We are missing a couple.

I love that they have the opportunity to connect with family. My kids don’t have any first cousins, but have lots and lots of second cousins. My kids went to the zoo, went bowling, had water balloon fights, went swimming, drove bumper cars, and went mini golfing just to make a few. Grandma did a great job making memories, letting them have fun, and wearing them out. I can’t wait to see my kiddos tomorrow!!!!

As a side note, Brandon attended the Global Leadership summit this week on Thursday and Friday. I joined him on Friday. There was some very deep note taking going on from Brandon(he grabbed Matt Horton’s paper while Matt was taking a bathroom break). 🤦‍♀️