Life as a Yowler

After the ice storm, things settled down. We never did lose power. We were all at peace knowing Brandon was home and available to take care of things. He was able to delay his trip a day and still make his business meeting. It all worked out great.

We had a pretty low key week. We stayed home a lot. It was a great week for our monthly activities to come. My kids were given Kiwi Boxes and Little Passports from their uncle and aunts for Christmas. They come in the mail each month. I loved this month’s Little Passports. It about food from around the world. We played this memory game about eight times.

The kiwi boxes are always a lot of fun too. Caed always wants help with his and his older siblings are always more than willing. He gets a yellow box and the older kids get green boxes. We saved the green boxes for another day. I’ve leanred to focus on one activity at a time, so they can enjoy it more.

We made musical instruments this month.

This Winter has been the perfect winter for chicken noodle soup. Literally every day has been a good day for soup. I’ve been making it once a week. I have gotten so comfortable. I just dump everything into the insta pot. Everything went great until last week. Notice anything missing……that would be the noddles. Oops. It was great chicken soup though.

Isla still loved it. Actually everyone did. They all still ate it. 🤣

We filled in the gaps with some extra fruit and veggies.

We are trying to stay ahead of school. We’ve been doing extra pages in our books. Joah finished two books this week.

I’ve been replacing his finished books with extra things. He is becoming quite the little whiz at this game. He’s learning countries, continents, and capitals.

Brielle is becoming a good little reader. She still reads very basic books, but not bad at all for her age. We’ve been working on the Bob books.

We drove by our favorite park in Cass City one day and decided to stop. We didn’t last long, but at least we burned some energy. We are so tired of being cooped up.

Every time we drive to the shop, the kids want to run up the snow hills from the snow plow.

It’s amazing the difference between four kids and two kids. Here we are one afternoon with one napping baby and one older brother who was gone with dad. The two others looked nicely and quietly at books.

I have to admit, I’m pretty impressed by this stick man. 🤣 Every detail was thought of, from the pipe cleaner hair to the index card face.

I like a balance of staying busy, but also staying home and taking it easy. Brandon and I have been having lots of discussions about what does normal look like for us? In some ways, I feel our kids are at a disadvantage by not being involved in sports or being in a classroom with other kids their age. I feel they are missing out. But then I remind myself of the opportunities we have. The traveling, experiences, and sights they get to see are such a blessing. I know they have a lot of great opportunities. For now, we feel homeschooling and traveling is our calling. We are taking one year at a time. For now, this is our calling and this is our normal.