I'm still plugging along on my seasonal update posts and somehow still falling more behind, but the kids will get older and I won't always have a brand new Zelda game to play, so I do still have hope I will catch up one day. The 2020-2021 winter season is the most recent year we had snow! The kids are really wishing for snow this year in 2023!! I didn't even realize it's been 3 years already since we've had snow.
We just had a super beautiful park day in December 2023 and my note for this same time 3 years ago is "Beautiful December park days" So apparently we get some very pretty days in December! It can also be super cold and snow or be 85 degrees and humid. Oh Houston! I still love to look back on old park day pictures. It always warms my heart. Because most work places were on COVID restrictions my mom was working fulltime from home and that meant she could come to park day with us on her lunch break. It was a sweet blessing in weird COVID times.
Jane's first top tooth gone! I actually caught her wiggling this one out on video! She loves losing teeth!
Atlas was sort of a loner most of the time up until this point. Sometimes he would find a park dad or one of the older boys at park day to go and hang out with instead of kids his age. Right around this time Atlas made some friends his own age! We had a couple of play dates and they were friends for a season which was great! It would be another year or so before Atlas made some real lasting friendships.
Flynn had never been a big fan of pacifiers past a couple months old and even when he was that little he didn't use it too much. For some reason he found one right before turning 1 and decided they were the best thing ever! Which was really nice for me. He was very happy with them. I had my first pacifier kid!!
I had been out of work since September from being laid off due to Covid struggles. My income is not purely supplemental. We need it to pay the bills. It had been stressful for 3 months looking and waiting. I was definitely tired of looking for a job. Thankfully by the end of the first week of December my old boss that I had worked with at 2 previous companies and was my first boss in the Oil and Gas industry messaged me and asked if I was still looking for a job. I excitedly messaged back and said, "Yes!!" We chatted about what I would be doing and it was perfect. Still fully remote and only an hour or two a day and using a banking system I had already used in the past! I still can't thank God enough for giving me such a great job with one of my favorite bosses ever. I also learned through being without a job in my life for the first time since becoming a mom that having a job where I worked about 2 hours a day was not the reason for all my troubles and didn't cause what I felt like was a lack of time to get things done. I think I slept more and watched more tv? Haha! I definitely didn't feel like got anything more done than when I was working. Also Sam mentioned that when I work I am very focus for those 2 hours, but if I spread those 2 hours over the whole 16-18 hours I am awake by 5 minutes here doing a small task, 15 minutes there doing another, it feels like it disappears! Especially if I happened to sleep an extra hour. So yes, over my 3 months of unemployment I discovered to stop blaming work for not getting other things done around the house and that I am a person that needs a little work to get me motivated and get my morning started in the right way. It also helps my mood. If I got to the end of the day when I wasn't working and the kids were complaining about school all day, they were yelling and fighting with each other when we weren't doing school and no one liked what I cooked for dinner or I felt like I had to order out because I was too tired from all the complaining and fighting then the day felt like a failure to me. But when I work and a day like that comes around, like they always do in motherhood, I can get to the end of the day and say to myself, "Well, it was a little rough but at least I got my work in!" It helps me stay positive for the next day and try again! I have a note written down that I go back to often that says something like, "There are very little truly "bad" days, instead they are just hard days that help you notice something needs to change." Work helps me keep that mindset and not beat myself down on a hard parenting day that all the stock of who I am is in how "well" I am mothering. Yes, I love being a mother and it is big part of my identity, but It's not ALL I am. I am also a wife, a daughter, a friend, a sister, an employee and most importantly a child of God! He is so good to give me what I need for life and godliness.
My good friend Melody got to stop by for a play date, The kids had a great time! I believe this is when I gave her my maternity clothes and a bunch of baby equipment for her 3rd baby! We have passed back and forth these things a few times! I love it.
Last co-op before Christmas break! I led a lesson on glow in the dark substances and density with a home made lava lamp. It worked out great, the kids loved it. All you need is a clear container, water, oil, salt and glow in the dark powder.
In a time when finances were very tight, especially around Christmas, God blessed us greatly by Sam receiving an unexpected bonus!! He doesn't usually get them and it was such a relief. Even though I had gotten a job, we had a lot of catching up to do on finances over the past three months of me being unemployed and that bonus took so much stress off of us during the holiday season so we could relax and enjoy the special time of year with our kids. God is good!
Happy 1st Birthday Flynn! We had cupcakes and sang him happy birthday both of which he loved! I was feeling a bit sentimental. At this point I thought it was the last first birthday of our family and I also realized it was First 1st birthday without Papa. A lot of emotions were bottled up about this birthday and when I was planning a party and a few family members told me they weren’t interested in attending I was hurt. I also realized it was my grandpa that bound those first birthday’s together with family. I missed him then probably more than ever. Through choked back tears I said to my mom, “forget a party if no one wants to be apart of it.” (This makes it sound like my mom was the one who didn’t want to come, not true. Basically she was the only one of my family interested in coming) After I calmed down a bit, I did decide to have a party still, but I overhauled its planning. Instead of my house, I decided on my parents house and did it around new years when my brother and his family were already planning to be in town for Christmas. We also had a close friend that lived down the street from my parents so it all worked out.
On New Years Eve we held a 1st Birthday Party for Flynn. It was good! I brought the switch over for kids to play just dance and we had presents and cupcakes. Flynn had a blast except burning his hand on his 1st birthday candle. He’s so fast I didn’t catch him in time. He didn’t even try to touch the candle when we did a cupcake for him on his actual birthday. I was mortified that I had let it happen. He cried a bit, but not too much and then was happy enough to smash his cake. I’m glad I had a party but I was also tired of parties I told the kids this coming year would be the last big birthday party for everyone. Instead we could do fun family events to places we didn’t go very often. They all agreed to my deal. Thank goodness. Birthday Parties had become more stress than they were worth for me.
It had been 9 months since the first Covid restriction was put in place and we finally had our First Fever during that time. Thankfully it was very mild and definitely not Covid and didn’t get it myself. But worrying that it was Covid was a new experience for me. I didn’t love it. ;)
We were able to go to one of Jane's oldest friend's (because their mommas were friends first), Brianna, Birthday party in January. I remember leaving Atlas at home because he was happy to spend a day a home with Sam playing video games. Xan loved making her own cookie and Flynn was happy to give hugs to Nicole. :)
I don't have much to say here other than the note I left a the time. "Beautiful January park days yet low attendance". Apparently even though the weather was beautiful we still were recovering in our attendance because of Covid. The busy days are great, but the slower days are also great because you get to focus your conversations on just a few people more. My mom was still getting to come and play with us too and that always makes us happy!
Even though Flynn took his first steps right around his first birthday around the middle of January is when he officially started walking more than he was crawling! It's such a big step in development. Pun intended. ;) It's the beginning of the end of their babyhood. We also played a first birthday game where you put out a bunch of random objects that represent occupations and see what they choose. Flynn chose the dinosaur first and that stood for scientist. He chose a baseball second that was for Athlete. Pretty right on so far!
Sam and I celebrated our 10th Anniversary! Wow, 10 years feels like a big milestone. As a present to us my parents took the kids for their first 4 kid sleepover!! Sam and I thought about going to see a movie like we usually would on our anniversary but we considered that we would have to wear a mask the whole time and no movie out then felt worth it to wear a mask for that long. So while we were walking to the car from eating at Outback Steakhouse Sam asked if I would be interested in trying an anime he thought was excellent. I said sure. I hadn’t watched much anime at all since we finished Naruto together a few years back. We watched 3 hours of Attack on Titan that night. Little did I know that it would reawaken my love for Anime, start our manga hobby and begin my drawing journey! We continued to watch the whole series until we came to the current season and had anime date nights after the kids went to bed on Saturdays. Thanks Attack on Titan!
Jane had been attending the home school classes at Alpha omega for a few months and she wasn’t getting much out of it except social time, which is fine but we could get that at open gym for much less and all the kids could participate. Jane had all the skills they worked on mastered already from Rowland Ballard and she told me she was bored at class. So it made sense to close the door on our gymnastics class era. We definitely still loved going to open gym though! Around this time I started trusting Jane to go on more independent play dates without the rest of us. She was very good at being respectful of other adults authority and was able to tell back what happened when I wasn’t there pretty concisely. She loved more friend time!
We don’t do a big party or anything for the Super Bowl but Jane will still ask when the holiday with all the food is. She means the Super Bowl, because it’s all her favorite foods! Being three years ago. I don’t remember anything about the game, the commercials or the half time show but I remember we had a good time as a family!
We finished our 2nd history workbook called Bede history of US. It was the Best beginning history! We loved it so much!! I wish they had more similar curriculum going forward from K-1st grade. 3 years later I’m still searching for a history course that I like as much as Bede.
We were Half way through the school year at this time. Jane was in 1st grade and Atlas was doing preschool. Atlas is great with sight words, can read some, and can count to 100. Video games are a great motivator for school for Atlas. S65Jane is smart but complete unmotivated in school. she can read a lot but hates it. She’s good at math, but acts like She's not. History, science and art are her favorites. Xan just wants to have her turn! and Flynn wants to disrupt as much as he possibly can.
SNOW!!! In January we had a big Winter storm. SUPER cold temps and more Snow staying longer than I think it ever has that I have seen in Kingwood!! The kids enjoyed it! No one liked it as much as Jane! ;) We ended up losing power for about 12 hours. We stayed at my parents until it came back on. All the stores and restaurants were closed for days. Lots of friends had broken pipes. Plumbers were in short supply. Thankfully we didn’t have any ice related damage, but when trying to leave for my parents when the power was out we took the garage off its track accidentally. I’m grateful It was a quick and not too expensive of a fix. When the cold finally stopped being extreme the weather turned super nice right afterwards. Haha, oh Houston weather!!
Back in my Spring 2020 blog post I shared how my drawing hobby began! I started following along with Jane’s YouTube art lessons and found out I wasn’t completely terrible at it like I thought I was. From then I started drawing the kids a simple birthday card with their favorite character on it by following along with the art for kids hub YouTube channel using a sharpie and crayons. When Sam’s birthday rolled around I decided to draw him one too. I branched out and tried something I hadn’t done before. An anime drawing. This was the very thing that had squandered my dreams of drawing when I was young because I thought it was too hard and I could never make them look right. I had such a hard time choosing between Levi and Erwin from Attack on Titan. Levi is my favorite character and Erwin is Sam’s. Eventually I decided on Levi because the reason I love the character so much is because he reminds me of Sam. I couldn’t believe it looked just how I wanted it to by the time I was done. I could give it to Sam as a legitimate drawing/card. He thought it was great. <3 the next day I did a quick drawing of Erwin while Jane was doing school and wrote that sappy/punny note on it and added one for Levi too. He laughed at my silliness and said it would probably go viral if I put it on some Attack on Titan fan site. Not because of how good they are or anything but because they looked like a novice drawing fan made them and because of my ridiculous puns. I wan’t ready to put my drawings out there to the internet public, but I was over the moon that drawing anime was possible for me!! (And that Sam loved them too) Don’t give up on your childhood dreams people! I definitely believe if you have enough determination, patience and passion to learn a skill you can!! I continued to grow in my drawing abilities from then and I will keep up with the journey in future blogs. :)
The end of winter in Texas is always signified to me by Atlas’s birthday. The previous two birthdays he had been sick on his birthday! Thankfully he had been well for both his parties then but finally he was well for both his birthday day and his party! I drew Bowser for him and Jane drew a piranha plant. I think she did awesome!! Atlas loved the cards and his presents, especially his new video game which funnily enough he is playing as I write this blog post almost 3 years later! Haha! We decided on a video game dance party for Atlas's 5th birthday party. He had a blast!!
Proverbs 3:5-8
Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
And lean not on your own understanding;
In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He shall direct your paths.
Do not be wise in your own eyes;
Fear the Lord and depart from evil.
It will be health to your flesh,
And strength to your bones.
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