October 2021 to January 2022: Catching Up

Life is always full with a large family. My last update was early in October of last year, which means I have 3 months to catch up on. There is no way to do that well, but I will try to hit a few interesting moments. 

October was uneventful, which I appreciated. We had steady progress in homeschool, teaching seminary went well, and we had two birthdays - Joseph turned 17 and Daniel turned 14. 

November decided to make up for the uneventful month before. I woke up one morning barely into November, walked into the bathroom, and stepped into water. 

Overnight, a pipe burst from what they think was a pressure build up under the bathroom sink, and flooded rooms on 3 floors of our home: bathroom, kitchen, dining room/homeschool room, basement. It was not the way I had hoped to kick off the holiday season. 

We spent part of a week in several hotel rooms with no kitchen, while the water restoration company started the drying out process at the house. We would go over to the house each day to be able to use a table for meals, or wash laundry, or just all be in one room together.

It was loud with a lot of dehumidifiers and industrial fans going, but better than sitting in a hotel. We did swim in the hotel pool, which the kids enjoyed. 

We ate out a lot, as we couldn't use our kitchen at all, and some kind souls from church brought us meals some nights as well. 

After the first week, the floors were dried out, we had our bathroom pipe fixed and bathroom working, and most of the appliances were tested and worked, so the insurance company sent us home. They also sent the water restoration company back to rip out the kitchen ceiling and parts of the walls. Picture nearly 100 years of dirt and coal dust falling everywhere after they pulled down the three different ceiling layers. It took nearly another week to almost get the rooms clean as the dehumidifiers kept running and the industrial fans kept blowing on the ceiling to dry the space out. Our contractor put up insulation and plastic right before Thanksgiving (after things were dry) so we could cook without having to watch for things to fall in our food. They planned to come back in December to do the repairs. 

School during this three weeks of November was pretty much unschooling. Kids read, studied topics of interest, did real life math, learned a lot about water mitigation, finances, and so on. We did a few field trips for something fun to do and hit up a science center, a museum, and the zoo.

Emma also performed in the local high school's fall play, Leaving Iowa. She was Fred the mechanic (on the right). 

We were hosting Thanksgiving at our house, so Thanksgiving morning was spent cooking some of the food and enjoying Makayla being home from college, because my mom and I had driven down to Virginia to get her in a 14 hour round trip just before. About 25 minutes before our extended family was to arrive, bringing their own additions to the food, we got a phone call. My mom had fallen down the steps outside her house, loading the car with food, and broke her femur badly. She went to the hospital, Thanksgiving went on, and then my sister and I headed to the hospital that evening with food. She had surgery the next day, and for nearly 2 weeks was in the hospital (I was able to visit several times).

Oh, and we put Makayla on an airplane to go back to school the day after Thanksgiving, because without Mom available to watch kids or help drive, it was just easier for everyone. 

We also celebrated two birthdays in November, Tobias turned 6 and Caleb turned 11. 

December was slow and quiet. We did our usual homeschooling until the contractors showed up and spent a week repairing our home, while we lived in it. Ceilings, walls, cabinets, paint, etc. The kids spent that week learning all they could about construction. 

We celebrated one birthday in December, Emma turned 16.

We also decorated gingerbread houses, which we don't usually do, when my husband's sister visited from Utah right before Christmas.

Christmas was different, as my mom was still not able to leave her house. Makayla flew back and we had Christmas with my sister's family at her house, where the cousins/siblings had a gift exchange. We decided we would plan a second Christmas for January or February with grandma (my mom) and grandpa. 

As Christmases go, this one went well on the gift front. It is sometimes crazy shopping for ten children, most of whom also have birthdays between October and February. And even when the kids give us ideas of what they might enjoy, you never really know until the gifts are opened and some time passes, whether what you pick out was a hit or not. This year we had a lot of hits. 

In late December we got a warm day and spent hours outside together. The teens put together the one family gift we bought this year: a climbing dome and swing. We built a fire and cooked outside, played, and worked together. 

We also rearranged the boys' bedroom to fit 7 twin size beds. This involved taking down one of our triple bunk beds, getting rid of the junior bed that was too small, and building two new double bunk beds. The youngest 3 boys are in the remaining triple bunk bed, and the older four boys each have one bed of the two new bunk beds. (In case you are new, the boys have had the biggest bedroom in our 3 bedroom house for years. The 3 girls share a bedroom. And as we have no babies left, Daddy and I have our own bedroom with no crib.)

New Year's Eve was spent as a family, doing an at home escape room with the oldest 7 kids, while the younger 3 kids played. Makayla flew back to school the next day. We celebrated one birthday in January, Mason is now 10. 

Now we are in January and have been doing school as usual. We've really enjoyed our curriculum choices this year, and it is always encouraging to be halfway through the school year. We did have the construction crew come back one day this week to replace carpet that was damaged during the water disaster of November. 

We went to COSI, a science center, last week. While I took the younger 6 kids to several different exhibits, Daddy and the 3 older kids spent their time in the visiting Marvel themed exhibit. 

Tomorrow we will finally have Christmas with Grandma and Grandpa. Then we are on to February and two more birthdays. 

Life is full but blessed!