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!

2018-2019 Homeschool Week 13

Another week has flown past! Sunday we celebrated November family birthdays. Monday we had 7 dental appointments, ran errands, and were on the go most of the day.

Tuesday Tobias turned 3 years old. He's such a sweet, spunky, fun little man. He talks more than Samuel did at this age but has a long way to go still. He likes dinosaurs, Paw Patrol, and PJ Masks. He giggles, runs, hides, and chases. He is a pretty non-picky eater and will try almost everything. He loves salsa and hummus and anything you can dip in those.

Rebekah turned 9 months old on the same day. Her second  tooth came in this week. She cruises the furniture all the time and will let go and stand there for a few seconds before grabbing on again. She is generally happy and has favorites among her siblings depending on the day.

School on Tuesday was an exercise in patience. It felt like dragging certain children through the morning. I can tell it is time for a solid break soon. We are going to take the week of Thanksgiving off, which leaves us this week and next to get through.

Wednesday was a much smoother day. People trekked right through their work in a cheery mood. There was reading and history and math and all the usual subjects with no grumps. The evening had our usual church youth activities and Cub Scouts.

Thursday one grump surfaced. It is just a fact of life in a large family - there are so many personalities and so many feelings swirling around. Rarely will we go through an entire day without someone being out of sorts for a bit, and that is okay.

My husband and I had a budget update meeting together in the evening. It isn't the most exciting thing to do together but I love that we stay on the same page with our money.

Related to that, we also got my husband's official surgery dates. Yes, plural. He will be having knee surgery January 2nd and shoulder surgery January 30th. The surgeon expects him to be off work for 4 months. For one-third of the year we will have no income. That is a very overwhelming idea for a family of 12. It isn't the best news in the world, but we are doing all we can to prepare for this adventure. For most of that 4 months he won't be able to lift the little kids, including all the lifting we do multiple times a day with Mason. It limits a lot of things, like me taking a short term job while he is off work, because he won't be able to take care of the kids. We are looking on the bright side and plan to enjoy the extra family time this winter with Daddy home!

It is Friday afternoon as I type this. One child is practicing piano, three are playing Legos, two are drawing, one is at work, one is cruising the furniture, and two are discussing a favorite show. Dinner is in the crock pot and it is time to hit publish on this post. I'm going to turn on some Christmas music and gather some helpers to put away the laundry.

Happy November everyone!

2018-2019 Week 3: Random and Routine

Sunday evening I reminded the kids that I would be gone part of our school day with Mason for his pre-op appointment, so they needed to do school right after breakfast or in the afternoon if they needed me. Most of the kids chose to schedule their Monday as a lighter day of work and we were able to get through their lessons that needed taught by 10am (other things, like independent reading or handwriting could be done while I was gone). Mason and I got back from his appointment 3 hours later.

For Family Home Evening we did a bowling and junk food dinner trip. Bowling happened before dinner time and when we finished we picked up a bunch of French fries at Wendys along with their 50 cent frostys. Yes, dinner was fries and ice cream.

Tuesday and Wednesday were a continuing of the routines. Each morning kids pulled out their self-designed schedules and got to work. I sat at the table or in the living room available to help as needed with lessons. There were also piano lessons on Tuesday and we have one new student - mommy. I took piano lessons for about 6 months in my late teens and then life happened and I never got back to it. I decided I can surely fit 30 minutes of piano practice into my day around mom and wife life. It may be early, late, or broken into 10 minute segments, but it will happen. My goal is to be able to play from our church hymn book. I have a long way to go!

Dinner Wednesday evening was beef stew in the crock pot. As soon as dinner was finished I gathered up books and made a mommy-only library trip. I posted about it HERE. Makayla and Emma helped host a family history and indexing event at the church while Joseph went fishing with the Scouts.

Thursday felt like one eternal round of reading for me, homeschool, chores, piano, reading to kids, cooking, and more reading. In the evening Daddy and I spent 40 minutes with the three youngest boys going through clothing bins from the attic to find what fits and what we need to buy for fall and winter. It was a good regular day.

Friday I was exhausted before the day began. Rebekah is following the pattern most of my kids have followed - when she is going through a large physical developmental leap she stops sleeping well. She woke up three separate times last night (11:30pm, 1:30am, and 5:30am) and Tobias added a random wake up in there at 4:30am so I was up a lot. Thankfully the kids were motivated to get school done because the cousins and aunt (my sister) were coming over in the afternoon. Thank goodness!

We had a fun visit with the cousins and then it was dinner, veggie pick up, library book pick up, and crashing hard for mommy. I managed to get a summer head cold.

Saturday morning I finished going through clothing in the attic to check what we still need for each child for this fall/winter. Later that morning Makayla and Emma were my helpers on the fall clothing shopping trip for the family. Thank goodness for the girls, because I still wasn't feeling great and they did a lot of the shopping. We hit several stores including Once Upon a Child, Plato's Closet, and Target. We found almost all the clothing needs for 10 children, stayed under budget (spent $395), and will finish filling in the last few items later this month. Then we will look at who needs new shoes...

 It is Sunday morning as I get ready to hit publish and I'm still feeling really sick, so I'm sending daddy off to church with the older 8 kids and I will keep the 2 year old and 6 month old home with me.

Budgets and Clothing Shopping for Nine Children

We're a homeschool family so we get to skip the back to school shopping craze. We wait until it's time for fall clothing to come out of storage and do our shopping then. Living in Ohio where we get 4 full seasons of different weather we often get half a year of use out of long sleeves and pants. We aim for about 6 shirts and 6 pants for each child, though it varies some as they reach the age where they spend their budget or as they have specific needs. For example Mason tears through the knees in pants more often than most of my boys because he still crawls when playing out of his wheelchair.

We went through our bins of stored clothing in the attic earlier in the month. While we're good at saving clothing for use by future children things just don't last through 7 sons. Then there is buying for the oldest of each gender too. This year kids needed a variety of items, some just a few pieces, others nearly everything.

Paying for Things:

We set aside money in the months leading up to our shopping. Then we do our large shopping trip at one time. Money left over in the budget is used on an as-needed basis when a child has an unexpected growth spurt or ends up with holes in all their pants at the knees for the next several months. If the money isn't used it just becomes part of the next big seasonal shopping trip's savings.

Shopping trip details:

Pre-Trip Online Ordering: I had some Super Cash from my maternity shopping online at Old Navy so I ordered pajamas for the three littlest boys online using that (saving $40 off the cost of pjs that were also already on sale).

Trip #1 on Friday night: Me, Makayla (age 16), Emma (age 11). We went to a local Target and WalMart. They did their own shopping, I was along for the ride. It is so much fun to see their different clothing likes and dislikes and shopping styles. Emma had a list, tried on a variety of things, and found everything she needed except pajamas. She was done trying on clothing and didn't want to try on pjs. Makayla found a couple items, two of which she bought as 'maybes'. She said if she didn't find anything she loved more somewhere else she would keep these items, but if she loved something else more she would return them.

Trip #2 on Saturday morning: Me, Makayla (age 16). Resale shop day! Our first stop was Plato's Closet for Makayla, then Once Upon a Child (for Tobias, Samuel, Mason, Caleb, Oliver, Daniel). Makayla had a list she had been working from of needs and wants. She tried on a stack of things and made her choices. She compared a price with something at another store using my phone. Then she helped me shop for all the clothing for the 6 younger boys. It's so nice to have a good, helpful teen.

Trip #3 on Saturday afternoon: Me, Makayla (age 16), Joseph (age 12, or as he tells me now, 13 in less than a month). We went to WalMart for one exchange for Makayla, clothes for Joseph, and pjs for Emma and Caleb (because I didn't find their size earlier in the day). Joseph's shopping personality was agonizing for me. It was along these lines: Umm, what do I need mom? Will these work? Do I have to try them on? Are you sure?

Budgets--smudgets:

Clothing budgets are a very personal and variable thing. Our general goal was to save $900, which works out to $100 per child. In reality, we then use that money based on each child's needs. We didn't need $100 to get the clothing Tobias needed (we didn't even need $50 for him this season). At the same time, we needed closer to $150 for the oldest two children, who are the first of each gender, and whose clothes cost more per piece than a toddler's, even at a resale shop like Plato's Closet.

What we bought:

Long sleeve shirts (tee shirts, sweaters, cardigans): 36
Pants (jeans, leggings, cotton pants, etc): 18 pair
Dresses: 1
Pajamas (long sleeve top and pants): 20 pair
Shoes: 2 pair

Total: 77 items

What we spent:

Between all 9 children we spent $567 for everything. We were $333 under our budget. That leftover money will be used over the next several months if needed or will roll into the next season's savings for clothing shopping.

Phew! That's our process. Do you have any questions? How do you handle clothes shopping for kids around the back to school or seasonal switch?