Life Lately

While I was working on my April books post, I started looking at some of my past posts.  Lately, we have been so busy that all I have time for is my book posts (which I do mostly for me, to help track what I've read and what I think about the books).  I was reading past posts, 5 on Friday, what I'm loving, and what our boys our up to.  And I realized I miss those!  I decided to play a little catch up, so I don't forget this past year!

January

January was a BIG month for us!  We bought our first house.  We closed on the 10th, but didn't move until the 28th.  So we spent every spare second at the new house.  I painted all of the bedrooms.  Bech painted the dark paneling AND pulled up the carpet and refinished the floors.  

White paint on paneling and wood floors (before Bech refinished them) compared to the ugly carpet and dark paneling

The floors mid refinishing

Ahhh, beautiful refinished floors!

This man was seriously the MVP of January!

Our rental house looking all sorts of cray cray while we packed

We did fit in a little fun.  Here's Gil on ice skates for the first time.

February

In February, we crashed.  Seriously.

Every single one of us got the flu.  Ughhhh....

We also drove down to DC and spent several days with Ansley.  The boys loved getting a special capitol tour from their Aunt.

The view from the Speaker's balcony

Jack posing with Vermont's Ethan Allen

We also went on a White House tour.  Jack loved it...

...Gil was not impressed.

This kid is such a little poser.

We swung by Philly on our way home to visit our favorites, the Lugos.

And since Rita's had just opened for the season, we HAD to get some.

These kids are the best car travelers!

March

March was a snowy, snowy month for Vermont. 

We enjoyed a snow day together building a massive snowman.  

I will also be regretting that snow day come June, when I have to make up that snow day with in service.  Because Vermont doesn't build in snow days.  Mississippi, you need to take this moment to bask in the brilliance of built in hurricane days.  And Vermont, seriously???  It ALWAYS snows.  Why don't you build in some snow days?

And we slid down the back stairs.

We had friends over a bunch!  One night I pulled the last of the past summer's frozen blueberries out so make Bread and Wine's blueberry crumble.

We celebrated sweet Eleanor's first birthday with a beautiful unicorn party.

Jack finally read the original Jack.

And we kept hammering away at house work.

April

 

The boys opened their Easter happies.  Most notable present is Jack's watch: now when I tell him it's bedtime, he quickly corrects me.  Maybe I should have set the time wrong...

Jack, as usual, was a willing Easter photo taker.

Gil was, well Gil.

But he cheesed it up with his main squeeze, Viv.

Jack built legos and read, his two favorite things.

Also, I think the whole sibling things is going well, wouldn't you say?

Also, they share a room, so there's that...

We celebrated our favorite, Bech, with a mint chocolate chip cake.

And we had our first creemees of the year.

Jack on top of the UVM mascot, the catamount

I got to spend some time with my friends (Stowe Cider may have been involved...).

The boys and I have been really into cake baking videos lately, so we've been trying our hand at baking.  We made an ombre cake for a potluck we hosted.

And I decided to try my hand at gardening!  We are still doing our summer CSA, but I would love to eventually stop that and grow all of our summer veggies.  Here are my baby seedlings.

Whew, there's a speed recap of the past four months.  It's been busy and crazy and good.  I can't believe my first year back teaching is almost done (19 school days, but who's counting?), Jack is almost a rising 2nd grader, and Gil is almost a legit preschooler.  

We have lots of fun summer plans in the works, including a camping trip or two, a visit to Asheville, and a trip down south.  I can't wait!

SaveSave

5 on Friday

Whew, long time no blog.  I've been keeping my book posts up to date because they are a great resource to look back on.  In the craziness of this semester, the blog has fallen by the wayside.  But I am writing this post on a Thursday, and, as of right now, I only have one more assignment due!  I'm taking a Praxis test next week too, but it's the ELA one (and, thanks to my incredible ELA content professor, I feel VERY well prepared!).

So I am celebrating by posting, and it's my favorite type of post...5 on Friday!

O     N     E

As I just mentioned, I am almost done with this semester.  It has been so hard, but I have also loved it.  One thing that has helped me get through this semester is the wonderful people I get to learn with and from!

This is one of my classes at a local Pho restaurant.  Seriously, I have an incredible cohort.  There are 8 of us doing the middle level MAT, and I think each of my fellow classmates is pretty incredible.  I am so thankful for all of our group texts and social events.

T     W     O

It's December, which, in Vermont, means SNOW!

Last year, we had a really mild winter.  I was sort of thankful for that.  It's nice to not be totally frozen all winter.  But I missed the snow!  I am glad that we have already gotten some snow here.  It's snowing a little today, and we have snow on the forecast for this weekend and next week.  Vermont is just magical looking all covered with snow.

Plus, it never hurts to have a white Christmas!

T     H     R     E     E

A couple of days before Thanksgiving, Bech and I had a cocktail party for some church friends.  Bech made rosemary gimlets, and I laid out a cheese board (complete with baked brie!).  Friends brought more appetizers and drinks (and no kids!).

We had the BEST time.  We have a great group of church friends, but we haven't gotten to spend a lot of time all together this fall.  The guys do guys nights, and the girls do girls nights (which is almost always just an excuse to drink margaritas and eat nachos together #nachoaveragechurch).  It was wonderful to just spend time all together.

Plus, the baked brie did not hurt.

F     O     U     R

I am almost completely done with my Christmas shopping!  Woohoo!

I know Christmas shopping is stressful for some people, but I really enjoy it.  The only part that is stressful is paying for it all.  This year, though, I tutored a girl for the PSAT this fall, and put all of that money aside so that I could pay for most of the Christmas presents.  It worked out really well.

And it's perfect timing, because we head to Mississippi a week from Saturday.  We are all SO excited.  I am extra excited because this is Gil's first flight to have his own seat.  I am going to bring his car seat with us and have him sit in it during the flight.  Has anyone else ever done that?  Any tips?

F     I     V     E

I've written before about my love for Advent.  I love this season right before Christmas. 

Last year, we read through this book (by Ann Voskamp) together, and we are doing it again this year.  I love this book so much.  There have been a few nights where I am holding back tears as I read the final paragraph.  I can tell a huge difference in Jack's comprehension and engagement with the book this year.  He is listening and is talking about it afterward.  

If you are looking for a way to prepare for Christmas with your kids, I would highly suggest this book!

There we go.  Five very random things!

Life Update

Oh goodness, the last couple of weeks have been a whirlwind!  I haven't really talked about this on my blog, but I am, once again, a student.  I am doing a MAT program.  It's a year long, super intense program that will end with a masters in teaching AND teaching certification.  

Because of this, life is looking a whole lot different around our house these days.  Jack started kindergarten and he then stays for aftercare four days a week.  Thankfully, he is loving both kindergarten and aftercare!  Gil goes to Jack's old daycare.  It's takes a tad bit more driving, but we just love it and are so glad that Gil is there.  Bech is doing his job but having to do a lot more parenting duties, like dinner, solo bedtimes, dropping off kids at daycare.

And I have the craziest schedule of all!  I am at my internship (it will be my student teaching spot next semester) M/W/F.  Tuesdays, I am in class from 8:30 until 7:30 at night (with about 2 hours of breaks in between).  Thursdays, I only have class from 4:30 - 7:30.  It's exhausting and insane!

But we are making it!  And it's fall (MY FAVORITE) so we will soon be doing all of the fun fall stuff on the weekends.

A couple of photographs to close this post out:

I snapped this picture tonight during Redeemer Kids.  Jack just adores these two older girls at church, and they are sweet to him.  Seriously, he is such a ladies man.  He already has a girl in his class sending him home with pictures and homemade books!

Bech took Jack and Gil to the dentist solo.  It was Gil's first visit and he did great!  Bech was so sweet and took pictures for me.  It is hard to not be sad missing these little things--dentist and well visits, school field trips--but it helps to have Bech keeping me in the loop.

The weekend before school started, we headed 2 1/2 hours down south to Brattleboro to visit the Lugos and help celebrate Ashley and Theo's birthdays.  We had a blast.  It was a fun and relaxed weekend--perfect ending before starting the craziest semester ever!

So that's why I've been MIA lately.  I have a blog post in the works with my August books...I'll get that up soon.

5 on Friday

I'm baaack!  Actually, I just posted a Christmas post, but made it show up from a couple of weeks ago (is that cheating?  like blog cheating?).

I have a couple of posts I still haven't done (visitors from November, a book list), but I feel like 5 on Friday is such a good starter to get back into the blogging swing of things...So here we go!

O     N     E

We have had a crazy last couple of weeks.  I drove the boys down to DC (to see my sister and her husband) for MLK weekend (10 hours there and 10 hours back BY MYSELF with two little boys!).

Katy and I spent a ton of time working on Anne Douglas' nursery, and I think it's turning out pretty cute.  But we had a little time to play too.  Since it was pretty cold that Sunday, we headed to Chuck E. Cheese for pizza and games.  Oh, and for Katy's birthday.  Isn't that the way you like to spend your birthday?  Seriously, Katy was so sweet to spend her birthday dinner there, and Jack and Gil had a blast and burned off some energy.

Gilbo is a big fan of pizza, well of any food in general!

As a side note, my kids did INCREDIBLE on the car rides.  They both have lots of things they struggle with, but traveling is not one of them.  I think it's because we have just made them ride in car rides from the beginning.  The first one or two were rough, but now they are amazing when we travel places.

T     W     O

I got home Monday night, and then Wednesday, we had a whole batch of people in town.  Bech was part of a show at Burlington City Arts, and some of the other artists showing were PSU grads too!  So we had people in and out of our house through early this week (Jonas delayed a couple of flights).  We had lots of hang out time at our house, plus we got a babysitter and went out with friends Friday night.

It was so fun to have friends in town!

T     H     R     E     E

After all that craziness, Bech and I started the 21 day fix.  Have y'all heard of this?  It's a workout/diet plan that you do for 21 days.  

Basically, the food part is all portion control and low carb/high protein.  And then you do a 30 minute workout video each day and drink TONS of water.  And it's totally kicking our butts!  Bech and I are enjoying eating more veggies and fruit, but we are pretty hungry a lot of the time.  We are 5 days in (so 16 more to go!).  I'll let you know how it ends up.

If you've ever done this before, we are not doing the Shakeology portion.  It just seemed too expensive for our current budget.  Maybe I'll try it in the future?

Also, if you are a 21 day fix expert, any recipe tips or advice?

F     O     U     R

I forgot to share this picture from my Christmas post:

Here's our little traveler, coming home from Christmas.  He's got a Darth Vader suitcase and a Chewy bookbag.  This little boy is ALL about some Star Wars!

Can I just say that four is so much fun!  This little guy is hilarious.  He loves to cuddle and talk to me, and I love it too.  He definitely still has his moments, but I am just enjoying this age so much.

F     I     V     E

I've had a couple of friends lately ask for book lists, and I have grand plans for two separate blog posts about that.  

But I posted a couple of months ago about wanting to read more classics.  Since then, I read Anna Karenina.  Okay, I know it's a classic so obviously someone likes it.  But that was a looong read.  And I like long books.  I can tear through some Ken Follet.  And Atlas Shrugged is one of my favorite books.  But goodness, I struggled with AK.  Glad it is done!

So I treated myself with a little popular fiction

Ready Player One is sort of a dystopian book, but most of the action takes place in a virtual reality video game.  I used to read William Gibson when I was younger, and this book reminded me slightly of his style.  Plus, there are so many 80's references that make it a fun read.  Ready Player One is not the most incredible or life changing book, but it is an enjoyable read.  A good break after Anna Karenina!

Alright, there's my 5 on Friday which is sort of a catch up.