Medieval Feast

We have been studying Medieval times. We studied it last year, and it's been fun to revisit it and go a little more in depth in our studies.

Tonight we had a Medieval feast. We ate soup out of bread bowls. I did allow the peasants to eat with metal spoons instead of wooden ones. We also ate by candlelight which was nice.

The girls made jester shoes out of felt- they turned out super cute as they jingled all over the house. They even put together a show for the Lord and Lady of the castle. It was a lot of fun.

Here you can see their jester shoes pretty well:

Tonight made me grateful once again that we are homeschooling. What a crazy world we are living! We never would have envisioned our life being like this, but this is a great life! 

The House Loses Weight

After I set up Camille's bed on Wednesday and dropped her off at school, I decided that I would not get on FB or just sit on the couch reading a book and relaxing like I usually do. Neither of those are bad things- especially when I almost always have three children with me and I only get 2 1/2 hours a week at home alone (I'm not complaining, just saying that's how it is).

Instead of taking a nice relaxing break, I decided to put on a Podcast and clean our our linen closet. I have no idea why I chose the linen closet, except I suppose that it A) Very much needed to be cleaned out, and B) It seemed easy enough to be able to accomplish.

After two hours and two huge stuffed garbage bags later, the closet now looks like this:

In order to truly appreciate this, you have to understand that previously if you opened the closet door, things fell out. If you needed a towel, good luck finding one! You had to dig through sheets, pillowcases, and random boxes of Band-aids. Now, you open the door, and I know exactly where everything is. It's so beautiful that I will frequently open the closet door and just wonder in awe at the Zen a clean closet can provide.

I was slightly upset about being so productive by not getting on FB- it means I really need to cut down on all the time wasters in my life. I instituted a new rule for myself: I will only check FB one time a day. It's too time consuming, and too depressing. Mostly too depressing. 

Then, I harnessed my inner Danielle. Danielle is my best friend, and is a master at decluttering. So much so I have for real contemplated flying her out to help me declutter and organize.

I went on a rampage through the house. Just from the basement I threw away 2 huge bags of trash, donated three huge bags of toys, and another bonus 2 bins of toys. The girls will be very upset when they realize I got rid of their Build A Bears, which are truly awesome toys, but I am so sick of them ending up all over the house! I just had to get rid of them! 

Our basement  has quite literally never been this clean:

I organized the shelves in our living room which has been a disaster- more like a floor to ceiling high "junk drawer" than anything else. Pictures I printed off were just thrown up there as a place to store them as that's where I keep the scrapbooks. It was a mess! So, I cleaned it out. Now it looks decent, though not perfect. I still need to organize it a bit better.

Then, I did something I have been wanting to do for years: I FINALLY got plate hangars and the girls not back to school pictures printed and hung the girls hand prints (from 2 years ago) on the wall with their pictures. 

I read something on FB (yes, the irony!) that said, "The best way to organize is to get rid of stuff so you don't need to organize it." Then, I read something else that said that unless you need the money, don't try to sale it- just get rid of it. If you try to sale it, it takes too long and you lose motivation. 

I also read a bit on a minimalist blog that going through your whole house takes about 9 months. After today- after having such success and dropping off EIGHT huge bags of stuff at Goodwill, trashing 4 bags, and getting rid of so much more, I thought- "No way would it take 9 months! Look what I did just since Wednesday!"

But, then I realized how much more work there is to do. I have not touched the girls closets and rooms, the kitchen cabinets, the office- eek! The office! Not to mention the garage, which is a nightmare no matter how you look at it. It's overwhelming to say the least.

Nevertheless, I feel very accomplished. 

Hopefully there won't be too many tears when the missing Build A Bears are discovered.

First Hike of 2017!

It was in the low 40s, but I really felt like the girls and I needed to get out, so I took the girls on our first hike of the year.

It was an easy one- the Carson Nature Center Hike. It's very close to our home, flat, and just an out and back hike.

They have a place where you can build a community to see if it would last a flood (the nature center is located where a flood once came through). I think the girls could have stayed here the whole time and been perfectly happy. And, yes, their houses survived the floods.

They did find a great hill to climb:

Sad Day...

I know in the realm of sad things this barely makes the scale, but- today we sold the crib.

Camille has been using it as a toddler bed, but she literally took up the entire bed so we knew it was time to upgrade. I found a great deal for a day bed on our local bargain site, and today we made the switch. Then, with great reluctance, I posted the crib and poof- it is gone.

I was so sad to see it go! But, I couldn't justify holding onto it for 15 years until our kids have kids. We have too much stuff in our house as it is!

Here it is- the first day we set it up, back when I was pregnant with Audra in our old townhome.

Ben was going to set the bed up on Friday when he has off of work. But, as the older girls were at Cloverleaf today, Camille said in the sweetest voice possible, "Can you set my new bed up, mom?" How could I say no?

Then we headed over to Bed Bath and Beyond and I let her choose a comforter.

She said about 12 million times today, "I love my new bed!" She was quite excited to go to bed tonight.

We also said good-bye to our beloved rocker- which you can't even see in this last picture of it, but you can in the one above. We actually got this rocker by dumpster diving, but it served us very well for 10 years and three babies. The girls were very sad that we gave it away because they like to rock their dolls in it, but we simply don't have the room for it.

The baby years are definitely over. While I'm glad for that, I'm still sad to see the last remnants of their babyhood go.

Here a couple shots of baby Audra (above) and Claire (below):

Here's to moving forward!

A Woman's Place Is In the Resistance!

Today I had the great honor to attend the Women's March in downtown Denver. I wasn't sure I wanted to go, but in the end I knew that this is a momentous and historical day, and I want to be able to tell my great-grandchildren that I was there.

I can not explain how happy I am that I went! To be there among tens of thousands of women who believe in human rights, in humanity, in kindness and goodness- and in standing up to tyranny and injustice- was simply indescribable.

Women really are awesome.

In the end, this sums up why I knew I needed to go:

"I have daughters- I can't afford to give a self proclaimed sexual predator a chance!"

In a world where bragging about groping women is simply deemed "Locker room talk" and "Boys will be boys," I want my daughters to know that sexual assault of ANY kind is NOT OK! They deserve better- every woman in America deserves better, and I want my voice to be heard loud and clear that I am NOT OK with anybody- let alone a president- treating women as objects simply meant for their sexual pleasure.

I want my daughters to always know that their mom stands up for what she believes in- even if it makes her unpopular.

I want to say loud and clear that I am part of The Resistance. I will, indeed, fight our President every time he tries to take away rights from minorities, insult women, take away Freedom of the Press (which he is VERY much attempting to do right now), destroy our democracy, and silence the voices of millions of women across the country who refuse to condone his behavior. I will not accept his behavior as "normal" and "acceptable."

Because I have daughters.

It was a little chilly, but over 100,000 people showed up in Denver! I got a bit emotional, and was so grateful to be with my brothers and sisters to show our solidarity. DT supporters say that he will unite our country, and today I definitely felt united! So, thank you DT, for uniting me with my fellow Patriots against your hate!

I'm glad I was able to go with some great friends:

This was a random lady in the crowd, but I was SO THRILLED to see women of all ages in attendance! Of course, I also saw a lot of signs that said, "I can't believe I still have to fight for this crap!"

There were so many great signs- there are a lot of brilliant people out there!

"They thought they were burying us, but they didn't realize we were seeds."

"I will not go quietly back to the 1950's"

"Fight like a girl!"

I had to get this picture for Ben:

It was a great day!!!

Audra's First Salad

I'm trying to get the girls more involved with meal prep. Audra was very proud of her first salad. Little does she know she is now completely in charge of salad making for our family!

Sledding!

Even though we have had a little bit (though not too much, especially compared to Oregon) of snow, on the days that it has snowed the temps have been freezing. Finally, on Sunday night we got a decent storm of about 6 inches, and the weather was in the 40's, so for the first time this season we were finally able to go sledding. Audra and Claire's best friends Chloe and Avery came with us, and there was great excitement! The girls had a fabulous time for about two hours until Camille landed face first in a pile of snow and we decided it was time to go home.