Photos
Currently 🦁🎥🌾🌮👟🐅🍪☕️🧱
Reading: Just finished reading “The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe” to my son. We’re 4 chapters in on “Prince Caspian” now. I found this whole 1970s Chronicles of Narnia set at a thrift store for either $4 or $5!
Watching: @mtt and I just finished watching “A Gentleman in Moscow.” I liked it.
Researching: Countertop grain mills. I think it would be so amazing to mill our own flour.
Purchasing: Lots of Christmas gifts. ‘‘Tis the season. 🎄 My grandfather graciously gives me money to purchase my own gifts. So more specifically, I just purchased myself a Masienda tortilla press and masa. Something I’ve wanted for a while, but just couldn’t justify. But that’s what makes it a good gift!
Wearing: I got a new pair of classic Vans. Sized up half a size for some toe wiggle room (because I wear barefoot shoes a lot of the time and can’t do a tight toe box anymore), and they are so comfortable.
Enjoying: Took my kiddos to the zoo here recently. It’s not very big, but they’re making some improvements as of late. My kids have visited with their grandparents a lot in the last few months, and they were so excited to show me around because it had been years since I’d been. We had the best morning there.
Eating: I’m making gingerbread cookies this week. This is my favorite recipe! In the past, I’ve just mixed powdered sugar and milk until I get a consistency for icing I like. But I think I’ll try a royal icing this year.
Drinking: Bone broth hot chocolate. The recipe calls for chicken bone broth, but I actually prefer beef. It’s really good either way, though! My kids have actually had the opportunity to have packaged hot chocolate several time recently, and they wouldn’t drink it because they said it wasn’t good.
LEGO-ing: I got 3 Christmas Polar Bears sets for 70% off after Christmas last year. Saved them and got them out this week to do with B and Ro. Fun times.
My girl got to go to a Christmas tea party yesterday!
Kumquats
Ro girl taped up a box to wrap. 😊
Two of her favorite things are crafting and wrapping gifts for others. ❤️ Oh, and tape. Tape might be her very favorite thing.
Some recent-ish thrifted things:
A $1 framed Christmas cross-stitch
Lemon Federalist ironstone sugar, creamer, and for cups - paid $2 for all of it
2 floral napkins that were either 25 or 50 cents each, can’t remember.
Did a sort of Icelandic Christmas Book Flood at our co-op today (we’re diving into a Christmas Around the World study for the next few weeks). The kids drew names a few weeks ago and found the perfect books for each other, many of which were thrifted. It was simple, but so special.
Stopped by my dad’s for the night Friday night on our way home from Missouri. Left there with 2 dozen eggs Saturday morning. Cooked almost half of them last night for dinner. 🥚🍳👍
I’m mom of a birthday boy this week.
Surprised him with coffee alongside his choice of eggs and venison sausage for breakfast.
He requested alligator at Prejean’s for lunch, so we went and they celebrated him too. 🎇
After baseball practice, we had pancakes and more sausage (by request) + gifts.
It was a beautiful, moody morning.
More Recent Thrift Finds
I’ve finally been going through a box of stuff I’ve collected over the past 3-ish weeks and cleaning and washing things and putting them away. And I’ve decided I like documenting what I’ve found. It also looks pretty all together on my Pinterest board. 😊
These 3 items were from 3 different places. And cities, actually. Paid approx $4 total.
The basket is for who knows what. Might use it to hold some photo albums or Chatbooks. Might use it for gifting. Endless options.
I think I’ll really use the sun tea jar for sun tea. I’ve wanted to try it for a while. It’s such a happy looking jar.
My first thought with the spice cabinet was to remove the door and use it as art (I LOVE the font of the words, Herbs & Spices) and use the shelf part as an open wall shelf for one of the kids’ rocks or other curiosities. Or maybe Lego people.
Ready to go help Daddy with a project across the yard this afternoon. 👷♀️🔨🤍
Setting a timer and sitting down to do this. Giving myself 15 minutes. 🧩
Thrift finds from last week: (Paid $2.43 for everything)
An old 2-hole punch because they look cool and the kids will have fun with it
A bowl for water for the cat
A saucer to use under a potted plant
An unopened set of stationary with pretty bird art…might frame one and use the rest
Co-op This Week | Subject: Olmecs (Ancient Civilizations)
Yesterday was our co-op day. We’ve been studying Ancient Civilizations this semester. Our focus this week was the Olmecs.
If you are not familiar with this group of people, they were an ancient Mesoamerican civilization believed to have thrived along the Mexican Gulf Coast from approximately 1200 to 400 B.C.
Our co-op is small-ish. Nine families. Eleven kids, ages 5-12. Five of the moms rotate lessons for the semester. Most lessons consist of several rounds of sharing information pertinent to the day’s topic and breaking between each sharing session to do a related activity.
This was not my week to teach, but I wanted to share my kids’ work, perhaps as inspiration, and definitely as a keepsake for myself to look back on here.
The first project of the day was making stone heads out of air dry clay, which was representative of the giant stone heads the Olmecs were known for creating. The kids were shown several photos as inspiration and given toothpicks and popsicle sticks to use to carve and shape.
She was so proud of the helmet.
Hers and his. He was slightly less enthused with the project, thus putting much less time and energy into it. But he still did it and knew what it represented.
The second project was patiently wrapping rubber bands around a wadded up piece of paper to make a bouncy ball. They used the small rainbow loom bands. This activity was meant to correspond with learning that the Olmecs were the first known civilization to use rubber.
The last project for the day was constructing a pyramid with homemade Rice Krispie treats and vanilla buttercream icing (so, so yum…our resident baker was the teacher, which is always exciting 😋). This was a nod to the Olmecs building pyramids or pyramid-like structures like most other ancient groups of people.
His. I took a photo of hers–which was wider and flatter than her brother’s–but some of the other kids were in the background, and I wanted to respect their privacy so chose not to post.
The Olmec lesson may sound somewhat simple, but doing projects with 11 kids can take up a big chunk of time. And some lessons are shorter or less involved than others. It’s so wonderful that each week is similarly structured, yet approached from a different mind. And we’re always encouraged to dive deeper into each topic.
Next week is my second lesson to teach for the semester. I’ve been excited about it since watching the Sight & Sound Theatre’s “Daniel” last month when it was in theaters on Labor Day weekend. So much to unpack and learn.