Out of Hand: January 2025

The Artist

Wednesday, January 29, 2025

Mr. Agreeable has demonstrated some serious artistic skill lately. “He’s the most creative one in the family,” according to the Engineer. I was impressed with his most recent work, inspired by his passion for dinosaurs and giant robots.

However, he informed me that this is Godzilla, not a dinosaur; and dinosaurs don’t have spikes on their tails.

[To be honest, I just learned the difference between King Kong and Godzilla. All of the kids were horrified.]

Sweet Pea and the Recorder

“Mom, I know how to play, ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb!’ Do you want to hear it? I figured it out myself! I am self-taught!”

“You sound terrible.” -an anonymous older brother.

Nothing but love being passed around over here!

Tuesday, January 28, 2025

DH and the Firstborn with cousin Robin:

The Firstborn informed me that the vessel is 5 acres; and that in 4 hours they barely scratched the surface.

Monday, January 27, 2025

He really does know how to make a fresh espresso! And he loves bringing them to me, unprompted. I truly do not deserve this amazing kid!

Big Sister

Somehow she talked the 3-year old into giving her a back massage. The 5-year old wanted in; and then they were paying for turns.

😂🤣👑👸💆‍♀️

Then I found this next to the coffee maker. Sister is something else.

Saturday, January 25, 2025

These are from four months ago, but still blogworthy. The twins at Sandy Feet Initiative.

Friday, January 24, 2025

I was off of school for a month and made so many Skinny Taste meals on the weekends. It was such a joy! The kids had friends over. I made a half dozen batches of cookies. We discovered a new one that everyone loves. There's nothing more joyful that hearing your pubescent child say something nice about you from the distance. "Hey, guys, my mom made cookies!" Even the skinny boys whose parents probably don't let them eat sugar, snuck into the kitchen for seconds and thirds. I'm really not the Suzy-Homemaker type, but it warms my heart to have our home be a place of respite and comfort.

We were given this doll to keep for 17 days and return to school with journal notes about what we did with Jesus. DH immediately took and hid the whole bag so it wouldn’t get ripped apart and soiled during the break. Children found it and tried to drag it out along the dirty floors; but we caught them on all occasions. You probably won’t appreciate this without having 5 boys 3-13; but there is no chance that that doll was not going to become the center of a joke that escalated until something was destroyed. Then they would hide it in the bag and all deny it was them. But we got this adorable photo out of it!

Then there was this screaming contest:

Mr. Serious spent most of his time making foil dinosaurs and otherwise being calm and agreeable.

We cleaned out bedrooms and discovered some truly horrifying things. (No photos of those.) This will have to suffice. It was covered by a blanket on the top shelf in an unnamed child's closet. At least two partook of this endeavor. I tell them that their punishment for eating ice cream in secret is getting fat. That is punishment enough.

The day before returning to school, I discovered 5/8 of the backpacks had decomposing matter within. We did a three hour scalding water cycle:

Upon returning to school, we picked up the norovirus (which whipped through everyone but DH in 48 hours) and then the respiratory virus. Good times.

Friday, January 10, 2025

We spent time in Adoration here tonight. There is so much to pray for but the Lord wanted to fill me with peace anyway.

Sweet Pea had her class trip here earlier in the day and went up to the top of the bell tower. She’s a fearless one!

Thursday, January 9, 2025

Back to the theory that humor covers a multitude of sins, this sequence questioned my questioning of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series. This was the best sequence of the series, which you'll appreciate if you’ve had the misfortune of reading this depressing book—and even more so if you’ve happened upon the back cover.

Similarly, Sweet Pea recently told the Fifth and Sixth that horrible men come out at midnight, and therefore they need to be quiet to not be discovered. So now, when told to go to bed, the Fifth panics and asks, “What time is it?? Is it Midnight?” When questioned about this conversation, Sweet Pea reasoned that it was past midnight and the little boys were still awake and making so much noise that she couldn’t sleep. So, she told them the tale “and they were quiet allllll night after.”

Wednesday, January 8, 2025

The Fifth is hugely popular, partly due to his extreme extroversion, and partly due to his older siblings. Everywhere we go (assembly, his siblings’ games), middle school kids—mostly girls—greet him with huge smiles and hugs. It’s impressive.

So we’re joking about the ‘legal’ thing; this girl was one of the adolescents he cheers up on the regular. We love this boy!

Tuesday, January 7, 2025

We’ve been told that prodigious behavior is typical for youngest children in big families. In addition to making his own chicken nuggets (taking from freezer, placing 6 on a microwave-safe plate, and setting the microwave for 2 minutes), Sol knows how to talk to me via Siri.

Saturday, January 4, 2025

When you live in one of two U.S. states which produces key limes:

Friday, January 3, 2025

This was DH’s view. I saw the inside of my windowless office; but I billed 5 hours! (Par is 4.7.) DH may have notified me that he also gets the 9th off in honor of Jimmy Carter.

Play hard, rest hard. Whatever the Fifth does, he fully commits.

Wednesday, January 1, 2025

Started it off with Mass and coffee with my Love:

Word and Saint of the Year. I told the Holy Spirit that I trusted Him to generate the right saint and word on otherwise random generators. I received wisdom and St. Anselm.