Today was our first day working within our new schedule. We had a winter storm rolling in, so Lover and Declan headed out early to do special time and grocery shopping before the storm made everything terrible. We worked on chores and schoolwork, and encouraged the older kids to do some independent reading.
We are working on re-establishing quiet time as a break in the middle of our day where everyone rests and resets. This is allowing me to work on things like devotions, writing and whatever else I need uninterrupted (or at least, mostly uninterrupted) time for.
I had a fair amount of work to get done for MOPS, as well as our monthly recap of finances for our budget and how our AirBNB performed last month. January was the slowest month we’ve had in almost a year of hosting, and while that’s not great for money making, it’s been great to have a bit of a break from that. Also, our grocery budget seems to be expanding every month, so we spent some time discussing how to rein that in a bit. We don’t eat out much, but we eat very well at home! And the kids are eating more and more – gotta think about that one.
Cassandra is potty training again, hopefully this time it sticks! Declan enjoyed some one on one reading time with me, and the bigs each got my attention for a bit today. I’m always happy when we find those pockets of time for each kiddo!
After lunch, and a question about carbohydrates, Luke spent some time teaching the kids about atoms, elements and molecules, and how different carbohydrate chains can be anything from sugar to fiber. Luke also spent quite a while with Javi working on algebra. Javi loves algebra, he’s currently a bit limited by only being able to do addition and subtraction, so we are starting to introduce the concept of multiplication. This is often the case with Javi, he can understand really big concepts, but then needs a while to catch up on the foundational concepts that allow him to advance in other areas.
We watched Ant Man and had a snuggle fest on the couch, and then read some of the book I’m writing to the kids after dinner. After the kids were in bed, Luke and I did a yoga video I found recently that’s helping my hips and lower back a ton. Then we stayed up waiting to hear about the weather cancellations tomorrow – in the end I had to cancel MOPS! Sad to miss seeing the girls, but a snow day will be nice!