Imposter Syndrome!

I’m sitting here writing on my couch today. Cam’s out of town (New Orleans for a conference) for 3 nights, so I’m just trying to make it. We have such a solid back-and-forth, he does certain things and so do I. So when he’s gone, there are little things that fall to me that I don’t ever have to think about! (Like, what temperature do we keep the air on at night? I have no idea.)

This morning, I was on the floor, cleaning up little bits of banana that Bea had dropped. The big kids were behind me, chatting about something, and Charlie was in his room. And I thought to myself, “Cameron left, and I’m the ONLY grown-up in charge of these 4 little people. WHO THOUGHT THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA?” Not because they are a lot to handle, but it just blows my mind sometimes that I - Bethany - am a whole adult and mom. I feel so unqualified most of the time! And again, not because anything is going wrong, just because I feel like I’m still learning to be a human, a grown-up, a person myself.

I think back to my own mom and dad and wonder if they felt the same, just sort of winging it most of the time. Or maybe back then, folks didn’t think so much about this stuff. 😄 

Homeschool Stuff

WAIT if you’re not a homeschooler, there are still 2 things here (below) that you might be interested in!

We got in our curriculum. Deciding what to pick each year can be overwhelming, which is why we typically stick to the same company year to year. What I didn’t mention is that last year, Annabelle and I realized that maybe what we’ve been using does not work for her. The design of the pages is busy, and there are a lot of practice problems. For her, something simpler is really ideal, so we switched (to MasterBooks).

Now, for this year, I’m still not sure what to use for her. The Good and the Beautiful is what we have used for years, for math and language mostly. It works great with Alexander, and I’m going to try again with AB. She has made some big shifts this summer, mostly in temperament, and I’m wondering if it will work for her. They offer FREE math and language curriculum (PDFs) for certain grade levels, so I got them for her, to print here at home. I printed the first 10 lessons each, to give it one more solid effort. And if it still doesn’t work, I’ll dig around for new curriculums!

Here are 2 more things I want to mention:

• Spelling Workbook - I won’t link it because there are a dozen places that sell it. But you can get it at Walmart, Target, Amazon, Thriftbooks, and more. I’m going to use it with AB!

• Ruby Reads Books - They have read-aloud posters to go along with a small selection of books. We did 2 last year (Wild Robot and Number the Stars) and loved it. I’ll get another poster or two for this year as well.

Recent Recipes

On Instagram, I’ve got a broadcast channel that’s on my profile that’s free to join. Someone mentioned it’s not available in her country though, so I’m not sure if you’ll be able to access it. In any case, I’ve been posting recipe links there whenever I make something. It’s a nice way for me to keep them all in one place.

Here are a few recent recipes for you to try!

• Black Bean Enchiladas - I make the included enchilada sauce as well!

• Stove Top Crumble - No recipe, but I wanted to share! I made peaches and cream yesterday (just chopped peaches and homemade whipped cream). THEN I wanted to make a crumble to sprinkle on top but didn’t feel like preheating the oven and all that. I mixed together my crumble ingredients (flour, brown sugar, oats, cinnamon, pinch of salt, chunks of butter) and then just toasted all that on the stove for 5-10 minutes (honestly, I have no idea, just until it looked right). It was yummy!

• Magic Shell - For family meeting last week, we had an ice cream theme. The agenda looked like ice cream, and the snack was ice cream. I bought most of the ingredients, but I did make magic shell (and strawberry syrup)!

• Strawberry Top Syrup - If you don’t have TikTok, here’s what you do.

  • Wash and trim some strawberries

  • Place the strawberry tops in a small pot and cover with water

  • Let it simmer about 10 minutes

  • Strain out the tops (I used cheese cloth to catch any little bits) over a measuring cup - Make sure you take note of how much liquid you have!

  • Put that liquid back into the pan with roughly the same amount of sugar (I scaled back the sugar just a little… I think I had 1.25 cups liquid and did 1 cup sugar).

  • Bring to a boil, then let that simmer for an hour until thickened. That’s it!

Family Meeting

Now that we’re about 6 weeks into family meetings, I feel like I can share more insights on them.

Who: Your family!

What: The family gets together to chat about upcoming events, issues that need resolving, and so on.

When: Whenever you want, but pick a day, once a week, and try to keep it consistent. Also, it’s just 15-20 minutes! Ours are Monday evenings.

Where: We do it at the dinner table, right after dinner!

Why: It’s a great way to stay connected and make sure everyone knows they’re part of the team. We’re a family that eats at least one meal a day together, but this is a good time to talk more intentionally.

How: Here are the details you may want to know:

1. We always have an agenda. I make it cute and print it out, but you can just have it written on a post-it note. Or add items to a dry-erase board throughout the week and prop the board up for the meeting. Doesn’t need to be fancy, just intentional! Here’s our basic agenda each week:

   • Prayer to start

   • Pros and cons from the week

   • Anything anyone needs?

   • Schedule updates (boring stuff, like “Cam has a phone call at noon on Tuesday”)

   • Fun stuff (like “going to a birthday party next weekend” or “library on Thursday”)

   • Any issue we need to talk about (bedtime, chores, speaking kindly, etc)

2. Talking object - We pick a random object. You have to be holding the object if you want to talk!

3. Snacks. We have snacks each week. It can be a package of store-bought cookies, charcuterie, whatever. Or you can let the kids decide. Or don’t have snacks at all - it’s your thing!

4. Fun. At the end of each meeting, we do something fun. We’ve done TikTok time (I watch them by myself a lot, and I save fun videos that I think the kids will like; then we watch those fun ones together for “TikTok time”)! We’ve watched an episode of American Ninja Warrior, or Wipeout, or America’s Got Talent, or Mr Bean… This past week, I made up a quick game of Jeopardy that we played online together. For screen-free ideas, try charades or hide-and-seek or a scavenger hunt!

Let me know if you have any other questions! ❤️ 

I NEED SOME IDEAS!

Last week we had that ice cream theme. I’d like to have some themed meetings moving forward (not every week, per se). The only idea I had was CIRCUS. We’d have honey roasted peanuts and cotton candy for snack, and for fun, we’d watch The Greatest Showman (or part of it) OR play a game where you pick a character out of a top hat (like strong man or bearded lady) and then you’d have 5 minutes to make that costume before presenting it to everyone else. 😄 

Any other theme ideas?

Taking Care

I’ve started taking better care of myself in the past few months, and I’ve started to tell a difference!

Working out is one big thing. I can easily get down to the floor and back up again without moaning and groaning. Woo!

Skincare. I’ve been doing it a couple years, but lately, I’ve been more intentional with it, using things daily instead of just sometimes.

Flossing. I won’t tell you how often I used to do it (you’d be like 😳) but I’ve started doing it every night, and I can tell such a difference!! My teeth feel and look so much better. Do you have a floss you like? I have tried 2 and don’t love either (maybe it’s because I don’t actually like flossing…). One feels sort of sharp like it’s a piece of thin waxy plastic, and the other is like a piece of actual string and ends up leaving fuzzes sometimes!

Anniversary & Headphones

Our anniversary was a few days ago! We ended up doing something special for each other. I got him a couple small gifts that I stuck inside of a picnic basket (that I found at Goodwill). And then I sent him on a treasure hunt that ended at the picnic basket.

For me, he hid some goodies around the house (I THINK I’ve found all of them! Face scrub, Nutella biscuits, Chocolate caramels, and Kind ice cream bars), and then in the card, he’d attached a QR code. When I scanned the code, it was a video he made that had some fun memories of the two of us!

Headphones! Alexander needs some headphones, preferably noise canceling. There are so many options for kids, but he’s not quite a kid anymore. So the little kid versions are too cutesy, and the big kid ones are $300. Is there something I’m missing? If your kiddo has some they like, lemme know. Thanks!

Hope you have a great weekend ❤️ Bethany