I think 2021 was one of the most difficult years of our lives. Well at least for me, and if mama is stressed, the whole family is stressed. Leaving our beloved home and yard and homestead in Roosevelt on a whim/promptin in 2020 ( I really did LOVE that house and yard and landscaping and setup. It was perfect to me), moving to a totally unknown place to me, being pregnant without health insurance, being in a place without a support network yet, living in a dark and dirty rental with pretty awful neighbors, the stress of navigating building a home, and Levi having some pretty severe anxiety issues was so stressful. My anxiety was through the roof most of the time. I felt cut off from the resources I was used to and helpless to help myself and my kids in many ways. I knew we were supposed to move, but dang, it was hard. Traumatic if I'm honest. But due to the grace of God, an inspired calling in Young Womens to give me purpose and a chance to serve, and my angel mother-in-law, we made it. I could not have made it through 2021 without Pam Brinkerhoff. Did I mention she did the laundry for our whole family for almost a year?? She's an angel.
Moving into our new and beautiful home, filled with light, was SO relieving. Finally we had a place to call our own, where we didn't need permission to have bikes on the porch, didn't have to worry about the kids stepping on glass, picking up cigarette butts, seeing vulgar things, or my kids being yelled at by other adults. It was glorious, and so peaceful. I never realized in such a clear way the impact your environment can have on your spirit. Coming to our home was SO wonderful.
I don't think we left our house for the first 6 months. Plus, I was pumping full time for Jacob (hello being milked every 2 hours for 30 minutes each time). I finally had to give up after 8 months- I was just losing my mind. But I started getting Jacob goat's milk from Susanne Kuhlmann to feed him (since there was a formula shortagee) and being able to feed him that brought a lot of peace of mind- knowing he was getting all the good fat, protein, probiotics and good stuff from that milk.
We spent the year just settling in. I didn't feel the need for a lot of trips and traveling. We just LOVE being home. It's so peaceful and comfortable, and after our rental, feels downright luxurious. Beautiful new appliances, plenty of space to dream and be creative. We decided to delay our landscaping for a year and instead put in our garden spot, get chickens and goats. And boy howdy am I glad!! This is the year that eggs went from $2/dozen to currently $8/dozen in the store. Our hens started producing about a dozen eggs a day just as Avian flu hit all the flocks in commercial egg establishments, and suddenly our eggs became very popular. I love having fresh eggs every day, and being able to share them with others. I was also able to purchase 2 Nigerian Dwarf goats and milk the mama to get milk for Jacob. That was an adventure. Lots of hard work, but SUCH good milk and nutrition for baby boy. Our goats are pregnant now, and I'm looking forward to milking again in the summer and having that deliciousness for our family again.
We had a great first year garden in Wayne county, and had a bumper crop of potatoes (thanks to Grandpa Chad and Grandma for teaching us how to grow taters), carrots, broccoli, squash, and corn. All of our tomatoes got blight so we didn't get a single tomatoe but Pam, the master gardner, let us have all her green tomatoes to ripen indoors so I was able to make tomatoe sauce. I also learned how to pressure can this year- bone broth and chicken meat mostly, to make shelf stable food. I spent a lot of the winter canning soups, meats and broth. I love being able to grow and make our own food. We also installed a wood burning furnace- Michael sold his Lemans to Dave VanDyke for $5k and bought and installed it, so we can heat our home with wood and not just propane. It feels so good to have redundant sources of heat for our home, self-produced vegetables, beef and milk. Now we just need to figure out some water storage and we are set.
This is also the year we decided to start homeschool. I brought Levi home after his 1st grade year, after struggling with anxiety, accidents at school, and attention issues. Bringing him home was the best decision I've ever made for him. I think he, like me, has a really difficult time with change. Moving was traumatic for him as well. It was difficult for his environment to change, his school, his classes. Change is hard for him, and that started manifesting in things like talking about death and dying all the time, extreme worry about ever leaving me or me dying, and other things that told me he was stressed. His teacher sort of pegged him as a bad kid, and he felt that way too, for his inability to focus. After some trial and error, we found an ADHD medication that has done wonders for his ability to focus and not be hyper (Stratara) and a couple of months ago added in Zoloft, another miracle, making me realize all of his attachment issues were related to his anxiety. He's become once again a happy go lucky kid, that is excelling academically, and feeling happy and settled. I love homeschooling him and watching him thrive. He's really, really blossomed this year. He went from crying on Grandma's porch when I'd leave him for an hour for a Primary presidency meeting, to asking if he can stay home and play with the cats while we go to the store, all by himself. It's been an absolute miracle. He's also super smart. He's zoomed through our language arts and math this year and is reading at a super advanced level. He can read the Book of Mormon all on his own and enjoys it. He's into robots, building, creating and is just really really bright. I enjoy spending time with him and talking with him about the world.
Alida stayed in public school for her first semester of kindergarten, but found through the school of hard knocks that learning is a lot less fun than playing in pre-school. Her wide open love for everybody has also led to some friends feeling she is too clingy and some hurtful playground interactions with friends running away from her. After crying before going to school every morning (she is also not a morning person), I decided to bring her home after Christmas break as well. So far she is also really loving not being rushed and shoved out the door every morning, and is doing well in language arts, math and handwriting as well. She's grown like a week- shes' the tallest girl among her peers at all times- in dance class, kindergarten, primary. She and Levi are almost identical in height and weight. In fact, Alida's overtaken Levi I think, weighing 50lbs and Levi weighs 48. She's tall and beautiful, with all of her front teeth missing. But she's a cuddly, kind-hearted doll. It's taken her a minute to catch on in school. She spent the first few months feeling dumb and frustrated. But with determination and repetition, she's really caught on and caught up to her peers. She loves learning and has a little bit of a competative edge with Levi. She's excited to read as well as he does one day.
I love that with homeschool the kids get so much time to play with each other, and that they are becoming each others' best friend. I also love that I get to spend my life WITH them. Not just taxiing them around. I love watching them learn, and being the one that gets to spend that precious time with them. I love that they are learning to do chores (Levi takes care of letting the chickens out and locking them up at night and feeding the goats. Alida gathers the eggs and takes out the kitchen scraps each day). They are also learning to cook- Levi can make fried or scrambled eggs, oatmeal, cereal, mac n'cheese and PBJ sandwiches. They also say prayers, read the Book of Mormon every day (Levi on his own) and do their own laundry. The allowance incentive has really helped them to get into the habit of doing their own chores every day and helping around the house. We're still working on brushing hair/washing hair on their own in the shower, and brushing teeth. And keeping their room clean. But they've done a pretty good job of learning to do their daily chores and helping around the house and with homestead chores, especially for a 5 year old and 7 year old.
Caleb is kind of our ferral child. He gets to run amuck all day while I homeschool or work. He mostly spends his days watching Octonauts, or torturing our kittens we got in October. Since Levi's been homeschool'd, they've learned to get along much better. Levi and Alida used to just play with each other and exclude Caleb so he'd watch his tablet by himself. But now that Caleb is the only one to play with while he's home, the've formed an alliance and get along really well. Caleb has mostly subsisted on milk, apple juice and his green sippy cup. He's ALWAYS asking for a drink and hates eating food. We have to spoon feed him to get any food in him. After waiting 6 months so we could get some insurance coverage, we went to the dentist to find he has 20 cavities, needs several root canals and will need all his teeth crowned. He's our one kid without brown teeth so we really hoped we wouldn't have to pay an arm and a leg for his dental work. But here we go. After that dentist visit, and both the dentist and hygenist saying he couldn't have a sippy cup any more, we decided to go with it and cut him off. Surprisingly, he's gone along with it, and now only drinks milk or water out of a straw cup at the table. This has meant he's eating more actual food, and he's also pooping like a normal kid instead of being constipated all the time. It's been great. Caleb is a fun little 3 year old- but you can't tell him anything. He gets SUPER angry when he has to be disciplined, and runs away or screams and yells. He's got a bit of a temper but is also a super sweet and tender-hearted kid. He has to be the authority about whatever he's talking about, which is kind of funny coming from a 3yo. But we mostly just find it humorous. We've been trying to potty train him for MOST of the year. That's mostly meant that he's been naked most the year. We almost had him there in August and then I decided to take a road trip to see Grandma Schoening in Oregon. And that road trip, putting him back in pull ups, we lost all progress. So here we are, months later, still working on getting him to go to the potty. We've recently run out of pull-ups though and I refuse to buy more, so it's about to get real.
And finally, our sweet Jacob. We realized at about 9 months that he just wasn't progressing like my other kids were. He didn't attempt to roll over or crawl or have any desire at all to move. He'd sit in his froggy chair all.day.long. We had early intervention come evaluate him and realized he was significantly behind in gross and fine motor skills. We started meeting with a physical therapist, and that soon turned into an occupational therapist as well, a feeding specialist (he gags on all solid food), and this month we'll be seeing a developmental specialist that will likely tell us he's on the spectrum for Autism. I love my sweet boy so much and he's just a little ray of sunshine. I wouldn't change anything about him. But he does act like a 9 month old baby still, at 18 months old. He just started crawling about 1 month ago, and it was a huge milestone. We're still figuring out if his sleep issues are gut/constipation/gas, or seizures, or allergies. The kids stopped sleeping through the night about 6 months ago and we can't figure out what it is. Michael thinks it's wrestless legs so I've added iron and liquid vitamins, probiotics, and protein powder. He seems to be doing better, but still has spells and spasms at night. He's also developed some allergies to who knows what- possibly our cats? Or chocolate? But it makes him itch and miserable and it's awful. We're taking him in for allergy testing in a week and hopefully that will get us some answers. But he's just a sweet and cheerful little boy and I adore him. He's content to play in his room all day long, and even though he does crawl, doesn't do so often. He hates loud noises and gets really overwhelmed with loud noises. But he loves his mom and dad and loves being tickled. I love him.
Michael and I are on our 9th year of marriage. Being in our home has been so wonderful for us both, but we're also still adjusting. He's still in the truck 5 days a week, and as much as we'd like that to change, we still haven't found a way to make it work. I am working for Dahlia's Hope as a grant writer part time (about 10 hours/week) and still have my Plexus business. Both are doing great, and this year I made almost as much as Michae did, working part time hours. I've been really happy with that contribution because without it, I think we'd be pretty strapped. We had to pay $8k for a fire hydrant this year. $5k for sidewalks. The baby cost $8k and we've been paying that off since he was born. Michael had an ER visit that cost $2k. Caleb's dental work will cost over $2k. My car engine exploeded the day after Jacob was born- that cost $6 k to replace. There's always unexpected expenses. And then, or course, there is Christmas, and birthday trips, homesteading stuff, landscaping, wanting a garage, wanting to finish the basement. More resources means more autonomy to do things we enjoy. But this year I decided it was time to have some more restraint to our spending, and cut up the credit card. It was just getting too easy to use and the balance just kept ticking up. That's been one of the best decisions we've made financially. That, and requiring us to save money every month, even when there are debts to pay. We're finally making progress toward paying off ALL our debts. Baby will be paid off soon, and so will the fire hydrant debt. Then we pay off the credit cardd and the van payment and we'll be entirely debt free except for our mortgage. We hope to do some landscaping this summer, but it might have to wait one more year.
So we are busy- but peaceful. We just do the things that are most important- and nothing else. I homeschool 2 kids, and have a baby and 3yo at home full time. I love homesteading and growing and making our own food. I have 2 paid jobs, AND in May I was called as the Primary President in Thurber Ward. Just when I thought I didn't have any more time to squeeze for anything. But the Lord has blessed me tremendously and I've found a rythym and a way to fit in time to manage all the kiddos in the Thurber ward- music programs, teaching, activities, and baptisms. I've really loved working with the kids and setting a goal to double the size of our primary and bring more precious kids to Christ.
While life is so full, sometimes Michael and I have a hard time staying connected. He's over the road all week and I've got my schedule that's pretty tight in order to fit in homeschool and 2 jobs and Primary President. Time to talk on the phone with him is limited, and weekends are often packed with projects and all the things he can't do when he's in the truck all week, so it can be stressful. But we've committed this year to spending more intentional time connecting, and doing the work it takes to be more unified in our marriage and share each other's interests. We hope to go to the temple more frequently together and make date nights a higher priority. He hopes he can find a way to be home more and have more time here with his kids and working on projects. It's one thing to build a home and live in his hometown. But for him to be able to pass on the knowledge and skills he has of ranching/farming/building to his kids, he needs more time at home. He also desires to serve the Lord more and have a calling. So we keep thinking of ways he could come home. He's thought about doing construction here, or driving the propane truck locally. But we'll see. He's so good to me and the kids. So gentle and kind. Always trying to be a better disciple. So gentle and nurturing to his kids. He helps me to slow down and put their needs first sometimes when I'm apt to put them in their place and call them to order and to snap to the routine we have established. He has such a good influence on me and our home.
Well, that's 2022 in a nutshell. Beautiful beginnings and the best is yet to come. I'm so glad we're here. I'm so glad my kids get to grow up in such a beautiful place and that we get to live the slow life together. Slow meaning- home together, doing the most important things. I'm busy, but everything has it's place, and that creates peace. So grateful for our family that lives close by. Grandma and Grandpa are always here to celebrate birthdays and holidays, help with all the medical appointments and Primary presidency work. It's been such a blessing to live by them and watch my kids develop such a beautiful relationship with them.
Looking forward to a beautiful year of homeschool, homesteading, serving the Lord, learning how to be a better leader, and working to create some financial breathing room for my family. Life is beautiful.
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