Photo Journal - Josie Boettcher

I didn't think it could get worse (I'm so naive), but it did. Things started so well today though! Everyone woke up late, around 7:30! I felt sooo well-rested. Ollie climbed into bed to "nuggle" and she was fever free!!! Woohoo! But then Ruby walks by the bedroom door and mentions that her stomach is hurting. I'm kind of like, okay, well...let's get some food and some water and see how you feel. She ate a few bites of breakfast but said that she just couldn't eat any more; she felt too sick. Within an hour, Ruby puked all over the daggone floor. Just everywhere. Ben and I were getting ready to leave the house to meet up with Alisha and I had to stop everything to clean her up and clean up the mess. Thankfully, it wasn't a terrible clean up and MJ was there to help, but wow. Such a bummer. MJ urged us to go anyway, so we headed out. Our hangout with Alisha and Patrick was so nice though. I put my foot in my mouth once, but what visit is complete without...

After a lot of indecision, we drove to DE yesterday. Our plan was to leave on Tuesday evening and drive late, have the WHOLE day Wednesday to visit and go on a date, and then start the chaos on Thursday. BUT. Tuesday morning, Marme calls and says she's feeling sick. She doesn't know what's going on, but something's off. We decided to hold off until Wednesday morning and just deal with whatever sickness she gives us. Tuesday afternoon, Ollie came down with a freaking fever! She was acting pretty normal and had no other symptoms, but her temp was 103. Wednesday, her temp was still high, but she was still acting normal and her temp came down with meds, so we decided to head out that morning anyway, just a couple hours later than we planned. The drive actually went very smoothly. We had a couple of stops in the morning, but we had a 4-HOUR stretch for the end of the trip. That never happens! We got here in good time and went straight to Patrick and Erin's for a visit. S...

Today was a bit disappointing. I was up and getting things packed, when I get a call from MJ telling me that she's sick. We decided to hold off on leaving for DE until tomorrow, which means that instead of having ample time for dates and visits, we now have a time-crunch. It shouldn't be that easy for everything to get messed up, but it is! AND, of course, it's a little stressful going to DE when we know that MJ is sick. It's basically guaranteed that we'll catch what she has and that sucks. Bad. But if we don't go, we're cancelling two Christmas gatherings and the kids' birthday party. Not to mention dinner with Alisha and Patrick, the opportunity to go on a date, and extra time with Patrick & fam, Dawn & Ali, and my parents. We're doing it because the good outweighs the bad, but MAN I don't want to come home and deal with COVID or something.  I did get the opportunity to get Clemi's and Jonas's birthday photo shoots done. My kid...

Happy, happy 9th birthday to my biggest girl!!!! Clementine is such a gift to me and to our family. She honestly is kind of the glue for the kids. She keeps an eye on her sisters, she pulls everyone together to play fun games, she includes everyone in everything, and she is incredibly helpful to me. Clemi has boundless energy and a beautiful optimism that I just love. She is a natural cheerleader and it gives me such pleasure to spoil her a little on her special day. This year was mostly clothes, clothes, and more clothes. She's reached that age when having her style outwardly represented is super important to her. I also got her some new art supplies, a teensy bit of makeup, and a few toys. I love being her mom. I could do with about 95% less tattling, but I know she'll grow out of a lot of that as she gets older.  Today was a chill day with a very early start. I didn't prep her cinnamon rolls early enough yesterday, so I had to get up this morning and roll out the dough, ...

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!! I'm so thankful that God sent his son to earth to live as a man and to die for our sins. My entire adult life has been defined by God's love and sacrifice for me and I kind of feel like Christmas is the renewal of that celebration of Christ's life and death cycle.  Today was a wonderful day. I had some internal struggles, dealing with all of the trash and the excess of new things/gifts. I never feel like it's too much when I'm prepping, but once it's under the tree, I start to freak out a little. I'm feeling like the kids are a little TOO privileged. 😬 Ben, Jonas, and I played Risk tonight and all was going well until Jonas started losing. After that, he basically had a temper tantrum, threw a die, and started crying, saying that he'll never play this game again. That was kind of a bummer and Ben stayed grumpy from them on. That made me really sad because I thought we'd have some fun, adult time in bed after we went up, but that ...

It's finally Christmas Eve! I spent HOURS today working on uploading pictures to this digital frame I bought for Ben 6/7 years ago. It has sat, collecting dust, since I bought it for him because he refused to put photos on it himself and I didn't want that responsibility either! He convinced me that he REALLY wants to put it in his new office, so I spent the time to find, organize, and put photos onto a flash drive. Sadly, I hit a snag because of my horrible computer and Google's horrible collection feature that cost me hours of time. So much time that I didn't finish up the project. I was getting so angry and so upset about my wasted day that I ended up freaking out a little about it. So I dropped it. For now. I'll try and finish it up soon.  Other than that, we wrapped a few more presents and had lots of fun family time. I did a photo shoot with the kids and Ben, and then after everyone was in bed, we stuffed the stockings, brought the presents out, and watched Sc...

I had a pretty grumpy day today. I ended up running 7 different errands and it just burnt me out. It left me with tons of stuff to do at home and no time to do it all. With the expected bad weather, though, I'm pretty sure I'll be able to stay home and get stuff done all day tomorrow!  I'm trying to be more intentional with Ben lately, but when I'm in a bad mood it's especially hard. Last week, Ben told me that he's feeling unsatisfied with some aspects of our marriage and, specifically, the fact that he feels like he tries to adjust his behavior to make me happy more than I do for him. And he's right about that. I'm quick to tell him when I feel like something is wrong between us (caused by him) but I'm pretty oblivious to the things that I might be doing wrong. He told me that he needs more physical affection from me, which I was pretty annoyed by. I spent the day thinking about it and went through all of the denial feelings and the 'I'm ju...

Everyone slept really well last night! We had a little scare when the adjoining room was locked and the two younger girls were asleep in there and we had no way of getting in. I told Ben to try the old credit card trick and he managed to jimmy the latch open between the two rooms. Whew! It was a scary 5 minutes! The kids all slept until 7:30, which is very good for them. I didn't go to sleep until after midnight, so I'm still pretty tired, but really glad the kids didn't wake up at the crack of dawn, at least.  After breakfast and a morning swim, we headed home. I had a couple of hours of work to do, including a call with an unhappy client, but after that I took the kids to Pins Mechanical for a hangout with some of our play date friends. It wasn't a great time, honestly. The girls were all bored and didn't want to play video games at all. Ollie literally complained for half of the time, begging me to take her home. I ended up getting milkshakes for everyone, when I...

Ben and I decided to surprise the kids with an overnight at the Polaris Hilton today. We had such a fun time! Not relaxing at all, but still fun. We got there, looked around, went to the mall for a little while just to visit and look for some little things for mommom and poppop, went to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner, spent an ASTRONOMICAL amount of money on dinner, went to Barnes & Noble, got back to the hotel, and went swimming! I got in the hot tub and pretty much instantly regretted getting wet. When we got back to the room, we watched a little tv, got the younger girls to bed, and then played Phase 10 with Jonas and Clem. It took Clemi a little while to catch on, but she did well! She got it figured out and was keeping up with the rest of us.  One of Clemi's friends from kindergarten was at the hotel with her aunt and uncle. We've met a couple of times and we exchanged phone numbers this time so that we can get the girls together for a hangout sometime. I'm glad...

I had an interview at Calumet today and it was super nerve-wracking. Tyler started the interview by saying, "We have several VERY QUALIFIED applicants for this position." Like, thanks bud. That's super helpful and a big confidence boost. 😐 Nonetheless, I think the interview went fine. It lasted so so so much longer than it was supposed to. The kids ended up waiting in the car for 50 minutes, rather than 15. Pretty crazy. We'll see if they end up wanting me for any of the spots! I just have no idea at this point.  After the interview, we went to Ben's job for lunch and a visit. We saw his new office with its incredible view. It was nice. We had some pizza and just hung out for a bit. We used to visit him at work all the time when the kids were younger.  This evening was our HC's white elephant gift exchange. It was a good time, as always, but felt really short! The gift part was fun and there was lots of good food, but I didn't feel like I had time to real...

Today was a busy day, with CT, and Clemi's choir practice, my photo shoot, and a date tonight. But it was a good day.  The photo shoot! It went well. I'm nervous that the photo won't turn out to be dynamic or exciting enough, because the idea is just a little bit boring, BUT we'll have to see! They pre-paid for it, which makes me nervous. 😅 Since it was absolutely freezing cold, I ended up photographing each of them individually, which adds a LOT of photoshop work for me...and makes it tough for work timing, since my computer is very finnicky lately. I don't have much to show at this point. This is the "scene" of the story. I haven't even done any editing to the photo at all. When the guy asked how he should pull his car in, I told him crooked might be good, but he went crooked the WRONG way and I wasn't quite bold enough to tell him to move so that he was angled the other way. It'll be ok, just I think the other direction would have been nice...

I finished up ALL of my Christmas cookies!!! Yay me! It took forever, but I did it. BUT I ended up backing out of Ashley's Christmas cookie exchange this evening. Just, with Clemi's birthday stuff, it felt like a lot of non-relaxing time...especially knowing what tomorrow has in store for me. Clemi's birthday get-together was pretty fun. She, Iqra, and Eliane hung out at McDonald's for a while and we had lunch and then, afterwards, we headed over to the movie theater. All of Clemi's friends this year are Muslim and none of them know each other except through her. I think they're all from different countries, even. It's just interesting! Both of the girls' moms were really nice though and I'm hoping for good opportunities to spend time with them again in the future. Both girls' moms stayed with us at the restaurant and one of them came with us to the movies. The movie was just ok. I'm even afraid to admit this on my own, very personal blog, bu...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JONAS!!!!!! My big boy is 11 years old today. I still remember a lot about those first days home with him on Wiltshire Rd. Life was so beautiful, and new, and uncertain, and scary...and painful! Now he's nearly in middle school. He has a low voice and has only big kid interests. He still likes hanging out with me and Ben though, so I'll call that a win. His big gift this year was a desk. 😅 It's just a testament to how old he is! I can't even imagine getting a desk for Ruby or Clemi.  We're all still healthy and today was the kid's LAST day of school until January 3! Thank God, because I was getting burnt the f out. I baked a few kinds of cookies today and am anticipating another busy day tomorrow. Clemi and two of her friends are celebrating her birthday with McDonalds and a movie. Of course, we will all be tagging along. :) And then, tomorrow evening, I have a cookie exchange party at Ashley's. I'm hoping to get a couple more kinds of c...

I've been anxious about this morning's party forever, but it went so well! It was super cute. I made this little melted snowman craft that the kids loved and everyone loved the game I chose too. I'm so relieved! And, of course, Ollie loved having Mommy in class with her.  I'm going crazy wrapping and baking today and I really DO NOT want to work at all. I'm so freaking busy! And I have like 15 notifications waiting for me, so I don't think it will be quick. Tonight is pizza and a movie night and then I have cell group, where we're supposed to discuss a chapter of our new book and exchange our Secret Santa gifts. BUT Anne's family is sick, Alex has COVID, so Jenny is out, and Rachel and Mark have been sick. It's going to be a small group and I'm pretty disappointed since I was the Secret Santa organizer, but I'm sure all of the people who are stuck at home are even more disappointed! 

Haha we were back at the Popescos this morning! Me and Ollie went over there so that Jenny and I could discuss our advent book. It was a good time. I was a little distracted because I've been selling things on Facebook and was getting a ton of messages about that and also a million texts from Ben, but it's all good.  I made fried chicken for dinner, which turned out really yummy, and then we made gingerbread houses together. :) I was feeling grumpy about it, but I kind of just turned myself around and said to myself, "STOP BEING AN ASSHOLE" and then it was better! It was actually a really fun, cute time. Jonas spent so much time working on his. Crazy that he's just entirely independent with stuff like that nowadays!  Ben expressed some worries to me today about Jonas switching schools next year. Jonas is absolutely sure that he won't make any friends at Calumet. He feels like his social life will be over and he will be miserable forever once he makes the switc...

Well, things are finally starting to look up sickness-wise. We're mostly better! The girls are still coughing, because what's a virus without a lingering, hacking cough for weeks and weeks? Ollie was grumpy this morning, but she also got up at 5am, so that's probably why. By the afternoon, all was good with everyone and we got to go to the Popescos for dinner! It was a really nice, relaxing time hanging out with our friends. It's been a while since we've gotten together and it felt good to just sit and catch up for a couple of hours.  I feel like life has basically been cancelled for a while now, which has its benefits, but is mostly just annoying. For instance, I've read 4 1/2 books since Thanksgiving, which is just crazy for me. BUT I haven't gotten to see any of my friends and I've been going crazy, trapped in the house with all of the kids and a half-broken computer. It feels really encouraging and exciting to be coming out of it.