Photo Journal - Josie Boettcher

♭♭ They see her rollin'; they hatin'; wearing her Halloween outfit; ridin' with Baba. ♭ I'm finally getting around to creating a Chatbook for my 365 project I did from 10/20 - 10/21 (probably going to cost over $100, btw, and it makes me want to die) and I just looked at a picture of her attempting to ride her tricycle yesterday. 😭 Why do the littlest ones seem to grow up too fast and the bigger ones seem to stay stuck in obnoxious phases forever???  Ben and I have been in a yucky, uncomfortable spot with each other for a couple of days. It was entirely my fault. I've been feeling irritable and was getting super annoyed with Ben for just being Ben. Yesterday, I expressed how I'd been feeling and although I didn't say much, what I said was very, very hurtful to him. It felt justified at the time, but in retrospect, it was shitty and temporary. But, of course, the repercussions take longer to get through. Understandably.  In entirely unrelated news, I started...

It's been a few days, but the rest of the week was pretty hectic. It was busy, but not super action packed. I don't really know how to describe my feelings. Wednesday, I hung out at Jenny's for a bit and went to class in the evening. Thursday, I hung out with Brit for a bit, then went to Ruby's evaluation planning meeting, then went to cell group. Friday, I hung out with Brit, Anne, and Leslie, then went to Kylienne's for lunch, then went BACK to Anne's (for the third time in 24 hours) for a home church dinner. These were all good things separately, but it turned out to feel, in total, like a draining amount of stuff. I feel like class, Kylienne's, and the evaluation planning meeting were what pushed it over the top for me. And, of course, needing to work every day makes things a little tough too. When I accepted a 5-10 hour a week job, I just didn't expect it to feel like so much sometimes.  The home church dinner was actually a LOT of fun. It was our b...

Man, today was crazy in some ways. Our old HC is dissolving and, being friends with several people impacted by this, I spent a lot of the day texting and talking about it. It's a terribly sad situation, all around. Lots of emotions and frustrations and confusion abound.  In better news, I took Ollie to her pre-k orientation tonight and she is SO EXCITED. Her teachers seem really nice and her room looks really fun. She says she will happily stay there without me. We'll see! 

All the kids are back at school today! It feels nice to have some peace and quiet. Ollie was super patient while I was in my meeting this morning and I let her come with me to take the big girls to their checkups in the afternoon. When we got back, Ben surprised me by saying he wanted to take everyone out to Granddad's for dinner. So we did that and then took all the kids to Target just to spoil them a little and get everyone a new little toy. It was fun and the kids were all happy. Ollie has been SUPER into Barbie's lately and today she got her first! She's been carrying at least one of her sister's around at all times. I love the imaginative play that comes with Barbies. I'm not a huge fan of the Barbie-ness of Barbies though. 😅 Big win today: Both me and Ben were able to go to HC tonight! Ollie hasn't been letting me out of her sight lately, but she stayed with Maria and didn't even fuss. Maria said she went to sleep easily and didn't get upset at al...

Today we had CT in the morning. I thought working in the nursery went great. Ben is really getting the hang of it (as opposed to the first day when he pretty much looked at me for directions constantly, as if he hadn't fathered four children already) and we had some super cute cuties in there. I don't normally take pictures of the children I'm watching, but I thought it would be ok since they're Anne's, Brit's, and Leslie's. It was just too sweet to not!  After CT I did have my date with Jonas. We read for a while and talked through one of his biggest doubts/fears about Christianity. Low and behold, it's the same as mine! He feels like Heaven sounds too good to be true. I get it. I talked to him about how I go through my process of reaffirming why I believe and he seemed to like the way that I think about it. I also showed him Isaiah 53 (two birds: also hw assignment!) and had him read it. I asked him who it sounded like and he said Jesus. When I told hi...

We didn't do too much today, mostly hung out around the house and cleaned. Last night, though, we went to the Popesco's and had dinner. We also went for a walk through the woods and played at the playground for a bit. It really was a fun time. Tomorrow, we serve in the nursery and we're supposed to have dinner with Jordan. I also have a date with Jonas and I think we're going to work on rehabbing the mirror we salvaged from Uncle George's.  Anyway, I'm just going to post one picture from today and a bunch of pictures from last night.

I'm feeling so tired lately! I'm getting plenty of sleep. I don't know what's wrong with me. I have a fear, but I don't want to type it on here. Maybe later. Ollie was super grumpy today, so we stuck pretty close to home. I took her to the neighborhood playground around 10:30 this morning and there were two grandmothers there with their little girls. They were both pretty chatty, which I wasn't expecting. :) I really just wanted to sit and relax, but Ollie wasn't about that, so I ended up pushing her on the swing and talking to the ladies. One of them asked for my phone number so that we can have a play date sometime. Little does she know that Ollie hates every child she meets and will probably freak out if I try to make her play with her little granddaughter. Oh well. It doesn't hurt to try! And I'm always thankful to meet new people.  Barbie is in the left swing. :)

Ugh. I'm in such a bad mood that I don't even really feel like talking about my day. I did have a good visit at Anne's this morning, then Ollie and I had a good lunch, but I started to feel yucky after lunch. Like...off. Nothing really specific, just yuck. I laid in bed for a few minutes, then came down and edited pictures; both relaxing things. BUT by the time I got Ollie up from her nap and started the afternoon junk, I just started feeling pissed off! For literally no reason at all. It's dinner time now and I'm still ready to burn the world. Thanks hormones!!!

I haven't written since Saturday! That's crazy. Judging by the very few views my blog has had lately, I doubt many people will notice! 😂 I say that like there's thousands of people with access to my blog, but really, I think there are 6 people with the link and only 3 who typically check in so...it's really not a big deal. Quick breakdown of the days I missed:  Sunday - We all slept better in the tent than I thought we would. The kids went right to sleep and stayed asleep all night. Me and Ben struggled a bit, but it wasn't terrible. We went to CT and I know we stayed busy the rest of the day doing dates and hot tubbing, but I can't remember what else! Monday - I had my staff meeting for work in the morning and we went to the library afterwards. I cooked this weird meat and potato stew that was delicious, but the kids hated it and nobody ate besides me and Ben. We took three of the kids to their open houses to meet their teachers. Fun! Everyone is so excited ...

Ollie has been going through a terrible phase lately. It has grown from being a preference for mom to being an outright rejection of dad. I'm not talking about a minor thing. This is like, Ben isn't EVER allowed to care for her in any capacity. On top of that, he can't play with her or talk to her either. He says he loves her and she says, "Me no love you." He says bye and she just turns her head and looks the other way. He's constantly trying to do things to remind her that they had a really fun relationship just a month or two ago and she just ignores him or screams at him. It's been hard for me to have all of the responsibility for Ollie again (not Ben's fault!!) and it's been hard to watch Ben's feelings being crushed, but it's been INCREDIBLY hard for Ben. She is SO MEAN to him. SO freaking mean. It's just been going on and on and on and he's feeling worse and worse and worse. I can't leave her with the sitter, or at Oasis,...

My play date with Anne got cancelled this morning because of...you guessed it. SICKNESS! Haha nobody is really sick seeming anymore, but since Clemi had a fever yesterday, we decided to reschedule. I wouldn't want to compromise Ezra's health any more than it already is.  I spent some time working this morning and then had lunch with Terracina. It's been a while. I am worried about my friend sometimes. I know she's a deep thinker and I try not to take all of her verbal processing too seriously, but I do get worried. I should try to get together with her more often than once every three months! After lunch, I kind of got roped into taking Ollie on a mommy/daughter date. The thing is, I don't have any scheduled time with her. When I made the schedule, she was home all of the time, so we got tons of alone time together. That hasn't been the case this summer, so it was good for me to do, but I hate being forced into things. Regardless, I took her to pick out her firs...

Jonas is back to seeming super sick today. He can barely breathe, he's so congested. Clemi has one super red eye (pink eye again???) and Ollie is coughing a lot. WTF?? I ended up cancelling with Brit and getting Jonas back to the doctor, because it might be a continuation of his sinus infection. They gave him steroids, more antibiotics, and a nasal spray that isn't habit forming...but also isn't very effective. I'm sick of all the sickness!  Ben was supposed to take Ruby on a daddy/daughter date tonight, but he came home from work feeling dizzy, as always. I'm really worried that there's something going on with him that needs to be taken care of. Every time I suggest he should go to the doctor, he gets all, "I don't have time for that. It's not that bad. It'll be fine. They'll just have to do a bunch of testing. Blah, blah, blah." And although all of that is mostly true, what if it's serious and he's just ignoring it? So. Since ...

Ollie would not take this sweatshirt off, despite the heat!! I had a productive day. I wasn't sure I'd make it to playgroup this morning because I have so much going on right now, but I did! Thankfully it was at Fancyburg. I'm not sure I would have gone if it had been further away. I also took care of the hot tub, cut Ben's and Jonas's hair, worked, cooked dinner, tailored Ben's suit, and mommed all day. The whole week is packed just like today was. It's not a bad thing, but it's busy! I've been thinking a lot about plans lately. Plans for the near future and, of course, plans for next year, when it's moving time. Are we going to get a good property? What is it going to cost us? Will all of the kids even be able to get enrolled at Calumet or will they be too full? Should I homeschool when it's time for high school? If I do, how will I make sure the kids are getting enough socialization? Should I focus on native plants for my future property? ...