Are you allowed to say vomit on the internet? I mean, I guess anything goes online. What I mean is will anyone really click on a headline that contains the word “vomit”? Well, you’re here, so I guess some people will. Thank you for not letting that scare you away. Don’t worry, this post isn’t gross. There’s only a couple mentions of poop and one more mention of vomit at the bottom of this post. Word vomit that is. Anyway, on to the point…

It recently came to my attention that my Instagram stories are getting all of the juicy attention lately, and things that I’d normally be so excited to share here on my blog are disappearing in 24 hours. Not good for posterity sake let me tell ya.

And though my descendants may not care about my excitement for tiny blades of grass finally popping up through our septic field, gosh darn it, I’m gonna share it anyway.

Some highlights from the last week:

All my kids got sick. First Big T, then Lil’ J and finally, Lee Lee. One after the next, two days each. I felt so bad for each of them. They were pitiful little things. Lil’ J wins the award for being the most dramatic about it. She missed a day of school and tried to sit out for another but I wasn’t having it.

Lee Lee’s cold is still lingering and now he also has an ear infection. Brutal I know. We just started antibiotics and I’m hoping she’s feeling back to her chipper self in a week because she’s going on her first trip! Where? I’ll let her tell you…

Also, this is arguably my most adorable stop motion film to date.

It’s my first trip in exactly a year. The last time I was on a plane was when I was flying home from meeting Oprah. I’ve been cozied up with this baby since then, and I’m still not ready to go anywhere far without her. Luckily Disney invited us to do this trip together. The big kids are coming too (though they don’t know it yet). And my mother in law is joining us in lieu of my husband. He’s not tired of Disney per say, he just doesn’t appreciate it as much as the rest of us (and he ran out of vacation time after paternity leave… Oops).

Anyhoo, more on that later.

In the backyard we finally have some grass sprouting on our septic field. Oh, did I already mention that? My bad, I’m just really excited about it. See that patch of bright green behind the kids? That will soon be a fun little picnic spot. Ok, it sounds gross but I promise it’s not.

We also started naming our big oak trees, which may seem silly but it actually is helping is distinguish where we are in the yard.

There’s Oakey that this hoop swing hangs from. Dopey is across the way sitting in the septic field. Then Zeus is the giant post oak dead center a little ways back. It looks like it’s been struck by lightning a couple of times. Off to the side of that one there are two more post oaks that look like twins. At first we named them Billy and Lilly but they were quickly renamed to Apollo and Artemis since Zeus is kinda overlooking them.

A ways back there’s a big live oak tree with a large droopy canopy (see above). I can see us having many poetry tea parties under that one. So we named it Poa (like boa) or Po-A (not sure if the spelling just yet). But do you get it? Like Po-a-TREE!  LOL

So that’s six named and we still have six to go. The plan is to paint some big rocks with the names on them then set them in front of the trees.

Speaking of rocks, we have a ton in our yard and we’re working to move them to be useful. We’re making paths and we heaved a bunch into a circle to make a fire pit. We had our first family fire last week. It was such a simple yet beautiful experience. We roasted marshmallows and our big kids tried s’mores. I’d just set up some battery string lights before the big night and they worked perfectly. Not too bright, but perfect ambient light during our fire. I’m excited for years and years of gathering out here.

I’m still settling into the reality that we really made this dream happen. I hope it’s a testament to our kids of what’s possible. Which brings me to my next thing…

We also set up some kid jobs this week. These are JOBS not CHORES. And there was quite a lot of hubbub about the difference in my Instagram stories. The consensus is chores are what kids do as a part of contributing to the family. Not for money.

In our house chores are done before any screen time is granted. Sometimes they slack off on chores and that means they can’t watch TV or play on their ipads (going outside to play is still ok). We also don’t do allowance though. Some people do allowance and tie in to chores. Others do an allowance but very adamantly DON’T tie it to chores (because chores = a given).

My husband says an allowance = “you do what we say and we ALLOW you to live.” However, Lil’ J is trying to save money for things she’d like to buy, so we created some JOBS she can optionally do for cash. So far those include editing our vlogs, picking up dog poop, emptying the trash from around the house and a few other things she doesn’t do as a part of her chores. I can do a whole post on this including tons of kid jobs for cash ideas if you’re interested.

Here’s an unrelated, but ridiculously aforable photo from their first Daddy/Daughter dance.

I’m using Rooster Money to keep track and so far she’s earned $4. Payday is Friday. I’ll keep you posted on how this goes.

Man, I feel like I still have so much to say: Big Ts first track meet (he killed it), dusting off my sewing machine, an online video-editing course I’m launching soon, and showing the “after” of our living room niche.

I’ll share all of these in my next catchup post. Maybe I should call these something. If it was Friday maybe it would be a Friday roundup. What’s Happenin Wednesday? I’m not sure I can commit to that.

But I do want to just word vomit over here now and then like I used to. I hope you’ll join me. What’s new with you?

Until next time…