So I know that there’s a lot of information out there about like how scary the teen years are, and certainly she’s been a little bit more emotional than she was when she was 12, but I think it’s been pretty manageable and I really just like 14 and 15, we have signed her up for driver’s ed.

And I’m really excited about that. Like I just feel like you don’t know what kind of driving parent you’re gonna be until you have your first driver. She’s pretty responsible, so I haven’t been too worried about her. But of course I haven’t had to sit in the passenger seat yet where like a thing that I birthed out of my body is driving a vehicle that’s like unsafe vehicles are so unsafe.

So anyway, pray for me. I will update you on how that is going. So for my family right now, we’re thick in the middle of ski season. I grew up pretty poor in Vancouver, Washington. That’s where I grew up, which is about, I don’t know, 40 minutes outside of Portland, Oregon. So most of you guys know where Portland, Oregon is.

If you cross this really big river. And move into Washington. That’s where Vancouver is, and we didn’t really get that much snow and we didn’t have money for skiing. But here where I live, we live near this mountain called Schweitzer. It’s a very nice ski mountain, and they say that it has like, I think a Swedish feel to it, where when you’re at the top of the mountain, you can see the water in the lake. Something about that. I’m not into skiing, so I don’t know.

But the ski company has a really good deal for homeschool kids, so they have a really good deal for homeschool kids. And so my kids all get to ski. They get lessons and gear and a season pass for I think 300, 325, something like that.

And so they get to do that, plus they get to see all their friends ’cause all the homeschoolers are doing it. And it’s my husband who takes them up to do that. And this is the first year my little guy, Peter. is skiing. So all six of them are skiing this year, which is wild.

I had thought that I might learn this year too, since normally I’ve been staying home with the little guys and this is the first year they’re all going, but I don’t know, I just prayed about it and I didn’t feel like it was the year. I might do it next year. I don’t like being cold or wet or going fast.

So pretty much everything about skiing is not appealing to me, but I do feel like it’s a big part of our family culture and I feel like I should at least know how to ski. So I think I’m gonna probably try to do that. Next year, but I won’t buy a season pass. I’ll just buy like the one day one and go and check it out.

So our life really changes as soon as it starts snowing and the mountain is open. And then my two kiddos that go to school, their school, which is amazing skis, the whole school skis on Monday. So my husband skis with the two guy, little guys, and they’re not the littlest ones. Number four and five.

He skis with them on Monday and then he skis with the other four on Wednesday. So it’s just a big part of like packing and where’s your socks and pack your lunch and things like that. On Mondays and Wednesdays, two different sets of kids and it really blocks out quite a bit of time for our family on the calendar.

And then on Mondays I’m teaching classical conversations. I teach the six year olds and. My three girls are doing classical conversations. This is our first year doing that. I’m sure I’ll make a video about that at some point just to give my thoughts about it. In general, I’m much more of an unschooler, but they really wanted to try it. They had some friends that were doing it. And so I said, fine, we could try it.

Which is kind of the unschooling way, by the way. The unschooling way is following what the children want. And if your children want traditional, classical, rigorous school, you go, all right, we can do that. But they know it’s not my jam, but I’m willing to let them do it.

The way that classical conversations work is the parent has to be there. And as soon as I found out that I was like, well, I might as well be teaching. So I love six year olds. And I can, I’m like really good at being a Mary Poppins teacher for three hours, and then it’s gone.

But I can like muster the energy to be very sing songy and do that. And then I’m done. But I don’t really have any interest in teaching kids older than that. I really like the six year olds. We sing songs. We play games. It’s fantastic.

So I’m all day Monday doing co-op and then my husband’s with two of the boys on the mountain. And then on Tuesdays I have a couple group coaching calls. I meet with my team and then I have a break where I try to walk a little bit, but sometimes I’m tired.

And then I picked up the two school boys. With my third boy, and we go to religious education and I teach Atrium there. If you know what the catechesis of the Good Shepherd program is, I’m certified to teach that, and so I teach the three to six year olds on Tuesdays while my boys go to. Whichever class they’re supposed to go to. Two of our boys are gonna make first communion this year, so I’m really excited about that. That’s Tuesdays.

So then on Wednesdays, everybody now is gone ’cause the two boys are at school and the other four kids are on the mountain. So that has actually been new for me, that I have this like quiet day, four or five hours by myself at home. So I’ve either been filming or reading or cleaning. I’m not sure. I’m still kind of playing it out, what I wanna be doing on those days.

And then on Thursdays, a couple more group calls. And I take my daughter to work. My almost 15-year-old, she works at a teriyaki place that’s run by this Christian woman. It’s amazing. And this Christian woman gathers all the kids and they pray before every shift. So all the kids are Christians, a lot of homeschoolers. It’s just amazing. I’ll tell the story someday about how we got that job. ’cause it was just the Holy Spirit.

But yeah, she’s been loving it and she works six hours on Thursdays and Fridays, so it’s six minutes away. I drive her, I drop her off, and I pick her up. And that’s just been really good. It’s just been really fruitful. She’s made some good friends there and we’ve had a lot of really interesting conversations. ’cause I think all the kids are Protestant.

I think she’s the only Catholic kid there. It’s really opened up some really interesting conversations about what they believe versus what we believe. And, I think my kids without. Any negativity for me felt like defensive against Protestants, and so I’ve really had to be like, Nope. We love the Protestants. Like we are friends. You don’t need to be worried.

A long time ago, my daughter was like, what if there are Protestants there? She said it like that, and I was like, why are you saying it like that? Like what are you worried about? She was like some of them. I could be divorced like that, and I was like, okay, hold on. I was like, first of all, being Protestant doesn’t mean that you’re divorced.

Like one time I probably said something like. And in general, maybe Protestants have a higher rate of divorce. I don’t even think I would’ve said that. ’cause it’s not true. Theirs is the same as ours. It’s just pretty much 50% across the board no matter what religion you’re part of, which I think is really interesting.

Maybe it’s, you know what it is, that’s what it is. It’s ’cause my mom is Protestant and she’s been married three times. So I probably told the kids that about my mom. And then they probably inferred something about how Protestants get divorced, and then it said in that scandalous voice, it’s so funny.

Anyway, so it’s been a really great experience for her and I’ve been really enjoying that. I do a lot of puzzles in the winter. I really like thousand piece puzzles that are difficult, which means the same image appears multiple times. In the puzzle.

So you’re like building something but you don’t know which one it is ’cause it appears multiple times or there’s a lot of solid color going on, and you’re like, I don’t know how I’m gonna figure that out. I just, I really like the ones that stretch my brain, which is crazy. But I do really like it.

I drink a lot of tea. Anyone who’s followed me anywhere knows that I really love Republic of Tea. And I have a bunch of different kinds. And so it feels like this special ritual for me to be like what kind of tea I’m gonna drink.

And then I put a scoop of chocolate-equipped protein powder in my mint tea to make like peppermint hot chocolate. And I love chocolate-equipped protein powder because it’s just beef and cocoa powder and stevia. That’s all that’s in it. You have to have a milk frother to mix it. Like you can’t mix it with a fork, then it’s clumpy.

But if you have a milk, frother froth it, and then it’s just like a protein hot chocolate, and I put it minty. It’s amazing. I just think everyone and their mom should drink that, especially women. They’re like, you should eat more protein. And you’re like, but how? This is how, it’s just been a really delightful way to tackle that.

So I’ve been drinking a lot of that as it’s cold. I’ve been taking a lot of baths. I’ve been trying, I haven’t figured it out, but I’ll let you know when I do. I’ve been trying to make my own bubble bath. Because I really like Dr. Teals ‘Cause it makes really frothy bubbles. But you can tell that the sensors are synthetic and I don’t love that I use them. Okay, it’s fine. We’re just in that place right now where I just buy it and use it.

But I wanna recreate my own. And I went to AI and was like, Hey, help me make bubble bath. And it recommended something. But then the bubbles weren’t very big and bubbly, to which I told it. I was like, I’ve done it two times now and the bubbles weren’t great. And I was like, yeah, that’s true. That doesn’t make great bubbles.

I’m like, but then why did you tell me that? It’s fine. The robots are still working themselves out, so it’s given me another recipe and I’m gonna try it. I’ll get back to you on whether that works. But what I really want is I wanna be able to have like a big bubble experience. I really love bubbles, but then use essential oils for scents.

You’re not supposed to put essential oils into water, so don’t drip the essential oils into your bath like you need a carrier or something. So it was very. Very emphatic about that. So again, once I figure it out, I’ll tell you, but I really like taking baths. I take a bath almost every day in the winter just ’cause my body’s cold and ’cause I like it. So we’re doing a lot of that around here.

I also just recently bought myself and my 12-year-old girl violin. So I played the violin when I was younger. She played maybe three years ago and it just wasn’t the right time for her and I knew that. So we stopped. Her doing that.

And I just felt like it was time and I have been feeling this calling to play more music, so I was like, I’m gonna do it too. And so I bought two violins and we’re gonna start playing together. I’ll also tell you how that goes. I don’t know, because literally I was trying to do it without a shoulder rest. That’s the thing that makes it comfortable to hold the violin and without a music stand.

So I was like. Trying to do it and read the music of the table. And my eyesight wasn’t great, which was kind of a bummer. I feel like that was the first time I had that thought. My eyesight isn’t great, and I’m like, is that coming for me?

So tomorrow, I think tomorrow the shoulder rest of the music stand is gonna come and then I will like comfortably hold the violin and be able to look at music in front of me and I’ll let you know how it goes. Maybe I’ll play for you guys, which will make me wanna die, but. It’s a good challenge to stretch myself, to make myself practice.

So two of my girls know how to play piano, but they’re not actively taking lessons and learning right now. And my husband and all three girls sing in our choir and they go to choir practice and they’re always trained to improve their singing skills and sing. Three part harmonies. I don’t really know. I don’t sing, so I just enjoy what they do, but I don’t really have the words for how they do it, but that’s another big part of our family is singing in the choir.

Which is a big sacrifice because my husband and the girls are in the choir and I sit by myself in the pew with the three boys, and I don’t mind, they’re actually better now. I mean, it took six years. Okay. It took six years for me to be able to say that it was rough for six years, but now they mostly sit mostly still and mostly quiet.

But like I just kind of miss all being together in the family, uh, as a family in the pew. And so that is just a little bit of a sacrifice. I have been doing some exercises to repair my diastasis recti, so when you have a lot of babies, your stomach muscles separate and, even though my baby is six. I’m like, I could feel that it was still separated. So I’ve been doing the exercises to fix that.

I’ve been using the ones from Dr. Betsy, she’s Catholic and she had like a six week AB repair thing. She had twins, Dr. Betsy. I bet if you just type in Dr. Betsy six week ab challenge, she could find her.

But they’re really simple and I’ve been doing that and feeling stronger. I am going to Florida in February and I haven’t traveled in a while. For a while there I was offering a business retreat every year and we just didn’t do one last year. So it feels like it’s been a long time.

But I get moms together who have pretty well established businesses and we just mastermind and pray. And we usually go to some beautiful shrine and it’s like partly a spiritual retreat and relaxing. And then partly we like mastermind about business and help each other. And so that’s coming up February 10th. So I’m really excited about that.

And yeah, I don’t know. I’m just, it’ll be like in Florida. We’re going to do they pronounce it St.Augustine. So Catholics, I feel like we say Augustine, but I feel like for the city they say Augustine and there’s a shrine there.

And so I’m really excited. I’ve never been there before and it looks really beautiful and I’m hoping it’s warm enough. ’cause one of the places has a pool and I’m like, do Florida people swim in their own pools in February?I don’t know, but I wanna find out.

So let’s see what else is going on. That’s the big stuff. Daughter about to drive soon, ski season and then just making it through. I mean, we all feel a little cooped up. The snow has been really lame here in our yard. So if the snow is fun, the boys play outside a lot, but if it’s, if we get a little bit of snow and then it rains a lot, then they don’t, we’re like cooped up and everyone’s on top of each other and that’s just rough.

And I like to share that because I think there are some things like that that are true for everyone. But you think it’s just you And I’m like, no, everyone with crummy weather. And dark days. You know, where there isn’t a lot of light, it feels a little bit batty, but you know, it’s gonna get brighter and it’s gonna come around.

So, all right. Ask me any questions below. If you wanna know more about how I live, I’m happy to answer questions. I’m pretty transparent about things. This is not a lifestyle channel, right? So I’m not gonna talk a lot about what I wear or my makeup or things like that. I like watching people do that. And I like hearing how people live.

But in general, that’s not what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna help moms here have interior peace. I will come and do these updates just to tell you like what my life is like. And how we live. ’cause I think it’s just interesting to get to know that about a family.

And as I do it, just know I’m not in any way telling you that this is how you should do it. But I want you to hear in my voice kind of the confidence and conviction I have in my choices. That’s what I really want moms to have. I want you to know that God made you to be a very specific kind of mom and you can pray and discern that.

And then be that mom and it’ll be different than the kind of mom that I’m called to. And I have all these friends up here and we live so differently, and I see like, that’s perfect for her and this is perfect for her and this is perfect for me. And it’s okay that it. Not the same.

So we’ve gotta stop this Instagram comparison trap and just, I want you to feel really drawn to people who are, you can tell they’re like living their authentic selves. And let’s let that be the bar. Like, I wanna know that you are as close as possible to your sainthood self and who God made you to be. And like that is so attractive and interesting. We’re not supposed to be like each other. Right?

And so I hope I can convey that because I’ve come so far. In that. Instead of like looking out for what I should be doing, I look up and I really talk to the Lord a lot about my kids and my time and my work and how he wants me to be living.

And then I do that. And the more I do that, the more I pray and the more that I also do what I hear, which are two separate skills, the more I do that, the more peace I have. And I feel like people can really sense that and I want us to be. Moms like that.

I love you. I’m praying for you. Please pray for me and have a blessed day.