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As the cold weather sets in and the holiday lights glimmer, let's take it back a few months and reminisce real quick on our penultimate and 9th annual Beer Olympics! It's so hard to explain Beer Olympics to someone who has never experienced it firsthand. It's a day of drinking games, yes . But also so much more in a weirdly sentimental, make some new friends, competitive, but good hearted, feel good day. I don't know how to describe it but to say - that months and years later when I see people from various sects of our life chatting and laughing together and ask them about how they know each other, often times it begins with "at Beer Olympics," and that somehow describes everything about everything. We had a beautiful, blue sky day in late June to celebrate our 9th annual event. Greyson's all-star machine pitch baseball team had a tournament that day - so for the first time in nine years, I was flying solo as host for the first half of the day! Thankfully

A glimpse into what it is like to live in our home just this minute. Intentional Outdoor Hours: 520+ hours (of 1000) Snagging about a half hour for a little walk twice this week. The three kids (minus Gem who was at tutoring) and I took the dogs for a little walk back to the cornfields and tried to play detective figuring out what kind of animal left tracks and scat back there - my guess was bear or bobcat and Grey was adamant it was a coyote - we checked our pictures against the internet when we got back and Grey was right! All four kids and I took a little walk after our first Thanksgiving meal to let out a little energy - a little muddy and cold (!) but a nice little break. Reading The Nix by Nathan Hill and enjoying it; what a look at modern society and pop culture, it really has me pulled in.  We also pulled out our Christmas book collection including some of our favorites like Snowmen At Night , Mr. Willoughby's Christmas Tree (my favorite holiday book!), Rabbit's Gift

dearest squishiest, honeyiest pie Vially, three suits you. i feel like you at three is maybe the you'est you - is there some way we could keep you always this sweet, and snuggly with that mouse squeak voice? oh, how we all wish with our deepest wishes because you are pretty much everyone's favorite. not kidding about the everyone's favorite. You are. You're the child most often that our friends and family whisper to us, 'I'll keep this one if you like' because you just have the thing that the Olsen twins had when they were toddlers on Full House - the 'aww' factor for anything and everything you do and no one can resist your fourteen million dollar smile.  And that smile that doesn't come for free man, you gotta work for it. If someone wins your affection the look on their face is sheer astonishment and joy - like how people look when they're surprised with puppies and kitties. You are tough and brave and weirdly cool for your age. You had a

A glimpse into what it is like to live in our home just this minute. Intentional Outdoor Hours :  519+ hours (of 1000) Up barely, like barely barely. We had our first snow of the year with these huge, beautiful snowflakes in the middle of the day at school which made all the students antsy-pantsy. I used a lunch break to take a few laps on the school track one afternoon and it was kind of amazing. Most days I use my lunch period to wolf down some food at my desk while entering grades and making copies, but I'm hoping to be able to make it more routine to get in a few laps either at the track or the gym during lunch for a little happiness/movement boost in the middle of the day - it was honestly uplifting! Reading and finishing The Hallowed Ones by Laura Bickle and starting our next Books & Brews book club book The Nix by Nathan Hill. I took a bunch of my books into school to borrow out to students and twice now I've had students stop by to show me the bookmarks they've