2023 Holiday Update

Somehow we are already writing our yearly blog post again. This year really flew by for us. We started our year trying to frantically finish the two bedrooms in our basement before our sweet Stetson was born. Austin spent all of last winter working building two new bedrooms in our basement and we finished them up in February. We had great help with the project and couldn’t have done it without the friends and family that showed up and rolled their sleeves up with us. When they were finished, my cousin moved in with us and Ellie moved downstairs into the other new bedroom. We also started the New Year with Orwell having some digestive issues and throwing up for 12 days straight. It was quite the ordeal. Thankfully, we got that figured out and squared away before Stetson was born.

The basement was a big project and we had some great help! Austin learned a lot and taught himself a lot during the process. Doing house projects doesn’t excite him nearly as much as car projects do so we took our time and took breaks often.

In February, Gran turned 6 and Wells turned 2 just a few days before Stetson was born.

Stetson Drew was born February 10th. His birth was quick and uncomplicated which was a huge answer to prayer. He has been such a good baby. He made the transition from four to five kids so easy on us. There’s a whole post about his birth here.

After bringing Stetson home, we hunkered down for a short time while we potty trained Orwell and waited on a newborn around the clock. We quickly got used to counting to five instead of four everywhere we went. The kids loved having a baby in the house again since we had stopped watching their cousin, Banks, right before Christmas.

In March, Emery got to take a trip with grandma, grandpa, and his cousin Nolan to see his great grandparents in North Carolina. He didn’t seem to miss us much.

After Stetson was born and we settled into life with 5, we got back into our school routine. We eventually figured out how to do things with a newborn, a potty training two year old, an almost four year old who wanted to be involved in school, a third grader, and a kindergartener.

In May, Gran finished Kindergarten and Ellie finished third grade. Homeschooling has really taught me a lot about my kids and how different they are. Ellie is always ready to sit down and get all of her school work done so she can have the rest of the day to do the fun stuff. We are typically at the library two or three times a week for her to get new stacks of books. She is an absolute bookworm. Gran on the other hand is always trying to get out of doing school because he can’t stand the thought of sitting inside when he’d much rather be outside playing with his animals or working with Austin.

March was a full month with Emery’s trip to North Carolina, traveling for doctor’s appointments, Easter egg hunts, and all of the fun that spring brings.

April was equally eventful with Easter, Emery turning four, and more warm weather activities.

Orwell had a traumatic encounter with a rooster in April. We brought one home just long enough to fertilize some eggs for us to hatch. He was…well we named him Richard. We planned to keep him around for a very short time and after he attacked Orwell, it was time for him to go. It was hard for us to even get Orwell to go outside for a few months. He’s comfortable with our chickens again now but he still talks about that rooster. It was awful! We had just gotten home from an appointment and I gave Orwell a snack and told him to stay inside because the rooster was out. I went to the bathroom and Orwell snuck outside and ran after Ellie to go to the chicken coop to get eggs. It all happened in less than two minutes and as I came back into the kitchen, Ellie was rushing him back into the house and trying to explain to me what happened.

We found ways to keep ourselves busy in May with field trips, starting TBall, and all kinds of new life around here.

We tried our hands at gardening again this year and we did slightly better than last year. We got a few pumpkins out of our garden this year and a few tiny strawberries. Our strawberry plants grew and multiplied like crazy but didn’t produce much. 🤷🏻‍♀️ We counted our broccoli as a sacrifice crop because the bugs devoured it but didn’t touch anything else in the garden.

Ellie had her end of year recital in the spring. The theme this year was the seasons. Her class was spring flowers.

One of the most exciting things that happened this year was buying a new school bus. Austin may argue that it was buying a Chevy Citation. Of course, neither of them were running when we bought them. We went to get the keys for the bus and just decided to buy a new battery for it on a whim. By some miracle, it started and we were able to drive it home from Wichita that day. It had a blown head gasket so Austin spent most of the summer rebuilding the engine in it and making things better “cause the engine was already out.”

Our cherry trees did not disappoint this year and we made cherry pie filling with all of our cherries. Gran asks me all the time now if we can make cherry cobbler.

We also did some foraging this spring and summer around our property. We found a lot of black raspberry patches, American plum trees, and grapevines. We need to figure out how to prune and take care of all of them this coming spring so we can really benefit from them. Our kids loved going out there and eating them faster than I could pick them.

Summer was filled with all of the best things for us this year!

In July, Austin and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary.

Summer was busy but we had a lot of fun. We learned to be more intentional with what we said “yes” to and stay home when we needed some down time. Gran took a trip to Branson with his grandma, grandpa, and cousin, Dexton. They did all of the best Branson things and he had a blast!

Our summer seemed to fly by this year. We did a lot of fun stuff and took a quick trip to Omaha with my parents and one of my brothers. We spent a whole day at the Omaha zoo and my kids had a blast there like usual.

A few months after bringing home the school bus and the Citation, Austin found a truck that he “needed.” This year I think we bought four vehicles but sold zero. 🥴 One of these days I’ll convince Austin to get rid of yard art but it won’t be any time soon.

And just like that, summer was over. We held onto ours a little bit longer and took a trip to Indiana in September. We spent a week with family but I think the kids’ favorite part was swimming at the hotels.

When we got home, we started our school year. Ellie is in fourth grade this year and Gran is in first grade. This year we are taking a slightly different approach to school than we have in the past. We are enjoying a lot of new things together as a family.

Gran played his first season of flag football this year. He loved learning the game and getting to know his teammates. His highlight of the season was getting to be in the homecoming parade. He told me a few weeks after the parade that he thinks he wants to play any sport that gets him in a parade.

In October, we had all hands on deck to make applesauce. We got into a good groove with it and found a process that worked really well.

We (Austin) started a fun project this fall. He’s building me a new chicken coop that will be closer to our house and will house a lot more chickens. Ellie and Gran are wanting to start selling eggs after we get the chickens settled into the new coop and we aren’t having to hunt all over the property for the eggs.

Our October was full of lots of other fun stuff! We are really enjoying our current season of life!

November really flew by! Ellie had a ballet performance at the zoo, we had a few Thanksgiving celebrations, I turned 29, and Ellie turned nine. We took her and some friends to paint pottery for her birthday and she said she loved it. Gran started his first season of basketball and is really enjoying it.

December feels like it’s flying by already. Our family started the month with a nasty stomach bug. Everyone seems to finally be feeling better but the two of us who didn’t get it are praying we don’t. Austin and I have been doing a major clean out around the house and donating van fulls of stuff to the thrift store. We are just so tired of feeling like our things are taking over our house and we are ready for most of it to go. The more we get rid of, the more we want to get rid of. We have so many fun things that we want to do as a family but it feels like taking care of/cleaning up things consumes way too much of our time.

Like I said earlier, we are in a fun season of learning new things. One of our most recent accomplishments was learning how to make butter. My kids were so impressed. Now Ellie is requesting that we learn to make cheese. 😳

Later this month, Ellie will be performing in The Nutcracker. This year she was cast as a cookie. That means she is in my favorite scene! This will be her fourth year performing in the Nutcracker and she really loves performing. It’s so fun to watch her get up there and do something I never would have been brave enough to do.

Each year Austin and I throw around a few Christmas card theme ideas until we agree on one. This year we had decided on one theme and changed our mind as Christmas got closer. During our trip to Indiana we visited Shipshewana. We knew we’d be going there and my aunt told me that they have a thrift store here where they sell Amish clothes. I suggested we do an Amish theme and Austin quickly agreed. We were excited to find quite a bit of the clothing pieces that we needed at the Amish thrift store. We found the rest of what we needed on EBay or as Austin calls it “the world’s garage sale.”

We hope that all of our friends and family have a wonderful holiday season celebrating the birth of our Savior! Merry Christmas from the Francis Family!