A new journey begins with this step...

 

Something I never thought I would post about....

This past year has taken me on quite the journey of discovery. One of these days I plan on blogging the entire thing- the how's and why's of it, but for now I will just document the fact that this month brought us to this point. 

The girls and I resigned from our old church. I went back and forth between whether I cared enough to do it or not, but my girls both made it very clear in December that it was a step they wanted to take. I made sure Doug was okay with it (he is no longer a believing member either, but isn't sure he wants to do this),  and then I did it. 

Honestly, it was such a great feeling. Like the main girl in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, I expected to feel bad or sad. I waited for a feeling of regret to come. But it didn't. I felt lighter than I had in years. I felt celebratory. It was not closure exactly, because I don't think you can come out of a high-demand religion and have closure easily, but it made me feel like I had made a step in the direction that I want to go. They can't count us as numbers anymore. And that felt good. 

Valentines Day

The week before Valentines Day, we started out by having a Valentines themed poetry teatime with some donuts from Krispy Kreme. I was right next to the store, and we don't get them very often, so I grabbed a box. 

The day before Valentines day my parents stopped by with some goody boxes for us. They gave each of the girls a cute little plush gift. The animals did school with us for the rest of the week...

I couldn't find the little Valentines gift holders I made, so I grabbed some last minute Valentines bags for the girls' surprises. They didn't need bags this big, but it was kind of funny. 

I set them up with some heart shaped waffles for breakfast (Doug's mom gifted us a mini heart waffle maker the day before). 

We usually do teatime on Thursday, but that week we did it on Valentines day so that it could be another Valentine's themed one. I made some heart shaped cookies, and then put out some mini-cupcakes from Target. We also had some fruit punch for a nice, red drink. 

 

January and February 2023

These are a few of our memories from January and February: 

We had orange chicken, rice, and fruit for Chinese New Year. 

We have a few family members that own Crumbl cookie stores, and we have tried Crumbl cookies quite a few time. We all agree that they are okay, but they aren't our favorite thing in the world. The girls really wanted to try Dirty Dough because they think their billboard and ad campaign are funny. I surprised them one day by coming home from shopping with a box of Dirty Dough cookies to try. 

I forgot to take a picture of them as we were trying them, but we got one of each except the different chocolate chip cookie ones. We cut them up into eighths and the four of us each sampled the ones we wanted to (Abi was the only one that didn't try all of them I think), and we came to the conclusion that they are gross. One of them tasted like play dough. Two of them were okay, but nothing I would buy again. Maybe we hit them on a bad flavor week, but we have no interest in trying them again. I think we all agreed that if we are going to eat a cookie, we would rather have any of my homemade ones over any of these specialty cookie stores that we have tried. 

I signed the girls up for a free homeschool karate class. Abi enjoyed it; Maddy did not. 

I thought Abi might want to go back, but she doesn't. I think it's hard because the kids are mostly so young, and she felt out of place. 

Also, in January, I read Katherine Reay for the first time. My two favorite books of the month ended up both being from her. I have since read two more that I have also loved, so I plan on buying all the rest of her books soon.