Here we are at the beginning of a brand new year, starting back up with homeschooling and everyday life in a large family!

Read all of the Large Family Homeschool Life posts!
MONDAY
Today, we start back to homeschooling after a full month off due to my husband’s return from a year long deployment overseas. I anticipated a rough start, so I only planned a short Morning Time of PictureSmart Bible, reading in The History of Medicine (a Master Books book I picked up at a thrift store last summer), and picking back up in our read aloud – Anne of Green Gables.
Then, the kids finished up their other assignments – Math, Phonics, Handwriting, Web Design, Typing, Grammar, and Literature. Math definitely took the longest for everyone to get back into, and I know my kids were lamenting the fact that we are sitting under a foot of snow and Mom wouldn’t declare this a snow day, making all of the lessons just a bit dreary.
Daddy said the kids could go out in the snow after they did a few chores for me, so I had them do their Table Chores and tidy up and then take down a few of the Christmas decorations, which required them bringing in all of the Christmas tubs from the garage.
Because Ty missed so much of the Christmas season, I decided to keep up the tree, the garland over the fireplace, and the lighted houses. We will slowly put more things away throughout the week.
Once all of that was accomplished, they hauled the Christmas tubs back out to the garage and brought in the snow clothes tubs. We have been storing the snowy day things in tubs for years, as evidenced in this old post here on the blog entitled: Snow Clothes Storage & Strategies.
While they donned their snow clothes (with a little bit of help from mama), I culled old items and set a few aside for grandbabies and put some in the donate pile.
The kids had a wonderful time in the deeper-than-usual snow, making snow forts with the neighbor kids and sledding down the hills throughout the neighborhood!

When they came in, we laid everything out in the entryway on old towels (we call them “junk towels”). I imagine my entryway will look like this for quite some time. It’s a mess, but when you don’t have a mud room, you have to make do with what you have.
The snow has created some other challenges as well. My little mini-poodle was neutered last week, and it is proving interesting to take him out to go to the bathroom and also keeping him from messing with the incision. We bought a surgical suit and keep his puppy bumper on him most of the day, but both get wet when he goes outside. I am regretting neutering him in the middle of winter!
For dinner, I made Honey Mustard Pineapple Chicken and rice. I saw the recipe on Instagram and it looked so good, I saved it for later. (By the way, I recently showed my husband how to save things on IG and he was so thrilled because he finds a lot of recipes and ideas on there as well!)
I also used a German Chocolate Cake mix to make cookies using 2 eggs, 1/2 c. of oil and a smattering of peanut butter chips we had in the cupboard.
That evening, I finished reading Ross Poldark before settling in with a TV show with Ty and the two oldest children still at home. It was the first time of inviting the 16 year old to stay up with us. I imagine he no longer sees our late nights as anything magical now that he’s experienced just how boring we all are! But his younger brothers were terribly jealous he got to stay up with us!
TUESDAY
After completing all of my usual morning kitchen chores – feeding the sourdough, filling the ice machine and coffee maker, and making coffee – I unloaded the dishwasher for the 10 year old because she has pink eye and we are trying to limit her contact with the other kids to keep it from spreading.
We have been treating her with chamomile compresses and colloidal silver and it all seems to be helping, so hopefully, we can keep it under control. She picked it up from her little nephew who adores her. He’s cute, so we’ll forgive him.
For Morning Time, we finished the Old Testament in PictureSmart and then discussed the concept of tithing since the verses in Malachi are often used to promote tithing in the modern church. We used the information on GotQuestions.org to help facilitate our discussion.
I read another chapter in The History of Medicine and started a new chapter in Anne of Green Gables, but Winston – the invalid doggy – needed to go out, so we cut the chapter short and my 14 year old graciously took him out.
For lunch, I made bacon, eggs, and hashbrowns, then Ty headed out to do some major shoveling. I cannot believe how much snow there is! I love it!
While Ty worked, I did some lesson planning. When we stopped homeschooling in early December, I thought I only had a couple of sections of Unit 3 in Year 1 of Tapestry of Grace left to go over, but I had a lot more and needed to get those lessons planned. You can learn more about how I plan Tapestry of Grace and how we actually use it on my Tapestry of Grace page.

Later in the afternoon, our 20 year old put away the lighted houses. We consider most of these to be hers and she is always the one to put them up year after year. Watching her pack them away was bittersweet because I am not certain she will still be living under our roof come Christmas next year. She may be putting them up in her own home and creating new memories.
While she worked on that project, Ty and I worked on organization projects of our own. He sorted a shelf in the garage that I had not gotten to when I cleaned out the garage this summer, and I organized the cupboard that holds the rather unruly storage containers. I got rid of several and decided to put the corresponding lids on each one. This cupboard never stays tidy for long.
For dinner, I made a new family favorite – Dublin Coddle. I heard it mentioned in a documentary I was watching and I couldn’t resist trying it out a couple of weeks ago. Ty absolutely loved it (as did everyone else!), and it is now in our Family Recipes notebook! For the sausage, we use bratwurst from the meat case at Aldi and for the potatoes, we use yukon golds and leave the skins on.
That evening, I worked on Mercy’s afghan. She was my “Secret Sibling” this year (our family version of Secret Santa) and she bought me 2 different purplish colors of yarn. I decided to find a variegated yarn that would help blend the two purples and make an afghan for her from the yarn. She is thrilled!

WEDNESDAY
I awoke to my 10 year old knocking on our adjoining bedroom walls because she needed me to come help her get her eyes open from the pink eye. She’s in the top bunk and was afraid to try to climb down. Once I got her all doctored up, I did my usual morning chores and the kids started in on their independent school work.
Our 16 year old has started doing Guest Hollow Biology. This is new to us and I’m anxious to see how it works out. I have a homeschool mom friend who has used Guest Hollow for several of her children so I am hopeful we can make it work for him as well. It seems very interactive and interesting.
Most of the kids now try to get as much of their independent school work done BEFORE Morning Time rather than after, so they have more of the afternoon to play and do other things. I don’t mind at all except that I do have to give them fair warning to find a “stopping place” when it is close to time to start Morning Time (around 10 am).
READ MORE ABOUT OUR MORNING TIME:
Morning Basket Time with Multiple Ages
I feel like I accomplished a lot with Morning Time today!
We started a Grapevine study on Biblical Feasts and Holy Days.
We read in Story of the World (volume 1), worked on our maps of Greece, read in Famous Men of Greece, The History of Medicine, and Anne of Green Gables. I also handed out literature assignments to a couple of kids – Sophie’s World to the 16 year old and The Librarian Who Measured the Earth to the 10 year old.
After school, the kids and Ty went out to shovel more snow and I went upstairs to tidy up the bedroom and bathroom and gather laundry. I decided to wash our bedding too, so I’ll have 3 loads of laundry to do today.
After that, I made Ty a latte with the espresso machine our 24 year old daughter bought us for Christmas. She used to be a barista and was super excited to get us this machine.
I swept the main level floors and got a late lunch made for when everyone comes in from being outside in the cold and snow. Ty had picked up a package of end pieces from the Commissary deli. They sell the ends of the meat and cheese they cut off for a fraction of the cost. They are all packaged together in a pile so you never know what you’re getting! I made grilled sandwiches with the meat and some marbled rye our oldest daughter brought home at Christmas time. I added provolone slices to make some yummy hot grilled sandwiches!
After lunch, I made a menu plan and grocery list for the upcoming week. Ty dug out our vehicles and started them all up today so I should be able to get out tomorrow and run some errands and get groceries as well.
That evening I finished up the laundry, worked on Mercy’s afghan, cut Ty’s hair, and recorded my first podcast of 2025! It was all about how I almost gave up blogging! Listen to it below…
THURSDAY
Shortly before we started Morning Time, my daughter-in-law texted to ask if our 21 month old grandson could come over and stay the night because she now has pink eye (he’s the one who gave it to all of us!). Our son is at military training, so she needs a little extra help. We gladly took him and let our 20 year old who still lives with us know that we would need her help too since Ty and I were planning to run our errands today (more snow is on the way overnight).
I rushed through Morning Time so we would be ready for George’s arrival. However, we did manage to fit in making perler bead mosaics similar to the Greek mosaics we have been studying this week.
Our 8 year old now appears to be coming down with pink eye, so I doctored her and then Ty drove me to my massage in a neighboring town. My massage therapist just moved to a new place, so she gave me a little tour before my massage. I so needed that massage!
After my massage, Ty and I went to the library, Aldi, and Walmart. We also had to make a stop at Kroger because Walmart was out of bananas! They were out of a lot of things…probably due to the snowstorm. While at Kroger, I also picked up some Greek food samplings for the kids to try since we’ve been studying Greece. And I couldn’t resist the strawberries! I know – it’s not strawberry season, but I am longing for fresh fruit and veggies these days!
When I returned home, I put 4 frozen pizzas in the oven and convection oven in the garage. We bought an extra-large convection oven to use as a secondary oven and it stays plugged in in the garage.
After dinner, the snow started falling again, and it ended up snowing another couple of inches. We stepped out into it with our baby grandson, but he was not thrilled!
FRIDAY
Little George slept amazingly well last night! 12 hours! When he was here when his little sister was born, he didn’t sleep all that great, but he was sick with a cold, so that could have been the issue. I also think he’s learned a lot about the “ways of the world” now that he has a sibling and he can’t have everything his way all the time.
This morning when I surveyed the house, I was overwhelmed and wondered how we’d manage Home Blessing. There were snow clothes all over the place, the remnants of Christmas decorations, and little messes all over the house, making it seem almost impossible to ever get things back in order! But, I decided I just had to suck it up and tackle it one bite at a time.
The boys took the snow clothes to the garage, the girls and I took some of the ornaments off the tree and off the garland along the mantel. We tidied all the rooms, and after about an hour, the house was ready to be cleaned. I was glad I didn’t end up giving up!
We had leftovers for lunch. I’m trying to figure out how much to cook now that Ty is home so that we will have more leftovers. It makes lunch the next day so much easier when we have leftovers!
Ty had an older gentleman friend of his dad’s stop by for coffee. Now that Ty’s dad has passed away, I think Ty feels like Tim is a connection to his past and his father. Ty presented Tim with an engraved bayonet commemorating his deployment and how Tim had supported him through it. It was very touching.
Since before Christmas, I have been cooking and baking with anywhere from 12-16 people in the house. I am feeling worn thin! I decided this afternoon I needed to spend some time just sitting in my room and decompressing. I grabbed a Frozen Fruit Slush Cup from the garage freezer and went up to my bedroom to just sit in my rocker and relax for a bit.
I added the recipe to the blog this week as well…
Once I got little George down for his nap, worked on this DITL post – wow! It’s been a long time since I wrote one of these! Then, I made Sloppy Joes for dinner. I put the buns in the oven to warm since we keep them in the garage and no one likes to put hot food on a cold bun! I also laid out pickles, applesauce, leftover caramelized pineapple chunks, and chips and guacamole for supper.
Because of the snow, we decided to keep our grandson another night. It will also give his mama a bit more time to heal. Another night of rocking babies. Does my heart good!

Jacqueline says
Thanks so much for your post. It is always an encouragement!.
Thank you to your husband as well for his service and your family for their sacrifice.
Amy says
Thank you!
Savannah says
The Poldark series is one of my favorites. Send some of that snow up to Minnesota please – we only have a dusting! Thank you for sharing your week with us.
Charity Gutierrez says
My day brightens when I see Raising arrows in my inbox! Thank you Amy!
Amy says
Awww! Thank you!!
Diana says
Wow! Your snow is REAL snow!! That is awesome.
I can’t believe you’ve got another ready to leave the nest!
Your DITL entries are fascinating, and are such an encouragement. I’m looking forward to trying your recipes!! 🙂
Amy says
Thank you, Diana…you are one of my biggest cheerleaders! 🙂
Thia says
Good to see you again! I look forward to listening to your podcast. I download them and listen on my commute.
Amy says
Wonderful! I’m glad I can keep you company! 🙂