Large Family Homeschool Life – Week 44 of 2025

A lot of changes in our household as we learn to adjust to our daughter being married and away from us.

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Last week was wedding week. It was so full of decorating, and last minute details, rehearsal, and working out unexpected kinks, but in the end – on Saturday – we enjoyed a beautiful wedding and reception and sent our sweet daughter off into her new life.

Another arrow shot from the quiver!

Those of you who get my newsletter know her dress was rather unconventional – it was black. I shared in the newsletter how she has always wanted a black wedding dress because she feels so pale in white, and while breaking with tradition was frowned upon by some (including people on the Raising Arrows Facebook page!), she was very confident and beautiful in her choice.

In fact, the entire wedding and reception had a very fun and funky flair, just like our daughter! She and her new husband are very fun-loving, God-honoring young people, and I am excited to see the life they build with God at the center and head of all they do!

But, she is greatly missed here…

My little girls cried themselves to sleep the night of the wedding, and the next night, I cried myself to sleep after finding the journal she and I shared for years as a Mother/Daughter Journal. She had written me a note the day before the wedding, and left the journal inside my bedside table drawer at some point before leaving on Saturday. We had not written to each other in that journal since 2021. I read her precious words through bittersweet tears.

All of my children are so precious to me, and I have thoroughly enjoyed watching them grow up. It hasn’t fully hit home that this particular child no longer lives here, and that I can’t just holler at her to come watch a British crime show with me or help me organize something or just hang out with me in the kitchen. Her absence leaves a big hole in our household, but I know we will learn to navigate a new season of our relationship as two married women.

The day after the wedding, we let our 3 youngest sons leave with our oldest son and his wife to hang out at their house for the week. I’ve mentioned before that they like to do this and call it a “Par-tay.” Our son works from home, so he’s able to be with them even while he works, so it makes for some fun memories for the 4 of them.

On Monday, I slept in a bit because I have been quite sleep deprived for weeks now. Then, I hit the ground running. First, I had to find a home for all the leftover napkins, plates, and cutlery left from the wedding. My laundry closet that houses everything like that was atrocious and HAD to be cleaned before anything more could go in it, so that was my first item of business for the day.

I then worked on a quick meal plan for the 6 people who would be in the house for the week. And later in the day, took the 2 little girls out with me to do the shopping at Aldi. My final bill was only $164 for the week! Between the leftovers from the wedding and only needing to feed 6 people, it was about $100 less than what I usually spend there each week.

For supper, we took the pulled pork from the wedding and made pork nachos. I decided to vacuum seal and freeze the rest of the pulled pork and the chicken legs and also the leftover Puppy Chow from the wedding. (NOTE: Every time our 2 families get together, we make Puppy Chow, so it just seemed right and fitting to have a HUGE batch of Puppy Chow to share with all our guests!)

On Tuesday, our new washer arrived. Our home warranty replaced our old Fisher-Paykel with a new GE that has a larger capacity. We were hoping to replace it with a Speed Queen, but in the name of frugality (and the fact that they were replacing it for free), we went with the selection they came up with.

I immediately ran 2 loads of laundry – one towels and one sheets, and everything seemed very clean and it held a lot!

After lunch, I worked on Christmas gift lists and ordering a few things, and then I decided to dig around in the attic for items we had been meaning to get out for various reasons.

First off, I got out a playpen mattress for our daughter-in-law to try with their youngest in her playpen. They don’t make the one we had for our youngest, so I can’t show you the exact one we have but it is similar to this one:

Next, I pulled out 2 options for clothes hanging racks for our 24 year old who is moving down to the basement room where our 21 year old used to live. There isn’t a closet in that room, so our 21 year old used a broom closet on the main level to hold her hanging clothes; however, our 24 year old isn’t wanting to do that, so she needs a clothes rack. She ended up choosing the smaller rack because it is a little more aesthetically pleasing.

Then, I rearranged furniture in the living room. Decluttering and rearranging things is something I do when my life feels out of control. I’m sure this is all because of our daughter getting married this past weekend, and my need to control my environment because of it. In fact, when our daughter called this week, she asked what I had rearranged since she left…oh, she knows me well!

Now, in my defense, our daughter took a large chair from our living room that used to be her Mimi’s, so I needed to rearrange anyway…or so I told myself. I am also thinking ahead to when I need to put the Christmas tree up and how I need a bit more space for it. Oh, and we can’t forget the muskox that will be here come January! (See week 42 for a photo of the muskox!)

Once the living room was arranged, I turned on the fireplace to cheer up the gloomy, wind and rain soaked day outside. And then I sat down with a book, and read a few chapters and took a nap before heading to Bible study.

The little girls had a dentist appointment this week. I always put the girls on the same appointment date and then the boys on the same appointment date at another time.

Mercy is getting ready to start her orthodontics at the Children’s Hospital. Children with cleft palates and micrognathia (a small, receding jaw) often have very small mouths and not enough room for all of their teeth, so orthodontics are part of their treatment plan.

Starting in January, she will have separators placed, then impressions, and finally in March, the fitting of a Quad Helix Palate Expander.

For the first 18 months of Mercy’s life, she had a lot of surgeries, but she’s had about a 7 year break from anything major beyond eye appointments to make sure the lasering around her retinas is holding and Cleft Clinic appointments to make sure there haven’t been any residual affects from her palate repair. She actually graduated from the Cleft Clinic this past year!

For supper on Wednesday, I made Cowboy Spaghetti – everyone raved about it! They even suggested we make the meat sauce to use for sloppy joes. Great idea!

On Thursday, I worked on a menu plan for our upcoming elk hunt. Well, actually, my husband’s elk hunt and my sit-in-a-cabin-and-chill week! He will need quick, protein-rich breakfasts, but he hasn’t been able to stomach eggs for the past year, so I’m struggling a bit with what to make. Any suggestions?

While we are away in the mountains, I’m going to work on a blog project I hope to have ready for all of you come Spring! Be praying for me because it is a huge project and one I want to do well so as to glorify the Lord as much as humanly possible!

Thursday evening, we took the girls out to an Irish Pub where they serve authentic Irish fare and you eat by lantern light. The girls loved it! (We even made them try malt vinegar on their fries! Mercy was NOT a fan!)

Our 24 year old daughter worked all week to get her stuff moved down to her new basement room. One of the items she was most looking forward to unpacking and displaying is her Desert Rose Franciscan Pottery collection:

She has slowly been building her collection, and lately has found some really great deals from Facebook marketplace and a local Catholic charity sale! She and I inventoried her entire collection so she now knows exactly what she has and can easily figure out which pieces she is missing. She even managed to set aside a couple of boxes of pottery for her little sister to have when she grows up.

On Friday, I took the girls to a Reformation Day party at our church. We are trying to get plugged in more at church, which is difficult considering how much we travel. I managed to meet a few moms and the girls have been attending AWANA, so they enjoyed spending time with friends.

The party was really nice – games, lessons, crafts, and treats – including a “Diet of Worms” (aka gummy worms in a bag), “Tetzel’s Pretzels,” and hot or cold apple cider. It was a nice change of pace from our usual Reformation Day activities, especially with the boys away at their brother’s house.

And now another October is in the books. It seems to have flown by this year, and I fear November might do the same. I am brainstorming ways to slow things down a bit as we head into the colder months, or at least be more purposeful with my time. It’s quite possible I only have a decade or so left of children living in my home. I want to cherish every moment!