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Guest Autumn Nelson: Blending and Raising a MEGA Family {Episode 53}
88 Plays5 years ago
Our guest today is Autumn Nelson, a homeschooling mom to TWENTY children. She and her husband are some of the most inspiring people we know and you will just love her story. She reminds us that anyone live their dream and find joy in it, even if it seems crazy to everyone else.
Pink Megaphone
Kumon Math Workbooks
"The Baby IS the Lesson" article
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Transcript
Introduction to Autumn Nelson and Host Backgrounds
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello everyone, welcome back to Outnumbered the Podcast. Today is another guest episode that we are so excited to share with you. We are interviewing Autumn Nelson, a friend of Bonnie's, who is so inspiring and has one of the most amazing stories we have ever heard of how she came to be the mother of 20 children.
00:00:19
Speaker
She is inspiring, funny, heartwarming, and everything about this interview will just warm you and maybe even bring you to tears. So we're so excited to introduce you to Autumn.
00:00:37
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Outnumber the Podcast. I'm Bonnie. And I'm Audrey. And we're homeschooling moms to a combined total of 18 children. We know firsthand that motherhood is full of crazy chaos and overwhelming obligations, but it should also be full of love and laughter. Regardless of where you are on your journey, come join us as we work together to find joy in the chaos of motherhood.
00:01:03
Speaker
Welcome back, everybody.
Autumn's Family Journey: Blended Family of 20
00:01:04
Speaker
We are so excited to be here. We have a wonderful guest today. It's one of my good friends, Bonnie's, good friend Autumn, and soon you're going to hear why we chose her to be our guest today. I think you're going to really love her story and hearing all about her wonderful life. So Autumn, let's get started with you. Thanks so much for being here. Thank you for having me. I'm excited.
00:01:25
Speaker
So are we. Yeah. So we wanted to start off as we often do with a funny mom moment. And we like to ask our guests to share one of these. So if you have a funny mom moment for us, go ahead and share it. Okay. I have to preface this with the fact that right now I'm wearing a shirt that says chaos coordinator, which so describes my life. Perfect. So one day I'm sitting there on the couch, I'm talking with my sister. She was over visiting.
00:01:52
Speaker
And we're just chatting away and having a fun time. And all of a sudden I said, oh, just a minute. I have to give my kids some direction. So I reach over and I grabbed my hot pink megaphone. And I'm like, everybody up to the table. You've got 10 seconds. And I start counting. And she starts busting up, laughing.
00:02:13
Speaker
rolling on the floor and I'm going, what? She's like, Adam, you have a megaphone? And I'm like, oh, it never occurred to me that this was not normal to other people. And I'm looking at her like, well, it's better than a cattle prod. And maybe you might have to resort to that at some point.
00:02:36
Speaker
Where did you even find a hot pink megaphone? Because now I must have one. I know, right? It really works. Amazon. I love Amazon. Oh my goodness. Either a megaphone or like the whole PA system. My aunt and uncle had nine kids growing up and they had a PA system, you know, like they had back in the 80s. It was so awesome. Yes, I have one. It doesn't work. And I keep trying to find something that works, but the megaphone was the best and cheapest I could figure out.
00:03:05
Speaker
Bonnie, wait till we're done recording this episode to order yours, okay? Okay, I will. We'll put that link in the show notes for anyone who's interested. So Autumn, now you need to help our audience out and tell our audience a little bit about yourself. Why do you need a megaphone? Well, I have 20 children. Should I slow clap now or later?
00:03:33
Speaker
The sound you hear is my jaw hitting the floor. And I'm only 34 years old. Yeah, you win. You win. I win or I lose. I don't know.
00:03:49
Speaker
You win a competition you didn't know you wanted to win, right? Well, so I'll just explain my story. I had five kids ages five and under and went through an unexpected and unwanted divorce.
00:04:04
Speaker
And then, and my husband at the time, he had 10 children with his wife. She passed away from cancer three weeks after her last child was born. So he had 10 children and I had five and we met and fell in love and got married. So we had 15 together. And since then our, our five year anniversary is coming up this month and we have had five together. So.
Navigating Family Dynamics and Public Perception
00:04:32
Speaker
I didn't realize you guys had only been married for five years. That is crazy. You guys have wasted no time. Good for you. There was a set of twins in there. So that's true. That was my question. Are there any multiples?
00:04:43
Speaker
Well, when we got married, we had two kids. I had a girl, and he had a girl who were two weeks apart. And they were, oh, I think three at the time. And we each had a boy who were two months apart, and they were two at the time. And then we had an older boy and a girl who were only four months apart. So he had like three sets of virtual twins. And I never thought that I would ever give birth to twins.
00:05:12
Speaker
But I did this last year. It was a total surprise and just crazy. But yeah, so we have three virtual twins and one set of biological twins. You know, I have to say, I know we're all believers, Christian women here.
00:05:27
Speaker
But sometimes I wonder what's going through God's head when he sends down a set of twins to a woman who already has 18 children. I'm just like, okay, Lord knows best, I guess, but I am not seeing this. Oh, but you know what, I always wanted this crazy. I was so excited when I found out like,
00:05:45
Speaker
Now I know better. Just kidding. That's so awesome. I was excited. Wow. What a blessing. So tell us the age span between the oldest and the youngest twins. So the twins are three months old and our oldest is 26. Wow. Wow. So not even, you got you and the oldest are not even 10 years apart. Oh yeah. So also I'm a grandma.
00:06:14
Speaker
Oh my goodness. And him and his wife, their birthdays are two days apart and they have two kids. Wow. So are they the only ones that are married, just the oldest one? Yeah. Yeah. So we get plenty of raised eyebrows when we go out with all nine of our kids, each Bonnie and I, our families. What's the most common or most annoying reaction that you get regarding your family size when you go out?
00:06:41
Speaker
You know, when my husband and I were first married, he loved telling our stories. Everywhere we went, like every grocery store clerk or whoever, he told everyone. And I was sitting there like, oh my goodness, like don't tell anybody. Because I kind of had this feeling like I had to be super mom if I was going to have 15 kids, you know.
00:07:05
Speaker
So I was just I was kind of embarrassed at first, honestly, but throughout the years, I've just learned to embrace it and he just has so much joy in our family. And so now I'm just like, I love it. And honestly, most people are really kind and so excited for us. And
00:07:20
Speaker
In fact, one time I was in the parking lot, and I was trying to get my baby into the car, and I was blocking this older gentleman from getting into his vehicle. And I was like, I'm so sorry. And I was trying to hurry and buckle the baby. And he goes, oh, no, no. No, no, don't worry. Don't hurry. You're just fine. It's women like you who make men like me grandpas. So you're just fine.
00:07:46
Speaker
Oh, that's so sweet. And I'm glad you shared a sweet story because I feel like sometimes we're, we grumble about the stories we get where somebody like gives us a side eye or says something rude or whatever, but there really are so many good people that appreciate families and children and think that mothers are blessings, which we all are. So good for him.
00:08:06
Speaker
Okay, so my next question wants to, I want to ask a little bit, take us back a little bit to before you guys were married.
Meeting Colby and the Joys of a Large Family
00:08:11
Speaker
I want to hear a little bit about courting your husband and wanted to ask if you had any reservations about combining families or any concerns before that happened.
00:08:21
Speaker
You know, I didn't. It was one of those things where God let me know from the time I was a teenager what my mission in life was going to be. I've always known that I was going to have this make a big family. In fact, when the Duggars got popular, I remember going, oh, yeah, it's going to be like that. I just knew. I certainly didn't think it was going to happen the way it happened. I thought that my first husband and I, at one point we were
00:08:50
Speaker
signed up to be foster parents, and I thought that we were going to adopt or something. I just didn't know how it was going to happen, but I knew it was going to. So I wasn't, it didn't faze me at all. In fact, when I learned about him from a friend, she told me, hey, there's this widow, we're in my ward with 10 kids. And I thought, huh,
00:09:10
Speaker
People with our families kind of see things differently. And I grew up in a family of 10. And the guys that I was dating were, after going through my divorce, the guys that I had dated in their 30s that had the smaller families or whatever, they just, I don't know.
00:09:25
Speaker
I felt like they were just having fun and they were enjoying being single. And I was like, yo, I got five kids. I don't gotta do this. You know, I need someone who's got like priorities straight. And so anyway, I just was, I loved the fact that he had 10 kids. I thought that was just like the biggest blessing ever.
00:09:46
Speaker
Wow, that's awesome. So my follow-up question is, did your extended families have any concerns? Did you have sisters or moms or brothers that said, hey, are you sure this is a great idea? You know, Colby's parents, I don't think they had any worries. They actually had 15 kids and had a very similar story as ours.
00:10:07
Speaker
So they were really, yeah, his parents, his, so his dad was married to Ursula and they had five kids and then she passed away from cancer and he married Lonnie and they had 10 more. So they were totally supportive. My dad was a little bit, the only thing that ever happened was I was in the middle of school to become a midwife and they had moved from California to Utah to help me as I was going through this divorce and trying to go to school to support my family.
00:10:36
Speaker
And so he was a little bit like, why are you dating? You need to finish your schooling. You know, by the time we got married, he was right on board and just said, you, you knew what you were, what the right path was and where you were supposed to be. So, Oh, that's wonderful. Hey, I want to back up real quick and ask you how many of your 20 kids are at home currently living at home? So.
00:11:03
Speaker
Our oldest is married and they don't live at home with us. Our second oldest is back from a mission and going to college. So he is living with us, but our third is on a mission. So 18 are still at home, but Colin gets home from his mission in a month. So then we'll have 19. Wow. I thought you had a lot more out of the house. That's impressive.
00:11:30
Speaker
So what's one thing you wish that everybody knew about large families? I wish that more people knew how much fun it is.
00:11:41
Speaker
I wish I, I feel like there are a lot of people who miss out because they don't know how awesome. I mean, I am so happy. And I think, you know, I think there's a lot of depression and anxiety and, and things going on in the world. And, and my husband and I have talked about it and we're like, Oh, we haven't got time.
00:12:03
Speaker
for that. My lives are so full and it's so fun. I just, I can't even express the joy that, and I think that that message doesn't get said enough. Yes, that's a beautiful response. That's the exact way that we feel about our large family.
00:12:22
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. I read an article on Facebook somewhere that said what moms of large families won't tell you. I read it and it was basically saying, we won't complain about how hard it is because we don't want people to think it's all drudgery because it's not because it's so fun.
00:12:40
Speaker
It's always exciting. And there's always chaos, but there's always parties. And, and so I've really felt I've really felt that way as well. Like I don't want to tell people the bad things that go on because it's the same bad things that everybody has just more of the same, you know, it's dirty laundry, just more of it. It's peed beds, just more of it. You know what I mean?
00:12:57
Speaker
But I try not to complain because then people will say, well, that's what you get for having that many kids. I'm like, no, I'm not. I'm just complaining because I'm a mom and all moms like to complain sometimes. What I want to tell you is the stuff you don't see that we just, you know, dinnertime is this hilarious thing all the time. And you have to have a good sense of humor because something funny is always going on, you know? So I love that answer. That was a great answer.
00:13:19
Speaker
Okay, now we want to dive into logistics a
Logistics of a Big Family: Vehicles and Housing
00:13:21
Speaker
little bit. Can you tell us about just the logistics of having that many kids? What does your vehicle look like or vehicles, I'm assuming, your house, how many bedrooms, bathrooms, et cetera?
00:13:32
Speaker
Oh, so we're actually really blessed because my husband owns a metal scrapyard. And so vehicles are not a problem for us. In fact, when we were dating, I said, you know, if we get married, we're going to have to have a bus. And he's like, well, it's a good thing I own a scrapyard. And right now we have a bus and it seats 24. I think it originally only seated 21, but he put an extra bench in there and he put a passenger seat in for me. So I didn't have to feel like he was taxiing us around.
00:14:00
Speaker
And so that's our, that's the vehicle we take when we're taking everyone. We also have like, I think three suburbans. Yeah, we have three suburbans and just various vehicles for the teenage and stuff, which teenage drivers are expensive, I'm learning. Oh my goodness, I agree.
00:14:22
Speaker
Um, yeah. And I, you know, I had this dream of having like my own new like GMC Acadia until like the fourth teenage driver wrecked my vehicle. I was like, forget it. Just wait till they're all gone. Then we can have our luxury SUVs and they can drive the junkie cars with their teenagers. Yeah. So, and then our house has nine bedrooms.
00:14:50
Speaker
Wow. How big is it? You mind me asking? What's your square footage? It's 6,400 square feet. Oh, okay. So good. It's not. It fills up really fast with 20 people living here. Yeah. I just was gonna say, in some of the bedrooms, we still have, you know, like three, four, even five, just logistics of who is with who anyway. We have a lot of shared rooms.
00:15:20
Speaker
Yeah, I tell people that we don't live in one of those tiny houses, but when you factor in the person per square footage, we live in a tiny house. Right. Yes. I went on a girl's trip with some college girlfriends a while ago, and we were all doing that for some reason. Like, well, so we all had different houses size. Let's figure out how much square footage per house. And so they were all telling me they all had about 500 square feet per person. And I think I ended up with like 200 maybe.
00:15:47
Speaker
And I was like, okay, maybe it's time to move. But I think it's great. I think close quarters is so fun.
00:15:54
Speaker
I love it. I keep thinking, oh, it'd be so nice for each of my kids to have their own room. But then, you know, I've tried doing that for some of the kids that were a little bit older and they still come to me at night. I don't want to sleep by myself. I forget it. Yep. Yep. You can't win. Okay. So my follow-up to the logistical question is, what is the most difficult logistical aspect of having such a large family?
Kitchen Management and One-on-One Time
00:16:18
Speaker
Is it going places? Is it sleep arrangements? What do you think? Feeding time? I think it's the kitchen. I hate that all these modern houses have open kitchens. I want an enclosed kitchen so if I could just
00:16:34
Speaker
clean the kitchen and lock the door it would be so because it's open the kids are constantly in and out of there so they're they're always snacking which is a problem with teeth right and and then they don't want to eat dinner and anyway and then my and when they put i don't know when you're trying to train children i don't want to keep them out of the kitchen completely because i want them to learn to cook and i want them to learn you know the skill of hard work
00:17:01
Speaker
And so if they're in there working and cooking, then inevitably nobody puts anything away where it's supposed to be. If they're cooking, they don't put the lids on things. And so it's just this constant like, oh, they left the milk lid off again. So it sounds like just about what everybody else goes through, just times four, the average family. So do you and Colby get time for dates? Yeah.
00:17:31
Speaker
It's been harder this month. It seems like in the winter when everybody's sick that it happens less often. And with newborn twins, yeah. But I mean, obviously we do. We have 20 kids. Sorry. My favorite thing is to just go for a drive with my husband because
00:17:57
Speaker
We're not distracted on our phones. It's not noisy at the restaurant. Nobody, you know, it's just time to just talk and really connect. And so that's our favorite thing to do. That's pretty cool. How about alone time with your kids? Like, do you prioritize that or how do you deal with alone time or one-on-one time with your kids?
00:18:17
Speaker
Um, you know, that's, that's what I feel like the beauty, the beauty of homeschooling is, is that I'm home all the time with my kids. And I've, I've tried different things at various times where I'd say, okay, we're going to schedule in one-on-one time, just like 10 minutes in the bedroom or, you know, or some room where we just sit and talk or play a game or whatever.
00:18:39
Speaker
The hard part of that is if it's not everybody whoever's turn it's not they're sitting there going We want our turn now, you know But so we try to just whatever we're running errands I'll steal a kid. Oh, I'm going to Walmart. Okay, it's Haley's turn Oh
00:18:59
Speaker
You know, we've got to run to the doctor. You know, even if it's the dentist or whatever, the kids just love to be with mom and dad. And so you just take two or three at a time or one at a time on drives and it works.
00:19:14
Speaker
Yeah, that's exactly what we, Bonnie and I concluded in our episode on one-on-one time with kids. It's more important to have quality time with kids when they need it than the quantity of 10 minutes with each kid each day. That's totally what we found works for us too. Right, right.
00:19:33
Speaker
Yeah. And that you have to be creative. Like you say, you know, would my kids prefer to go to the movies and out to dinner for their date? Sure. But guess what? We don't have that kind of time. So instead you're going to go to Costco with me and I'll let you pick out one bag of cookies. How about that? Exactly. And also groceries done. So very, very smart. And they love it. Yeah. Yeah. So my next question, I'm going to go back to us talking about how much fun big families are. And we want to ask you what is the best or the most fun thing about having such a large family?
00:20:03
Speaker
You know, I actually had a friend that asked me a long time ago when I only had like two kids. She asked me, why do you want a large family? And I think the answer is the same. It's, I love seeing kids in every phase of life. And that's what I said. I said, I want a kid in every phase of life. You know, I don't have, I don't sit there and go, Oh no, someone's so starting to crawl. Don't do that. I want you to stay a baby because I'm like, I'll probably have a baby next year.
00:20:30
Speaker
And I just like to see them learning to read or going on their first date or just all of those first things. I have a child in every phase. I mean, it's so fun to see our oldest and watch them have joy in being parents. It's fun to send a son off on a mission and to welcome them home again. It's fun to watch my college daughter
00:20:56
Speaker
making decisions about what she wants to do in life and figuring out what is the most important to her. You know, I just, that is so fun to me. There's never a dull moment.
00:21:08
Speaker
Wow, that's beautiful. I love that. And I've kind of learned the same thing over the years that it's very tempting to go, oh no, you're in this next phase, slow down. But really, no amount of telling them to slow down is going to make them slow down. So we might as well just embrace every phase. And what a blessing that is, especially when you have big ones and little ones to say, oh my gosh, I just love you at 14. And oh my gosh, I just love you at two. And to just kind of relish where everyone is at that moment.
00:21:37
Speaker
So Autumn, tell us, what do you struggle with personally on a daily basis, like mentally and emotionally, and what do you do to overcome it?
Self-Care and Homeschooling Approach
00:21:48
Speaker
You know, I'm actually in such a good place in my life right now, but I wasn't always. With my first five kids, I'd never experienced postpartum depression, but with the first three that Colby and I had together,
00:22:06
Speaker
I had postpartum depression and it was like, I don't know, it was just this constant struggle. We had a lot of stuff going on. You know, my in-laws were actually living with us and there was a struggle with that because she had been mom and now we have like a great relationship. But at the time that was a struggle. Finances were a struggle. And at one point we were living in
00:22:29
Speaker
We moved down to the basement because we were trying to remodel the upstairs and we thought we were going to sell our house and that that was going to solve our finances. And that didn't end up happening. But anyway, so for a while there, we had all of us living in the basement, two bedrooms, one bath.
00:22:45
Speaker
And mentally, I was just like, oh my goodness, what have I done? I thought that this was where I was supposed to be. And blending a family is hard. You've got just a lot of emotional issues with the kids. And so that was just a hard time in my life.
00:23:06
Speaker
The things that I did to overcome it were, I told myself, you know what? Oh, the other thing that happened, sorry, was I was also sick. So I went, but I also, this was mostly when I was pregnant with Evelyn. I was anemic. I had low thyroid. I got bronchitis. I got a sinus infection. I got the fevers for eight days. I mean, all these things were happening over the same summer. And it was like, I don't know. I felt like I just had my head dunked underwater and nobody was letting me up, you know?
00:23:35
Speaker
And I thought, I can't just sit here and be like this. I've got to find something. And so I really worked on my nutrition and I took a lot of supplements and then I did a lot of things mentally. I started exercising. I tried to do some service every day, even if it was just like saying a prayer and saying, okay, I'm the father.
00:24:01
Speaker
I, you know, what can I do for somebody and maybe it'd be like send a $5 gift from Amazon to somebody like I never left my house. I don't know if the person really cared or not, you know, but it was just these little, maybe it was just a phone call to a friend. Just these simple acts of service that I tried to do.
00:24:17
Speaker
And it really did work over the years because I just had twins. So you would think, and it was babies number nine and 10. So you would think that that would be nutritionally, I'd be the most depleted and be the most, you know, struggling with the postpartum depression. But I had a midwife who helped me and I worked on my nutrition, like
00:24:35
Speaker
crazy. I, I've never eaten so healthy in my life. And so I didn't have any of that this time and I'm just happy. I'm so happy. And so I feel like, like that, that those things really helped a lot. Yes. Thank you so much for sharing that. Bonnie and I talk all the time. We try to encourage our listeners, our audiences to as moms prioritize yourself because your kids depend on you. And if you don't, they're going to be such a mess too. Yeah.
00:25:05
Speaker
Yeah, totally agree. Yeah, and I love that you said that regardless of where you are right now, you should be, from a third person perspective, the most stressed out and the most emotionally
00:25:19
Speaker
the most whack job type of mom there is, but you're not. You're centered, you're grounded because you're taking care of yourself. And I'm so glad that you came around full circle to that because you're just showing us that the impossible is possible if you make yourself a priority. So I love that. Thank you. We couldn't have scripted that better.
00:25:39
Speaker
I did want to have one more logistical question for you, and that is homeschooling. You're a homeschooling mom like we are, and I'm sure most of our listeners cannot even imagine how that works for you. We'd love to know a little bit about how your homeschooling day looks. I love homeschooling. Right now, I've had a lot of different systems and we've
00:25:58
Speaker
tried a lot of different things. And when I had the twins, so before the twins, my entire basement was really dedicated to homeschooling. But after I had the twins, I was like, Oh, I cannot carry all this baby equipment downstairs every day. So upstairs. So right now we're homeschooling at the kitchen table. And we start out with a prayer and a song. And I read him some poems we've been reading. Oh, what's his name? Dennis Lee, I think.
00:26:28
Speaker
Alligator pie, silly poems, although my favorite poet is Edgar Guest. And then I have some history books that are read aloud that I love. And science, that's a read aloud, and then we do some hands-on stuff afterwards. So I'll do a group thing with history and with science.
00:26:52
Speaker
And then for, I've got, I love workbooks. I know some people don't, but with as many littles as I have, it just, and just my personality. I like to be able to see what we've accomplished, check it off the list, say we did that thing. And so we use Cuman Mathbooks.
00:27:11
Speaker
And although some I've used a lot of a lot of different math curriculum. And then for writing, we do. Oh, I can't remember what it's called now, but I have some where they just do individual on their own and then some where we do a read aloud together and then we do a language arts based on the fables or whatever we're reading. And we all just kind of hang out all day.
00:27:40
Speaker
Oh, that's so beautiful. I love hearing people who do just like a very well-rounded approach to homeschooling. And that doesn't necessarily look like public school, because I think that's a big mistake that so many of us make. It's like, well, we're homeschooling, so get out the desks and get out your pencil and I'm going to dictate now. But to come together and read together, I just love that. So my question is, when you are doing read-alouds or helping kids with workbooks or whatever, are your older kids helping out? Are they doing their own thing?
00:28:10
Speaker
So my 16 year old, he goes to a private school. He's got a job and he pays for it and goes himself because he wanted that.
00:28:18
Speaker
but my junior high kids on down are home. And we, yeah, I guess if I could paint the picture for you, it'll be like me sitting up at the table. And sometimes I've got both of the twins in the carrier. Or if I decide to put them down, then all of a sudden, my, my two year old, my three year old, they, oh, mom slaps free. I want to sit on mom. So I'm always holding a baby as I'm reading aloud or helping somebody with a problem. And then the older kids take turns. One of them will maybe be holding a baby while they're doing homework or
00:28:48
Speaker
Um, maybe one of them's making sandwiches for lunch and we all just kind of take turns doing homework helping with the babies, you know, there's a popular article that goes around online and it's um I don't remember the author but I remember the title and it was the baby is the lesson and I love that so much. I feel like that is so true. Um, we really
00:29:11
Speaker
have to make allowances for, oh, so-and-so needs their diaper changed or so-and-so needs a bottle. I got to stop and nurse the baby. Maybe, you know, maybe you could read the lesson out loud to the kids or, you know, we all just help and work together and it's great. Oh, to me, that's one of the beautiful parts of a large family is how much everyone helps everyone else. Absolutely. It's my favorite thing when I see, you know,
00:29:38
Speaker
Actually, when we first got married, some of the older teenagers struggled when we told them that we were having more kids. And yeah, those very teenagers were the ones who were wrapped around the baby's fingers once they got here. I remember Colin, when Colter was born, Colin was a teenager and he would just hold Colter and play with him and laugh at him. And he'd be like, oh, you're the best little baby. Oh, you can't do anything wrong.
00:30:08
Speaker
It's so cute to see them gushing over the babies. Yes, definitely. That's probably one of my favorite things about having a big family is the big kids with the little kids. It's the cutest thing I've ever seen.
00:30:20
Speaker
Thanks for sharing your homeschool, your homeschool day with us. I'm sure that every time we interview somebody who homeschools or we talk about the way we homeschool or anybody who homeschools hears about the way that anyone else homeschools, I think they should feel better because there's no way that's the same as any other way. Every way is good. It works for that family and that's where the magic in it is.
00:30:44
Speaker
Right. Well, and I think also even within a family, the homeschool, at least for us, has tended to change with the needs of the family at the time. It might look different when mom is nine months pregnant with twins. Yeah. Okay. So we are 100% convinced that you are a super mom now. So tell us, if you could have one magical power, Autumn the super mom, what would it be?
00:31:13
Speaker
I would be Mary Poppins to be able to snap my fingers and clean things like that.
00:31:21
Speaker
Always the cleaning, yes. Yeah, that or snap my fingers and have dinner made and cleaned up. Is that everybody's answer? I think so. Just about. Okay, well, we are wrapping things up, Autumn, but we want to thank you so much for being here. I have learned so much. And every time I talk to you, I just feel so inspired that if you can do what you're doing, we can do what we're doing. And we're all just
00:31:46
Speaker
We're all just getting by every day and hoping to enjoy our kids the best we know how. So thank you so much for sharing. Well, thanks for having me on here. Okay. So we're going to link to a lot of the stuff that Autumn talked about in the show notes, things that we can find like those Kuma and math books and the article on the baby is the lesson. So you can be sure to check out the show notes and Autumn, it's been such a pleasure to get to know you today. Thank you. Thank you. It was good to get to know you too.
00:32:14
Speaker
Thanks so much for tuning in. If you've enjoyed this episode, we'd be so grateful if you'd leave us a written review on iTunes. If you have any questions or ideas for future episodes, you can reach us at outnumberthepodcastatgmail.com and find us on Instagram at outnumberthepodcast. See you next week.