Photo Every Hour: January 21st

What time my alarm was scheduled to go off....

Versus what time I actually got out of bed. Weekends are lovely

8:00 Garrett poured and flipped the pancakes himself this morning, so naturally he was the last one to eat. But my little sous chef didn't mind in the least

9:00 It's a Let's Bake morning at church. Time to start making treats for coffee hour tomorrow morning!

10:00 Flying solo in the kitchen today, but making progress

11:00 Getting closer....

12:00 Three hours and 15 dozen treats later it's like I was never even here!

1:00 Treating myself to a little bit of time off my feet after three hours of baking this morning

2:00 The list of things I *should* be doing is extensive, but what am I doing instead? Going through old photos on my Google account because I've arbitrarily decided that I need to clear up some space

3:00 Loaded up to head to an Augustana basketball game (with an extra pair of pants and underwear for our potty-training three-year old!)

4:00 The game is underway!

5:00 An exciting final few minutes (Augustana closed a fifteen-point deficit to make it a one possession game in the final minute) but unfortunately they didn't manage to pull off the W (but we did manage to make it through the game without any accidents--woo hoo!)

6:00 Meeting up with a few PTO moms to work on planning our upcoming Staff Appreciation Week

7:00 Nothing like a beer and chips and dip to fuel some creative ideas!

8:00 Home in time to catch the ending of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (the older two got the book series for Christmas, and I recently finished reading the first book to them, so naturally we had to follow up the book with the movie)

9:00 Pulling some meat out of our deep freezer for dinner tomorrow (and yes, I keep a chalkboard inventory on the lid. It isn't always the most accurate, but when we're actually good about keeping it current it's super handy to have)

10:00 Finally getting around to being productive and paying a few bills

That's a wrap on the day!

Photo Every Hour: December 21st

Sigh. You know it's the holiday season when my weeknights are pushing into the next day

6:30 The boys are allowed to get out of their rooms at 6:30 and this kid more often than not is chomping at the bit to get up and get started with an activity

7:00 Breakfast time (and yes, we still have pumpkins on the table. Garrett is having a hard time saying goodbye to them)

8:00 This kid loves his soft pants, and I love that he's willing to put them on himself when he wants to wear them instead of "real" pants

9:00 I genuinely hate Play-Doh. I don't like when the colors mix, I don't love how hard and crumbly it gets, I don't love how much of it ends up on my floors... But man if the boys don't love it

10:00 My grocery shopping buddies always and forever

11:00 At the toy store under the guise of looking for Christmas presents for our cousins but really I'm snagging a few gifts ideas to pass on to Grandma and Grandpa

12:00 Never a dull moment with these boys

1:00 Time to eat and pass along gift ideas--fortunately we aren't celebrating with my family until December 30th so Grandma still has plenty of time to shop!

2:00 A book, some coffee, and my sweet Connor happily entertaining himself

3:00 Grateful for Darrell's flexible work from home schedule so I can squeeze in a blood donation before the holidays

4:00 And then it's off to an orthodontist appointment for William

5:00 These two have been super into puzzles lately and I love it

6:00 We love us some tacos!

7:00 Snack and treats before bed

8:00 As long as moments like this keep happening I will never let the boys stop doing reading time before bed

9:00 Checking hours at a local music store because apparently William decided TODAY that he hopes Santa brings him a piano arrangement of "Little Drummer Boy" (spoiler: despite a massive winter storm and frigid temps, Santa made it happen) 

10:00 Also updating budgeting stuff because, well, #Christmas

11:00 On track to get to bed earlier than last night!

Probably not early enough to make up for the late night last night, but improvement is improvement nonetheless 

Photo Every Hour: November 21st

 Well. I logged on to get my December Photo-Every-Hour post up, thinking I was doing pretty well and not too terribly far behind (especially considering all the holiday craziness and whatnot), only to realize I never actually did my November post. Whoops. The good news is I take the pictures regardless, so I have those, but let's see how well I actually remember what happened that day based on a handful of pictures...

6:33 Rise and shine and breakfast time... And apparently we had beer in our upstairs fridge instead of downstairs where it usually is??

7:00 I can't think of the last time the older two were ready for school by 7:00 and able to watch YouTube before we had to leave... But apparently they used to be faster in the morning than they have been lately

8:00 Connor has a nerf gun and Matthew has one of Garrett's stuffed puppies... I don't know what kind of game was going on and I'm not sure if I should be concerned

9:00 My little garbage helper before we head out for a few errands!

10:00 We may be leaving in a few days for our Thanksgiving trip, but these darn boys are still going to eat a ton of food during that time, so grocery store it is

11:00 I'm pretty sure I will forever be cutting fingernails with YouTube as a distraction

12:00 Trying to get my name on the list early for a handful of Christmas books from the library while Matthew obsessively colors with Sharpies

1:00 This kid still loves playing games during nap time, but fortunately we have mixed it up a little bit and no longer play Chutes and Ladders EVERY.DAY.

2:00 Trying to get a jump start on packing before we leave in two days!

3:00 Snacks

4:00 Can't pack without ALLLL the clean laundry

5:00 As if packing for our Thanksgiving trip wasn't enough, we're packed up to bring dinner to my parent's house to watch...

6:00 The World Cup!

7:00 Hoping the US can score a late goal and break this stalemate! (Spoiler--they don't)

8:00 So.Much.Laundry

9:00 Taking a brain (or perhaps, brain-less, since "Clueless" is on in the background) break while Darrell is at a meeting

10:00 Laundry has either been put away or packed for the trip--and apparently Darrell prioritized making sure he'd have a place to sleep with no regard to where I'd be sleeping

Not a bad bedtime for a rather busy and productive evening (although as I recall, the following night was markedly later, because no matter how ahead of the game I feel when it comes to packing for trips it always seems like there are a million things to do at the last minute)