Day in the Life: December 21st

Oof. That's a late wake up time. Here's to doing better than that in the new year

7:00 Nothing like waiting until the last day of school before winter break to get teacher gifts delivered

8:00 Checking my library account because this time of year is always a constant battle of wanting to request more books than I have room to check out on my card

9:00 At our Old Courthouse Museum for a story time and craft (the history here is so cool and I love that they do monthly kids activities!)

10:00 Oh hi principal gifts that weren't ready to send to school with the boys this morning

11:00 No clue if Matthew is washing his hands or cleaning the bathroom sink/counter. It's honestly a 50/50 guess

12:00 Dropping off the last minute staff gifts before getting Matthew down for nap

1:00 So many leftover choices for lunch! (aka blessed to have a fridge that looks like this)

2:00 Trying to minimize our evening tasks by getting the dishwasher loaded during nap time

3:00 Love the house I grew up in, and love even more dropping the boys there for an overnight with Grandma and Grandpa!

4:00 Getting the house tidied up before Darrell gets home from work (and peep the dog kennel--yay for dog sitting again!)

5:00 Look at us heading out for a date night (and look how light of coats we are wearing for December in South Dakota!)

6:00 First stop: our favorite local pizza joint (lots of love to Sunny's Pizzeria!)

7:00 Second stop: a favorite local brewery for Beer and Carols with some friends from our pre-kids life!

8:00 Third stop: grocery store because #parentlife

9:00 Time for one of my favorite nights of the holiday season: wrapping presents and watching "The Holiday"

10:00 Presents are wrapped, mess is cleaned up, all that's left is enjoying our last few kid-free hours before picking them up in the morning!

Day in the Life: November 21st

Wouldn't you want to wake up to this picture every morning?

7:00 Being ready for school on time means a little bit of screen time in the morning

8:00 We leave tomorrow for our Thanksmas trip out east--lots of prep today (and grateful for a boy who can entertain himself when Mommy is busy!)

9:00 Also grateful for a boy who likes to help Mommy when her to-do list is massive...

10:00 because in addition to packing for a week-long trip out east I also have to make rolls for a Thanksgiving dinner at my parent's house tonight?

11:00 The desire to unpack our airplane suitcase and do our activities RIGHT.NOW is a real thing

12:00 Picking stories for naptime! 

1:00 Getting the airplane suitcase re-packed (and distracting myself from all the things that have to get done by putting a Netflix movie on in the background)

2:00 Oh hi bills that have to get paid before we head out of town!

3:00 Well hello last minute load of laundry!

4:00 Still grateful for boys who can entertain themselves while Mommy is busy

5:00 A library stop before long travel days is one hundred percent necessary

6:00 Thanksgiving celebration with my parents and siblings (let's not talk about how impromptu this dinner was, mmkay? I'm stressed just thinking about it)

7:00 And part of the reason for the stress? We were SUPPOSED to be getting together to celebrate my niece's birthday. "Thanksgiving" was a bit of an afterthought that got tacked on to the gathering, but I didn't want it to take away from her birthday (because you only turn seven once!)

8:00 And I was also stressed about making sure our boys got home and to bed at a decent time because we had a long day of travel the next day

9:00 No idea why what this picture represents. I know it's a picture of our super messy toy ottoman, and the only thing I can think of is that I took it shortly before I went digging through it to find Match Box cars to toss into travel suitcases for the boys. Or maybe I just wanted you to see one of the areas of controlled messes in my house. No idea.

10:00 Travel clothes laid out and organized on our bed...

11:00 Travel clothes packed away and ready to leave in the morning!

Is this a late bedtime? Yes. Am I super proud of how much we got done tonight to be ready to leave for our trip tomorrow? Also yes.

Photo Every Hour: October 21st

7:00 Gotta love Saturday mornings when I'm in the shower by 7 am.... Not

8:00 Oh hi Bella and Chloe! Turns out we are dog sitters extraordinaries 

9:00 Off to church to bake goodies for coffee hour tomorrow

10:00 Brownies and muffins: done!

11:00 And we're nothing if not busy on this fine Saturday--off to a tailgate party before the AU football game!

12:00 Killing time before kickoff by racing Hot Wheels cars down cement steps (spoiler--not the best activity for the cars!)

1:00 Kickoff!

2:00 Halftime--and did I forget to mention that it's the Shrine Football game? If you look closely you'll see a lot of fez hats on that field, and up at the front with their Grandpa and Uncle Mike are my three oldest boys (their dad is somewhere on the sidelines being a photographer)

3:00 There's ten minutes left in the 4th quarter and unranked AU is up 14-3 against ranked MSU. Do my boys care? Not really. They just want to play their own football game 

4:00 Grabbing a hearty snack because...

5:00 We're off on a hike to shoot our Christmas card photo!

6:00 Hike? Done. Christmas card photo? Captured. I'll call that a success!

7:00 Poor puppies wondering where we've been all day

8:00 Goodnight Connor and Matthew!

9:00 Making some frosting for the brownies we made at church this morning (fun fact: it takes very little red and blue frosting and A LOT of white frosting to make a purple "Halloween" frosting)

10:00 Impulse making Halloween sprinkle cookies because due to the football game I was worried I didn't get enough goodies cooked at church this morning 

11:00 Getting the puppies ready for bedtime

All things considered, not a terrible bedtime!