A Day in the Life

I have been thinking of doing a post like this for awhile now.  My kids are growing up so fast and  I was thinking about how I wish I had done a better job of recording how our typical days went through the years.  While you are in the middle of those days, it seems like you will never forget, but looking back it is hard to remember all the little mundane details.  I decided from now on I will try to document a typical day in my life every once in awhile.  So, yesterday, I took quite a few pictures throughout the day and I will try to walk through how it all went down.

Fair warning - - this is a long one.

Our days start at 6:15 with family scripture study and prayer.

I then tell my kids to get a move on, starting with breakfast.  As you can tell we are pretty casual at breakfast around here.

I prep carrots for my morning juice.  I usually do this after I exercise, but this morning Dallin wants some juice too, so I make it early.

After I juice the carrots I blend them up with berries and spinach.  This is the finished product.  It tastes alright and I love getting so many fruits and vegetables all at once.

I help the little boys finish getting ready for school, and they head to the Elementary school with Jeremy at about 7:10.

I have a few minutes while the big boys finish getting ready for school, so I get dressed in my workout clothes and then unload the dishwasher.

At 7:25, the three big boys and I hop in the car and head to school. (Sometimes I still can't believe that I live in such a rural area.)

I drop Jack off first at the Intermediate school, and then I drop Dallin and Thomas off at the Junior High.

I get home and my kitchen is looking like this.

I'm sorry to say that this mess is an everyday occurrence.  Still working on training those boys.

The family room is also a mess, so I spend a few minutes starting to clean up these spaces.

I walk in the mornings with my neighbor.  It has been drizzling all morning, so we are not sure if we should chance it, but there seems to be a break in the rain, so we decide to go ahead.  We timed it just right.  At the very end of our walk it started drizzling again and within five minutes of getting in the house it was a full-on rain storm.

I spend the next little while getting the kitchen looking like this.

It still needs a good scrub down, but it is so much better than the mess earlier.

I also, get the family room looking like this.  I feel much better now.

I put a load of dishrags and dishtowels in the washer and turn on the dryer to let the clothes that I left sitting in it overnight tumble for a bit to remove the wrinkles.  Then I fold and put away that load of clothes.  Then I transfer the dishrags to the dryer and put another load of clothes in the washer.

By this time it is 10 am, so I run to my bathroom, take a quick shower and get ready for the day.

I am ready by about 10:30.  This is the time of day that I have to work on a quick project before Jeremy comes home for lunch at 11:00.  Today, I am going through the fall/winter clothes so I can see what we still need to purchase for the boys before the weather turns.

When Jeremy comes home for lunch, I am still sorting through clothes, so he makes me this enchilada.  It was delicious!  It is nice to have a husband who takes care of me.

After I eat my lunch, I finish putting the clothes into piles for the boys to try on when they get home.  They have all grown this Summer and I am not sure what will fit.  Then I take a few minutes off to visit with Jeremy.

Jeremy leaves at 12:00, and then it is time for me to work on my blog.  No, not this family blog.  I have another blog that I started years ago as a hobby.  It is just kind of a journal of the domestic things I do around the house.  I kept up with it pretty well for a while, but the last several years I have hardly touched it.  About a year ago, I got an e-mail from a reader telling me that some of the pins from my posts had gone viral on her Pinterest board.  Literally, hundreds and sometimes thousands of pins per day.  She suggested that I might want to monetize those posts.  It took me a few months to look into it, but when I finally did, I was shocked that my little blog started making money.  So, I decided that now all my kids are in school I would put two hours per day, four days a week, into my blog, to see if I can increase the money it is making a little bit.

Today I am testing a recipe for sugar cookie bars, so I make that and get that in the oven.

Then I work on getting a blog post up for a recipe I developed for Glazed Lemon Crinkle Cookies.

After I get the post up, I frost and cut the sugar cookie bars.  They are good, but not quite blog worthy yet.  They are a little too sweet for me, so I will make some tweaks and attempt them again in a few weeks.

I have about 10 minutes before I need to go pick up the little boys, so I take advantage of that time to clean and straighten up the silverware drawer.

Once that is finished it is 2:20, time to pick up my little boys.

It is always a bright spot in my day to pick these two up!

Jack has a robotics class after school, so I don't need to head over to the Intermediate school to get him yet.

Once we are home, Drake and Tad are thrilled to have an after school treat!  They eat and we talk about their day.  Then they try on the clothes that I went through earlier in the day and decide what will work, and what won't.

The boys play while I switch the laundry and fold the dishtowels.  By now, it is 3:10, time to get Jack from robotics class.

I pick up Jack and drop him off at home.  Due to the rain today there are no soccer practices which makes my juggling kids and running around this afternoon much less crazy.

I tell Jack and Drake to go through their piano pieces while I am gone to pick up Dallin and Thomas from the Junior High.

I stop at the Post Office to pick up our mail, and it is mostly election stuff.  Ugh!  I hate election years!

I get Dallin and Thomas, but they don't cooperate very well with me taking pictures.

We go home and Thomas runs through his piano pieces.

I take Thomas, Jack, and Drake to piano lessons.  They will be gone for an hour (they each get a 20 minute lesson).

I go home and get working on dinner.  I talk to my boys about homework, but most of them say they have benchmark tests this week, so they don't have any.

Jeremy comes home just in time to pick up the boys from piano so I can stay home and finish up dinner.

When Jeremy gets home with the boys Thomas sets the table for dinner and we discover that Tad has fallen asleep on the couch, so Jeremy puts him in bed.

We sit down for dinner.  Tonight it is Asian Turkey in peanut sauce.  Jeremy served his mission in Thailand, so we have a lot of Asian food at our house.  He has helped me learn which recipes are the most authentic.  It is also a must to serve Asian food with cucumbers.

After dinner, Jeremy does the dishes and Thomas and Drake work on homework.  Thomas sat at the bar like a normal person, but this is where Drake prefers to study.

I have discovered that I have some pumpkin puree in the fridge that needs to be used, so I decide to make a pumpkin coffee cake for tomorrow.  I start mixing it up and discover that I have no flour.  NO FLOUR!!  I have to head to the store.

As I am driving to the store, my car blinks at me that I only have about 25 miles worth of gas left, so I pull into the gas station and fill up.  I then go to the store and pick up flour and a couple of other things.

I go home, finish up the coffee cake and get it in the oven.

I have my bigger boys try on the clothes I sorted earlier and we put everything that will work in the basket and everything that won't back in the bin.

The kids are done with homework and spending a little bit of time doing fun stuff.  By now, I am pretty tired, but I turn on an episode of The Voice, pull the clothes out of the dryer, and get them folded and ready to hang.  I call the boys out to get their clothes.  They put them away, and I tell them to get showered, teeth brushed, etc.

I pull the coffee cake out of the oven.  It looks good and smells even better.  Jeremy and the boys are all trying to get me to give them a sample, but I insist it is for tomorrow.  I watch a little bit more of The Voice while the cake is cooling and the boys are getting ready for bed.

Finally, it is bedtime.  We have family prayer, and give hugs and kisses, and the boys go to bed.  I cover the cake and head to my room to get ready and go to bed myself.

These days are long, but it is so fun seeing our boys grow up and do so well. I feel so blessed.

And just so I leave you with a pretty picture, here is a picture of the coffee cake after we cut it today.  It tastes even better than it looks!!

Back to School

My kids started school last week, so, of course, I had to document them leaving on their first day.

Tad started first grade.  His teacher is Ms. Ellsworth.  She is very beloved here in Taylor, and we feel lucky that one of our boys finally gets to be in her class.  (We have loved all of our first grade teachers, so that statement is not a slight to any of them in the least.)  Ms. E also teaches Thomas and Drake the piano, so my boys all love her! 

He likes first grade, but he thinks the days are too long.  I think the days are too long too.  I miss having my little buddy come home at 11:00.

Drake is in third grade.  His teacher is Mrs. Fuentes.  She looped up to third grade with her class.  Drake loved being in her class last year, and I know he will have another great year with her as his teacher.

Jack is in fifth grade.  His teacher is Mr. Whiting.  None of my boys have had him yet, but we hear all of his students enjoy being in his class, so we are sure that Jack will have a great year with him.

Thomas is in seventh grade and moved up to the Junior High.  So far, he is handling the adjustment pretty well.

Dallin is in eighth grade.  Yes, I have two in Junior High!  He is student body president this year, and had to MC the opening assembly.  He said it was fun. So far, he seems to be enjoying being back in school.

All of my boys!  I can't believe they are all in school all day now.  Time sure flies!  Have a great year boys!!

July

At the beginning of July we headed to St. George for a reunion with my family.  It was fun, but too short.  Unfortunately, I didn't take too many pictures, but here are a few.

We met Christy there a day early.  We spent the first evening going to dinner and playing in the pool. We spent part of the next day at the St. George Temple.  So pretty.  We also enjoyed their visitors center.  The rest of our family met us down there that night.

The next day we visited Brigham Young's home and then took an easy going (but HOT) hike. These are a couple of pictures from the hike.

Later that night we went to Tuacahn and saw Cinderella.

The cousins all had a great time hanging out together and swimming in the hotel pool.  It was nice to spend time with my family again.

Not long after we got back Jeremy and I celebrated our 15th anniversary.  He brought me flowers and we celebrated by going to dinner at a place that is a little nicer than our normal date night.  I wanted to take a trip together to celebrate 15 years, but we are pouring so much money into landscaping the backyard and finishing up some things in the house, that we didn't feel like we could afford to get away.

One of the things we are finishing up in the house is our mudroom.  It has been empty like this since we moved in - well, if I'm being honest, it was usually full of random stuff that drove me crazy, and my kids coats, backpacks, and shoes were all over the house.  Not what I had in mind.

Jeremy built these lockers and I am so happy with how they turned out.

Now my kids have an official place to keep their backpacks, jackets, coats, hats, and shoes.  I am crossing my fingers that it won't take too long to train them to always put them there.

These pictures aren't the greatest.  I will try to take better pictures of the entire mudroom, and explain a little better how we are using it in another post someday.

Jeremy also finished the built-ins next to our fireplace and they look so good.  I will take a picture and share that soon too.

In addition, we are putting a block wall along the back of our property.  It is going a little slowly, since we have been in our monsoon and it is a muddy mess back there.  I'm not complaining, Arizona has been so dry that we are sooooo grateful for the rain even if it does slow down work on my back wall.  It is supposed to dry out now though, so we should be able to make some progress on it soon. 

July was full of a lot of fun and a lot of work.  It was a good month.

Tad is Seven!

A few days after we returned from San Diego, Tad turned seven!  I decided not to post too heavily about my boys birthdays this year, but with Tad still being pretty young, I decided to document his with just a little more detail.

Tad loves stuffed animals, and Grandma T did not disappoint.  She always sends the best gifts!

This cute little cat was a special favorite.  In fact, Drake liked it so much he could not hold back the tears because he wanted one too.  Luckily, he called Grandma, and she said she had an extra one that she would give to him.  He was all smiles after that.

I realize that Tad is wearing different shirts in these pictures, and to be honest, I do not remember why.  I promise, they were all taken on the same day.

Tad also got this little tent that he and Drake have been having so much fun playing, and sleeping in this Summer.

Tad is such a sweet little boy and we love having him in our family!

San Diego

About a week after school got out we headed down to San Diego.  Our first stop there was Sea World.

I didn't take very many pictures while we were there, but I had to get this one of my two youngest in front of their favorite ride, the Tentacle Twirl.  We rode it over and over and they never got tired of it.

My older boys loved the thrill rides like Journey to Atlantis and Manta.  Dallin also loved the new Electric Eel ride.  I told him there was no way I was going on that ride with him, because I did not have a death wish.  He and Thomas went on it.  Dallin came off it begging to go again, and Thomas  came off it saying "Never again!"  Since we were basically walking on the rides I let Dallin ride a few more times.  He is crazy!! 

I also got this picture at the Dolphin show, which was Tad's other favorite thing at Sea World.  I think he would have been happy if we had done nothing but the dolphin show and the swings all day long.

One more picture of all my boys right after we had all gotten soaked on the ShipwreckRapids ride.

All in all, it was a good day at Sea World.

The next day we headed to the beach.  We decided to visit Coronado beach since we had not been there before.  We loved it.  It was not very crowded the day we visited and the weather and waves were perfect.

Before I get to the pictures of my boys, I have to share this picture of the Coronado sand. It is full of fools gold, and sparkles in the sun.  Very pretty!

My boys had so much fun playing in the waves and in the sand.  It was a great day.

After the beach we cleaned up at the hotel and then headed out to La Jolla Cove.

It was a pretty and fun place to hang out for the evening. 

 I thought it was so sweet how Tad had his arms around his big brothers legs.

There were, of course, tons of sea lions there and a lot of them had little babies that were so cute.

One more shot of La Jolla Cove.

We finished the evening with a stop at the beautiful San Diego Temple.

The next day we got up and took a tour of the USS Midway. I had never visited the Midway before.  It was pretty interesting.

After we finished at the USS Midway, we headed back to Arizona.  We spent the night in Gilbert, and then did some running around and shopping down there before we drove home. 

It was a good trip.

Catching Up

It has been awhile since I have updated the blog.  In an effort to get caught up, I will be posting a few posts over the next few days.

Way back in May we had a a day off from school for an unused snow day.  So, we used Jack's Every Kid in a Park pass and went to the south rim of the Grand Canyon.

We have been to the North Rim a couple of times, but this was our first time visiting the South Rim.  It was good to finally see it. Since my boys are all born Arizonans, I figure it was a moral obligation to finally take them there. :)

We saw lots of cool Grand Canyon vistas.

We took a walk over to see the Grand Canyon watchtower.

We all walked up to the top of it.  This is a picture of the boys looking out of one of the windows on the walk up.

Drake and Thomas had their piano recital in May as well.  We are so happy with how hard they are working at the piano and the progress they have made this year.  They both played their pieces perfectly!

Tad completed Kindergarten, and they had a cute little program that the kids put on for the parents in his kindergarten classroom.  He did a great job!

Dallin also had a good May. He had an end of year choir concert.  His choir did well, and he was also asked by his choir director to do a mash-up with one of his friends.  He sang really well.  I asked him if he was nervous, and he told me he was super nervous, but you couldn't even tell.  That kid has nerves of steel!

Speaking of his nerves of steel.  He had the courage to run for Student Body President at his school and he WON!!!  He is honestly so nice to everyone and I know he will do a great job.

It was a good month!