Christmas Time

Just popping in to share a few photos of some of the fun things that we have done during the last month.

We made some cute donut hole snowmen.  I love Drake's face here.  I'm not quite sure what he was thinking.

We have a tradition where we make a new ornament every year, so this year we made these cute washer snowmen.  I love how they turned out.

We did a lot of other fun things too, but I didn't get any pictures.  I needed to be in the moment, more than I needed pictures I guess.

I did get this cute picture of Tad as one of the Candlelight Carolers at the Elementary school Christmas program.  He was one of the kids selected to do the opening number, and he did a great job!

Here he is with his cute cousin singing with his first grade class.  They did such a good job with this song as well.

And this is a picture of Drake singing with the third grade.   He was also selected to be one of the carolers that sang songs between all the numbers as the kids were getting off and on stage.  He was very happy to be selected as part of this group and he did a great job!!  I wish I would have gotten a picture of him doing that, but they all turned out blurry.  It was just too dark where they were sitting.  Darn!

I also went to Jack's choir concert and Christmas spectacular.  They were both so fun!

Dallin and Thomas had a choir concert at the Junior High as well and I enjoyed it so much.  Choir was my thing as a teenager, and I am so enjoying watching my boys in choir.

Thomas also played a piano duet with a friend in Sacrament meeting today and played perfectly!  I am proud of him for being so brave!  It is not easy to play for the first time in front of the whole ward.

We are looking forward to Christmas and we are so thankful for all of our blessings!  Merry Christmas!

Catching Up

It has been too long since I posted, but I am still struggling to pull out my camera enough.  Oh well, I will make a goal to do better and get a post up with a few of the things that we have been doing over the past two months.

Jack and Tad playing with the zoo animals set on the Halloween quilt.  I don't know how much longer this kind of activity will be taking place in my house.

Drake turned nine!!!!  Very exciting for him, not as much for me.

All the boys dressed up for Halloween this year.  Last year Dallin decided he was over it, but this year, he had to support the Jr High Halloween social, since he is student body president, so that meant a costume for him.  We came up with this on the fly at about 10:00 at night on October 30th, but he liked it.  We also came up with Thomas's last minute Karate Kid headband late that night.  Thank goodness for a vinyl cutter and screen printing ink we had on hand.

We had planned ahead on the other boys.  Jack was Hawkeye (from the Avengers).  Drake was a Jedi, and Tad was Thor for the third year in a row.  I told him this had to be the last year, since he would be too big for the costume next year.  He isn't very happy about that, but I let him keep it out and he dresses up in it from time to time now.  I totally got my money's worth out of that costume!

Jeremy has been building a wall to surround our backyard.  Tad has been a good helper!

I did a little decorating for Thanksgiving.

And after Thanksgiving I did a little Christmas decorating.  I will try to share more of it over the next few weeks.

Sadly that is all the pictures I have to share, but I guess it is better than nothing.

Life Lately

Just sharing a few random pictures from the past couple of months.

Dallin turned 14 way back in August.

We finally got the backsplash up in our kitchen.  Drake was a big help.

Tad was too!  You saw the finished backsplash in my day in the life post, but I will try to do a good clean on the kitchen and take some better pictures of the finished product.  I love it!!

The boys are in the middle of another soccer season.  This is Dallin's last year playing city league.  We are crossing our fingers that he makes the JV team at the high school next year.

Thomas has had a good season.  Even if they make him play forward and he would rather be a defender.

Tad and Drake are on the same team this year. Here you can see Drake at defender and Tad at midfield.  They have played all positions this year.  I am hoping to get some good action shots of them before the season is over.

I caught this cute shot of Tad admiring the Halloween decorations.  He always loves it when I decorate for the latest holiday/season.  I hope he never outgrows it.

Finally I have to share the awesome outfit that the Student Council had to wear to school during homecoming week.  It is good thing that Dallin has tons of confidence.  He totally pulls off that tutu.

It has been a good couple of months!

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!!