Today I....

8:01 am Woke up to a Miles boy standing by the side of my bed whispering "Is it time to get up yet and make breakfast?" I have been doing O.K. at getting up before the kids and getting a head start lately. However, this morning I was out cold until Miles whispered in my ear. I tried to go to bed at a reasonable hour, but while my body was exhausted, my mind was racing. I ended up in a bath, reading a book until I felt I had tired out my mind sufficiently. Which happened to be around 130am.

8:05 Pull Miles in bed with me to snuggle and am amazed that all the kids are sleeping in so late! We say our prayers and Miles takes Ozzy outside while I get breakfast going. Gwen stumbles out of bed and tells me she has peed the bed again (2nd night in a row, even with a diaper on!). I get Lindy, change her diaper, put her clothes on. Make some almond milk, toast some bread, pull out the cereal, make a smoothie.

9:00 I try and do things one-handed as I drink my smoothie and the kids eat, then retreat to the bathroom while the kids are occupied. When I come back out, I come just in time to see Lindy drop her entire bowl of cereal on the floor (not an unusual occurrence). I can feel myself beginning to snap, and it's only 830!

10:00 Bark orders a the kids to get dressed, make beds, say prayers, brush teeth. We take care of the bunnies outside, turn on a learning show for the kids and I run to get ready. The learning show Gwen chose happens to be extra short, but I'm not too worried because I can hear the kids playing happily together. I think to myself, I need to pray for extra patience today. I can feel myself losing it. But I push the thought aside. About 1 minute later, Miles walks in, perfectly happy the moment before mind you, whining that the movie was too short and they want to watch another. I tell him no, I'm almost ready and we'll start school. He proceeds to fall on the floor whining. So I close the door to pray, kneeling over the toilet, for that aforementioned patience, while Miles pounds on the door in a steady rhythm with his feet.

11:00 We start school by reading books on the couch. It's the best way to put me in a good mood before we start the intense stuff. 2 books in, and Lindy has successfully destroyed the front room. I then notice a text I had missed from a lady in our ward who has a girl Gwen's age. We've been trying to set up a good time for them to play forever and her text says Gwen can come over in an hour to play. I know I can't pass this up. I always feel like Gwen is lacking in the girl friend department. So I tell the kids, "Ok, we need to rush through as much school as we can get to, so that Gwen can go play at Gentry's house. Miles, of course, feels left out, so I set up a play date for him with a friend tomorrow.

11:45 We are working on math and I'm feeling the pressure. Both time wise so that Gwen can have her play date, and also curriculum wise. We're not as far in the program as I'd like to be. I'm trying to keep the kids on task, when Lindy tells me yet again, that she has to go potty. She is potty training herself these days, and since I'm not ready to be on board, to me it's about 50% awesome, and 50% a major disruption that I'm not prepared for. I have set up the little potty in the school room for convenience, so I strip her down and tell her to go sit on the potty. She does, I hear a little tinkle, she's happy and I tell her to come get her diaper back on. She thinks it's funny to refuse me, and I don't have time to chase her, so I let her go pants-less.

12:00 I keep working with the kids, and then notice from the corner of my eye that Lindy has found some random paint brushes, and is dipping them in the potty. Wanna know how desperate I am to get math done? I ignore the brush in the pee, and keep right on going, even though she's painting herself all over. Yum. I don't even make an effort to stop her until I glance over, and somehow the "paint" is green. The watercolors weren't open, I seriously have no idea how she did this. I can't ignore it anymore. I wash her up, and get the kids upstairs.

12:30 I shove some food down Gwen and we take her to Gentry's house. Come back, feed Miles and Lindy a proper lunch, read The Friend, Miles practices piano a bit, we read a few more books, and then I get both kids in rooms for naps/quiet time.

1:45 Gwen comes home fully dolled up with make-up. I'm positive she had a blast at Gentry's house. She joins Miles in quiet time to play legos and Kung-Fu Panda. I watch office re-runs and work on the bane of my existence, I mean, Lindy's stocking. (yep, she's almost 2 and it's still not done)

3:30 Miles and Gwen come out and take turns playing learning games on the computer, then Miles heads over the fence to his piano lessons. Lindy keeps napping! When she eventually wakes up, her diaper isn't full! So I take her to the potty and we have more success! We call daddy and celebrate. Richie informs me that he will be extra late tonight so that he can study more for a finance test. He's working so hard on his Master's program. I'm a very proud wife.

4:30 Miles is getting back from piano so we head outside and catch all the bunnies, meet Miles at the fence and rake a few leaves. It's a bit chilly and windy, but still I can't believe how nice the weather is for mid-December!

5:00 We head inside and pick out a show to watch.(Kung-Fu Panda....again) Usually if we have time to watch a full movie, we save it for after dinner time. However, given the circumstances, I let them start one early so that I can make dinner in peace. However, peace is a relative term. While I'm making dinner, Lindy is constantly in need, once even pulling the milk out of the fridge and spilling it all over the floor.

6:30 Dinner is ready, and I must say, I rock at making pizza rolls. We're in the middle of eating when Richie walks through the door. I don't know what it is about him coming home, but it's like something snaps in my brain. What was bearable and do-able before, instantly seems awful and I immediately need his help and to whine for about 15 minutes. He says, "Are you holding up ok?" And really, I am hanging in there, but instead I say, "I'm fine I guess." And about 2 seconds later I'm snapping at the kids. So I give myself a time out while Richie plays with the kids.

7:30 Decide to head to the gym and grocery shopping early and let Richie handle bed-time. It's in everyone's best interest, I promise.

9:30 Get home to my awesome husband finishing up the dishes (typical Richie). He has been watching "A League of Their Own" on Netflix. That show cracks us up. Tom Hanks rocks it. We decide to finish the movie till the end, and I work more on Lindy's stocking. It's a painfully slow process. Hopefully it gets done before this Christmas! We head to bed around 11. And just to round it off to a full 24 hours, it should be noted that we were both awake with an inconsolable Gwen at some point in the night because of another UTI.

The End.

The Rest of November

I did a few more window painting jobs in November. I feel like I'm improving, which is a good feeling. As always, I put most of the window pictures on the window blog, but these two are my favorites from my last couple of jobs.


A sampling of Miles's cool Lego creations.


Apple Pressing Day with G&G Garner! Side Story- Earlier that week, Lindy came down with an awful case of croup. We are no strangers to croup, so we whipped out all of our handy tricks and figured we'd have a couple long nights and call it good. However, she just got progressively worse until I knew I had to take her in to the Dr.s office for a breathing treatment. She had such trouble breathing that her chest was concave every time she tried to breath, and when she couldn't get a breath- she'd get upset, which made her breathing worse or course. Then she'd cough, but have no air to cough with, so she'd end up throwing up, over and over again. It was awful. They gave her a breathing treatment (pure torture) and some oral steroids, and then we waited. There was no change and she was SO upset. After a sufficient amount of time, they tried another breathing treatment and another round of oral steroids. Still nothing. That's when he admitted us to the hospital over night. He says he's usually not a stickler about croup, and that he only admits maybe 1 kid every couple of years, and Lindy was it. During the second breathing treatment, they left me alone in the room to administer it because she became so upset every time a Dr. or nurse came in. I was wrestling her trying to get the steam in her airways, and then I noticed on the heart monitor that her heart rate was at 220! Poor, poor girl.
Anyway, we spent a sleepless night in the hospital with lots of nice nurses and Dr.s. They gave her another round of breathing treatment and oral steroids in the middle of the night. By around 11 the next morning, she had improved just enough that we could be sent home. However, the next few days were still awful. She still sounded incredibly croupy and she was miserable, but at least it was tolerable and we could work with it. Christy whipped up every homemade herbal remedy up her sleeve. They were also so helpful taking the kids when need be; Apple pressing was one of those outings they took Miles and Gwen and let me rest with Lindy at home.
I love that Miles and Gwen have a G&G far enough away that we get to make trips down there and sleepover. There's anticipation and one-on-one time and lots of other good things that come with visiting grandparents in another city. However, there are also a lots of pro's to having grandparents 2 minutes away. I never had that opportunity, but I'm grateful my kids get to have a more frequent relationship with their grandparents here. Since beginning home-schooling, I'm more and more grateful for good mentors (So I don't feel like it's ALL on my shoulders) that lead and teach my children, especially grandparents. On this particular day, it was just Grandma and Grandpa Garner, and Miles and Gwen, working side by side. Lucky kids. (Oh, and the apple juice tastes amazing!!!)

Thanksgiving 2015

We pulled in late-ish Tuesday night, got the kids in bed and chatted with Mom and Dad. Wednesday morning, Dad had arranged for Richie and the kids to go rake leaves at the neighbor's house. Richie was grateful for a work project and the kids were excited to help. When I told them they would be helping rake leaves, they were so excited. "Rake leaves?? I'm great at raking leaves!" said a cute Miles boy.



Later on that day, Mom had a cool craft to work on with the kids. :)


Thanksgiving morning, we met the fam at a park where we were introduced to Pickle Ball. We are a little late getting on the Pickle Ball bandwagon, but it is super fun! The kids ran around and played hide and seek with their cousins to their hearts content. I'm grateful my kids have so many wonderful cousins to play with and learn from. I never worry about hurt feelings or exclusion or anything like that, when they are together. They treat my kids so well and it's the best to watch friendships grow. The weather was perfect, thank you very much SG. It was such an enjoyable way to spend a morning. After a couple of hours, we packed up to get ready to feast!


I got everyone's plates loaded up and handed out, then got to work crafting the perfect Thanksgiving plate for myself. When it was sufficiently full, I started carrying it to the table and had a small, but noticable, physical reaction to the pang of guilt that hit me. I stopped mid-step and almost wanted to put my plate down and say, "What are we doing?" I realize it's not bad for us to have so many blessings, I just was keenly aware of them in that moment and felt acute sorrow for those people who aren't so blessed. I mean, check out that bounty!


To burn off the Thanksgiving calories, we were introduced to another fun game: Nine square. Remember 4 square from elementary school? It's just like that, except there are nine squares and it's up in the air. Lindy tagged along as my partner, Miles stuck with Paris, and Gwen went rock hunting. :)



Friday afternoon I was able to meet up with a few friends from high school (Hi Ani, Laura, Hillary, Jessica, and Jasmine!). I love getting together with old friends. It's so fun to catch up. I brought my camera in to take a picture, then forgot to take any and left the camera at Laura's! Luckily, she was nice enough to drive it over. During this time, the boys were out shooting targets and skeet. Then began the annual grandkid's sleepover! My mom is amazing and hosts all the potty trained grandkids for a sleepover after Thanksgiving every year so the parents can get some shopping done.
This year, the theme was all around hot air balloons. The kids made marshmellow shooters out of balloons and cups, hot air balloon ornaments for our Christmas trees, and she helped them make giant hot air balloons out of tissue paper to be used the next day. My kids chose to have the inevitable meltdown during a game where you try and stomp on balloons attached to everyone's ankles. Miles was the first player out, so he obviously needed to sulk for 20 minutes in the backyard. Gwen tripped not too much longer afterward and scuffed up her elbow. So naturally she cried, inconsolably, for the next half hour. Grandma ended the game not too much after that and gave everyone a prize to calm them down. Ha! The best part of the night however, came when the kids were settled eating pizza and watching "UP" and Richie and I snuck out to have dinner with Jenn and Mike, and Chris and A. After Red Robin, Richie and I treated ourselves to a full-price movie! High rollers!! Dates are so nice. We should have more of them. :)



Saturday, we got ready and then headed to a nearby park to launch our homemade hot air balloons. Coolest activity ever! Uncle Mike brought over some sort of device from his classroom and attached it to Mom's propane tank. If you held the balloon over it for just enough time, it would float for a few hundred feet and then come down. Our balloon had some sort of magic in it because it floated a couple of miles away and out of sight! After launching them all a few times, we let the propane take over and watched them catch on fire and disintegrate up in the air. Grandma also had a helium balloon for each kid and a tag to write something they were grateful for. Then they attached the grateful tag to the balloon and let it go.


I know my grandparents loved/love me, but I don't remember them ever doing cool things like this for us grandkids. Part of that I'm sure is that I came along so late in the game. I hope my kids realize how lucky they are! We had such a fantastic week, but by Saturday afternoon we were ready to head home. We beat bad weather and bad traffic and made it home in time to warm up by the fire and unpack before bedtime. Now it's back to real life. No Grandma and Grandpa here in the morning to make my kids Eggo's while I sleep in. No more mama to braid my hair. It was a heavenly break, but now it's back to reality. :)

FHE

Remember the candy the kids donated? Both from their own stashes and from other primary kids? We made an FHE out of it, and took it up to a place in SLC. The kids got to see the candy weighed on a big scale (totaling 15 pounds!).


After we dropped it off, we headed to the newly remodeled church history museum! In my opinion, the downstairs section (the grown-up part) is way cooler. So many cool exhibits. However, the upstairs section (the kid area) left our kids wanting. They missed the old set-up. But there was still plenty of things for them to be involved in, in both areas. The church does things right.


During our outing, I tried extra hard to point out the moments when I thought they were feeling the spirit. I'm hoping that if we give our kids plenty of opportunities to feel the Holy Ghost, they will be familiar enough with it to recognize His promptings when they are on their own. It was certainly a fun family night.

Halloween Festivities

This year, the kids debated between a few costume ideas, but eventually they decided on an ancient Egypt theme. We've been studying Egypt a lot for school, so I was happy about their decision on 2 levels: 1-They picked matching costumes again! I think I'll be sad when they all choose something different. 2- Their costumes were not just for Halloween, it was a homeschool project too! Miles chose to be a mummy, Gwen was Hatshepsut (A female pharaoh), and Lindy was an archaeologist ("Lindiana Jones" :)

Ward Trunk or Treat
In the past we haven't put a lot of effort into decorating our trunk or anything, but this year I gave it a shot. I tried to make it look like an archaeological dig, and the kids had to dig through sand to find their candy. Miles and Gwen had such a blast running around the parking lot with each other. Lindy stayed near me and was ready to be out of her "costume" after about 5 minutes.


Joy School Party
Miles and Lindy got to tag along to Gwen's joy school party. We tried to serve some fun foods for lunch and play a few Halloween games. Another reason to use the costumes!




Homeschool Party
Before heading up to Makenna's for homeschool group that day, we stopped at Dad's work to hand out candy to the kids in his class. One of our favorite little traditions. :)

That week, we were back to studying ancient Africa. There were lots of traditional stories about Anansi the Spider, which was very fitting for Halloween. So we smooshed our history lesson and Halloween Party together and it was awesome! Everyone brought a traditional African dish or Halloween treat to share for lunch. After talking about the history reading that week, we ate delicious food, and then played some Halloween games.


Gardener Village
A friend of mine from high school and his wife invited us to go check out Gardener Village with them this year. They dress it all up in Halloween decor and have a witch scavenger hunt. It was such an unexpected, fun and easy outing.


Halloween!
It was such a fun treat to have Halloween on a Saturday this year. We just took our time cleaning the house, and fitting in a few Halloween books and movies throughout the day. I got the kids ready to go trick-or-treating, but let Richie take the kids out while I handed out candy. I was worried about all the extra candy laying around the house, so I did some research and found a homeless shelter in SLC that would accept candy donations. I opened it up to all the kids in our primary, to make the donation more substantial, and we've received a bunch! We'll take it up on Monday, and I'm excited about that. When I explained the concept to the kids, I didn't expect them to donate so much. But they both jumped right on the bandwagon. Miles even decided to donate all of his candy. I am frequently proud of my kids. Especially when they do something so awesome. :)


I tried to fit in as many Halloween books and movies as I could. As usual, Richie's and my favorite movies to watch were Rear Window, Wait Until Dark, and Arsenic and Old Lace. They never, EVER get old!! Happy Halloween!!