A Day in the Life- Monday

This Fall, Mondays have turned into our most productive day of the week. We rarely have any plans for play dates, etc on Mondays and instead spend them running errands and getting life back in order after the weekend.

6:00am- My alarm goes off, so I get up and changed and hop on the treadmill for a 2.5 mile run.

 6:15am- Nathan had woken up in the middle of the night coughing, so I let him sleep on our floor for the rest of the night. I guess I was too loud getting up, because just as I was turning on the treadmill, he came in to find me. I put him on our bed and turned the TV on for him, while I ran.

6:45am- Just as I finish up, Samuel wakes up and comes to find me. (Usually, the boys don't get up until after 7:00 and I can run in peace, but today is weird). I let him join Nathan on our bed, while I shower and get ready for the day.

7:15am- I hear Elisabeth on the monitor. I make her a bottle and give it to Nathan and ask him to take it up to her and play with her while I finish getting ready.

7:30am- I go up to get Elisabeth up and change her diaper and we all come downstairs to play while I make breakfast.

7:45am- Breakfast time. Nathan has peanut butter and jelly toast, Samuel has cereal and Elisabeth has yogurt melts, cereal, and raisins and the rest of her bottle.

8:00am- The kids play while I eat breakfast, pack Nathan's lunch/backpack and clean up from breakfast. Nathan and Samuel make up and put on a play and Elisabeth sneaks a snack from the pantry

8:45am- I get the kids dressed/teeth brushed/faces washed/and hair fixed.

9:00am- We head out in the front yard so Nathan can ride his bike before we leave for school. Elisabeth wants me to blow bubbles while the boys are playing

9:15am- We leave for school.

9:30am- We drop Nathan off at school and head to Walmart

9:45am- Samuel, Elisabeth and I buy groceries at Walmart

10:30am- I stop for gas on the way home and Elisabeth falls asleep in the car

11:00am- I unload and unpack groceries while Samuel and Elisabeth play

11:15am- I make lunch for Samuel and Elisabeth. Samuel had picked out a lunchable at Wal Mart and asked to have it for lunch with cheez-its and yogurt. Elisabeth had Little Smokies, cheese, cheez-its, and a fruit/vegetable puree pouch. I grab lunch while they're eating too.

11:45am- Lunch is over and the three of us head upstairs to play.

Samuel got a new book this weekend, and he is obsessed with it. He loves to read it himself.

12:30pm - I put both kids down for naps and head downstairs to clean the bathroom.

1:00pm- I lie down to rest a bit while the kids are asleep. (I've found that it's important to always take a little time for myself during nap time even if I don't feel tired or like a need a break because it is the ONLY time I have the opportunity from morning until bedtime. If I don't take a break then and feel tired later in the day, then there's not a chance to get a break, so I take advantage when I can). I finish the episode of a show Matt and I watched the night before that I fell asleep during, and I finish the episode I watched while I was running this morning.

1:40pm- I get up, clean up the kitchen from lunch and try to organize the laundry room with the few minutes I have to spare before I have to get the kids up.

2:05pm- I head upstairs to get the kids up. Elisabeth wakes up right before I go upstairs, but I have to wake up Samuel so we can get Nathan.

2:15pm- We head to Nathan's school to get him.

2:30pm- We drive to Target. They're having a sale on diapers and I need a couple other things including a birthday present for a party on Saturday. Nathan reminds me at least 10 times that he wants the same toy for Christmas. It ends up being $10 higher at Target than on Amazon, so I order it on my phone while we're in the toy aisle so I don't forget!

3:30pm- We stop by the pharmacy and then make it home. Samuel and Nathan are WHINY! (Nathan, because he didn't sleep well the night before, and Samuel, from being woken up from his nap, I guess). They ask to watch a show and I let them because they're both so tired and whiny. They perk up during the show and end up playing in the living room while I bake cookies for MOPS the next morning.

Funny story: I told Nathan I was making pumpkin cookies. He asked if they would look like Jack O Lanterns (I had actually made some pumpkin shaped sugar cookies over the weekend, so I could see how he was confused). I told him that these cookies wouldn't look like pumpkins, that they would taste like pumpkin and explained how we can cook pumpkins and blend it up to use in recipes. He then said, "Next year when we go to the pumpkin patch, I don't want to paint my pumpkin, I want to make pumpkin pie instead with it." Sorry, Buddy we'll buy the can at Wal Mart.

4:30pm- Cookies are in the oven, and the kids are happier and playing well together, so I start dinner. We have chicken fajitas and Mexican rice.

5:00pm- Matt calls and says he has to work late and hopes to be home before 6:00. I'm disappointed, especially because there is a wasp hanging out on our ceiling that I want him to kill when he got home. I buck up and do it myself (with a 1/2 bottle of Raid, just to be safe!), and serve dinner to the kids.

5:30- Dinner is over, and the kids and I head outside to play and wait for Daddy. Nathan and Samuel have a baseball game and Samuel wants all his babies to watch :)

Elisabeth swings with her baby and plays on the play set like such a BIG girl. She climbs the ladder by herself now and started going down the slide feet first on her belly and laughs the whole time. She also turns the captain wheel, rings the bell and slides her baby down the slide. She is growing SO fast!

The boys also put on a show with singing, dancing, running, and an obstacle course.

5:45pm- Matt makes if home, eats quickly and comes out to play with us/work a little bit on his shed.

6:15pm- We're out of milk (which is seriously the end of the world for the Little Princess in our family), so it means a family trip to Braums. I guess the boys were on our pumpkin kick from the cookies that afternoon, because they both wanted pumpkin ice cream.

Little Miss stole bites from everyone at the table. She just walked back and forth asking for bites.

7:15pm- We're home from Braums and it's time for baths. I bathe the kids, and Matt finishes washing the dinner dishes and comes upstairs with a bottle for Elisabeth. He puts her to bed, while I get the boys settled downstairs.

7:30pm- The boys watch "Creative Galaxy" for their night night show. While they're watching their show, I straighten the living room and kitchen. I've tried to make it a goal to always have those rooms straight and cleaned up before I go to bed every night.

8:00pm- Matt gives horsey rides upstairs and we brush teeth, read books, pray, give kisses, and get the boys settled in bed. (Nathan fake coughs a lot to try and get to sleep downstairs again. I tell him he has to fall asleep upstairs first before he can come sleep on the pallet in our room).

8:30pm- All three kids are asleep. Matt and I watch a show in bed while I curl little pieces of paper for an upcoming craft project for a ministry we're helping with later in the week.

9:00pm- Matt falls asleep (He's still recovering from a crazy weekend business trip). I finish my paper curling for the night, read a little and fall asleep to a Netflix show about 9:45, ready to do it all again on Tuesday!

Pumpkin Patch 2015

 One of our favorite Fall traditions is a trip to the Pumpkin Patch. We went on Saturday and had a fantastic morning. Nathan actually gets to go back for school field trip next week, but he doesn't mind going twice!

Our first activity is a tractor ride to the pumpkin patch. 

Samuel always wants to sit next to Nathan when we do anything!

Nathan was on the hunt for a perfect pumpkin. We told him he had pick one that he could carry by himself, so he picked a big one that he could carry for a "little bit." He had a nice lady from the patch help him carry it over to us. Ha ha

Elisabeth called all the pumpkins, "Balls." So she had fun pointing to all the balls and trying to carry them.

She was obsessed with having to carry it by herself.

Samuel wanted a little pumpkin because he's little. We noticed that the little pumpkins at the patch hadn't been cut from the vine, so he never found one he wanted. We went back to the little store they have and he found a little one there he wanted.

After we got back from the patch and paid for our pumpkins (and fresh picked apples!), we headed across the street to the Pumpkin Playland.


A few days before we went to the pumpkin patch, Nathan asked if we could ride the horses this year. He reminded us that we couldn't last year because it cost extra money and we told him no. We decided that if he remembered it for a whole year that he didn't get to ride them, that we could splurge and afford the extra $5.00 for him to ride this year (and Little Brother too, of course).

They both loved it. Their smiles and excitement made it worth it. Nathan said it was better than Daddy's horsey rides.

We stopped and did a few other activities too. They had a hay jump that was new this year. Samuel spent a long time playing in it.

I think he went back twice to play in it while we were there.

Nathan also remembered these diggers and played on them twice too.

Elisabeth liked "milking" the pretend cow.

She was so obsessed with the pumpkins and always thinks she's bigger than she is. I got tickled when she tried to carry all the pumpkins (balls), and when she got frustrated because she couldn't, she cried for Matt to help her. By the end of the day, she was calling pumpkins, "ba ba". Not sure if she's trying to say pumpkin or still thought they were just balls.



And the kids loved these little wiggle cars. Nathan called them helicopters, and he said they were his favorite part of the day (I'm thinking there will be one under our Christmas tree this year :)).

I loved spending the morning playing with my sweet boy.

Since we've been home, the boys are having fun playing pumpkin patch. Nathan played with his tractor after our trip last year too.I love seeing them learning and figuring things out by playing.

And we painted our pumpkins too. I really thought we might have to make the jump to carving them this year, because Nathan was asking about it, but he was content to paint for at least one more year.

14 Months Old

Elisabeth, You are 14 months old!

Your vocabulary is increasing everyday. The toddler stage really is so much fun because you are learning and doing new things all the time. It's fascinating how fast you learn!

Your favorite words are dada, uh-oh, shoe, and bow. You point to your head every morning when I'm changing your diaper and say, "bow." And shoes are still your favorite thing. You carry around shoes all the time. But anytime we go anywhere in the car, you always take your shoes off and pull your bow out. Your accessories are your favorite toys. You also say, "up," dog, "da," "nose" and ball "ba" and this month you put your first words together and you'll say, "bye bye dada."

You are turning into a daddy's girl, and he really loves it! The boys have always been momma's boy, so I guess I can share you with him. You get SO excited when he comes home from work, and run to him, waving your hands in the air and yelling, "dadda."

We were talking about our fun girls' day while the boys were gone, and all you kept saying was "dadda!"


 You like to look at pictures on my phone or ones that are hanging in our house and point to your daddy and say, "Dadda." Sometimes, you do say "Momma." When we picked you up from the nursery on Sunday, you were crying, alternatively saying, "dadda, momma, dadda, momma." Heartbreaking and hilarious all at the time time!

Right after you turned 13 months old, you got two more molars and your last top tooth. Now we're just waiting on those awful canines. Maybe we'll get a little break first.

We've been struggling with your nap schedule since your brother started school. It's been really hard to get in two naps between school drop off and pick up. I tried putting you down for a short morning nap and then waking you up and putting you back down after lunch, but it wasn't working. So for now, you usually just get one nap on school days. You're pretty grouchy from about 11:00-12:00, but we are dealing with it. I'll put you down before 12:00-12:30 and then get you up around 2:00 to go get your brother. You usually wake up on your own right before we need to leave. You still go to bed around 7:30 at night and sleep until about 7:00am. You're cute because we have a little accent pillow that came with your bedding, and you always lay your head on it when you're going to sleep.

You are a snacker, and love to bring me bags of snack food from the pantry. You'll grab a bag of goldfish and then pull a bowl out of a drawer and run to me grunting and asking me to open it for you. Your favorite snacks are goldfish, raisins, and yogurt melts. You also really like peanuts, but most of the time you chew them up and spit them out, so I don't give you them very often. You still love cheese and meat and mac and cheese.

You LOVE bottles, and I have no desire to wean you from them anytime soon. Anytime you see them in the cabinet you point and say "baba" incessantly, and you get SO excited any time I give you one. You consistently get one when you wake up in the mornings and at bedtime, and usually one or two more during the day.

You love playing outside, swinging and climbing, and your favorite toys are trains and the train table (pulling the track apart and making a big mess), the kitchen (you like to push buttons on the microwave) and any kitchen toys that have buttons on them, and your baby stroller, shopping cart, and toy purse.

You're wearing 12-18 months clothes and a size 4 diaper and size 5 shoes.

Your hair is growing and has some definite curl at the bottom. I never thought you'd have curly hair, but I can't get enough of it! It's adorable. And I love that your hair is long enough for some cute, tiny pig tails

You love to sing songs. You're a wiggle worm when I change your diaper, so I sing to you to try and distract you. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

We sure love you sweet girl! You bring such sweetness and sass to our family.