Day in the Life: January 18, 2022

I got out of the habit of my quarterly DiTL posts last year, but I want to get back into it this year! So I picked this past Tuesday, January 18, to document.

          ***************Tuesday, January 18, 2022***************

Brent is 41 1/2

Allena is 41

Trent is 12 1/2

Drew is newly 9

Paige is newly 5

The day I teach Body Pump, I sleep poorly the night before, so I look at the clock 75 times before I get up at 4:55 AM. I get ready to teach and head out the door at 5:10 AM to get to the studio!

Ready to go!

I got new tennis shoes in December and couldn't find them!

I had an epiphany Monday night and found them - in the office, of course! Ha!

5:15 AM - Arrive at the studio! 

I set-up equipment for all the participants and go over some of the choreography while I want on everyone to arrive.

5:30 AM - It's go time!

6:30 AM - Class is over, and I head home. I didn't take a pic with my class because they are always in a hurry to get home and start the day. We started having a jazzercise class at 6:30 which I love because then I can just leave and not have to lock everything up!

6:40 AM - I'm home and start making breakfasts, putting lunches in lunch boxes, all the morning things. I'm listening to Educated for our work book club.

6:50 AM - I wake the girls up.

I cracked up to see Paige with the bottom of Sackie over her head!

Slow to get started this morning. {grin}

7:00 AM - I give Trent his 10 minute warning. I'm basically his snooze button. Ha! 

We had Drew's class guinea pig over the weekend, 

so I get Mr. Tiger's stuff together.

We ran out of hay so I gave him a lot of fruit {not great}.

7:10 AM - Trent is up! He is real fast to get ready because he wants as much time in bed as possible.

He promised a friend he would wear his wearable blanket to school today!

He is his father's son and hates posing for blog pics, so I had to sneak them!

7:30 AM - We leave! It takes 10 minutes to get to school and get the kids dropped off. I'm home by 8:00 and have just enough time to make coffee before calls begin.

8:05 AM - And the calls start!

I didn't go to Starbucks today so had to pose with just my regular mug.

My father-in-law came by mid-morning to bring us leftovers and cranberry tea, so I had to get a snack.

More computer work...all day...every day...

Today's afternoon background noise brought to you by...

my 3rd or 4th rewatch of Grimm!

2:30 PM - Make a smoothie for lunch, keep working...

3:10 PM - Time to leave and get the kiddos! It takes me about 10 minutes to get to the kids' school, and I'm usually back home about 4:00, but there have been a lot of absences, so it was a little quicker today.

3:50 PM - We're home!

Trent is trying to hide - you can see his hand by Drew's head ha

3:55 PM - Drew hurt her finger in PE so we iced it and she got some cranberry tea too.

These 2 have been on a wrestling kick lately.

4:10 PM - Paige helps me make cornbread to go along with the soup Brent's dad brought over. She LOVES to help bake.

Had to sneak a picture to prove Brent was here!

4:30 PM - Time for Paigey to get ready for gymnastics!

Posing with her cute fashion sense and braid

4:45 PM - Take Paige to gymnastics - she is loving it

5:30 PM - Gymnastics is over! Head home to do all the nighttime things.

This was DELICIOUS.

6:30 PM - Divide and conquer the girls! Brent reads to Paige, and I read to Drew.

How cute are they together?

Starting Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince!!!!!!!

Me and my girls

My guys...watching sports probably {grin}

Sidenote: On a recent Blog Friend Book Club zoom, we were talking about teen/pre-teen boys and how they like to stay in their rooms all the time. That made me feel better because sometimes I worry about HOW MUCH TIME Trent spends in his room!

7:30 PM - Time to put Paige to bed! We snuggle and then I sit in her room until she falls asleep. [I laughed looking back at her 4 year write-up...where I said I was going to work on NOT being in her room while she falls asleep. A year later, we're still in the same boat.]

8:00 PM - Time for me to read! I finish the latest Nora Roberts book, it was okay.

8:30 PM - Time to start the next one!

9:00 PM - I shower, it's been a long day! Read some more, hang out with Brent, play on my phone...

10:50 PM - I have been up for a LONG time, it is time for bed!

Now here's hoping I don't forget to do this for another year, so...until next time!

Day in the Life: December 5, 2020

Yay! This is my 4th DiTL post for 2020, so I met my goal of 1 per quarter. Whoo hoo! I looked back and did weekdays for the rest of 2020, so I chose to do a Saturday this time.

*******************Saturday, December 5, 2020*********************

Brent is 40 1/2

Allena is 40 1/3

Trent is 11 1/2

Drew is 1 month shy of 8

Paige is 3 weeks shy of 4

1:45 am - Paige comes to our room, we snuggle for a bit, and then I move her to the couch.

6:45 am - Paige is awake again, but I manage to get her to stay in our bed for about 30 minutes snuggling.

7:15 am - She's hungry and ready to get up, sigh. Why is it so easy to get up early on weekends but not on school days?!

Turning on the Christmas lights!

Not happy to be awake!

Never gets old...

Immediately ready to start playing. [slept in her clothes from the day before]

Wants to read, she picks to Berenstain bears books.

More snuggle time...really enjoying being the 'baby'.

8:15 am - Paige is hungry, so we start to make a breakfast casserole.

8:20 am - Drew is up! She won't let me take a picture until she's brushed her hair. She has such fine hair it always is a tangled mess in the mornings!

My little artist {Drew} wanted to take a cooking picture, ha

It's Paige handing me an egg!

Enjoying Pandora's Christmas stations

I got all these trees at Hobby Lobby {to copy my MIL} and love this new little display!

9:00 am - Kelly and I have plans to go to our favorite boutique in a neighboring town for some Christmas shopping, so I hop in the shower.

YUM

9:30 am - The girls are doing art, and Trent is awake and reading. He's re-reading Harry Potter {his 3rd time through the series but 2nd by himself}.

9:45 am - I bust out all my Christmas tees!

10:00 am - Ready to go!

I'm really mad at myself here because I forgot to take pictures for the majority of my time with Kelly, ugh.

Picture from last year's plank challenge at Wildflower Republic

[no kids came with us this time!]

We shopped at Wildflower, then got coffee at a local place, Mojo. Then Kelly had an order to pickup at Old Navy, so we stopped there, and I got Trent some pajama pants, and then Kelly dropped me off at home. One very exciting thing that happened is I decided to try Apple Music, ha. I've been really on the fence about it but decided to try it out so I could create...drumroll...a new Christmas playlist haha. So far I'm loving it!

12:30 pm - I get home!

The girls earned screen time and Trent is still reading

[for full disclosure, without oversharing Trent's info, he's in trouble so can't have screens]

Traditional chai selfie {grin}

A peak inside my bag!

Updating my spreadsheet. I upgraded from a word doc this year [Thanks Emily!]

1:00 pm - Brent is watching football {both of our teams are playing, mine won, Gig 'em, no idea how his did}, so I decide to torment him. He hates social media, so getting him to willingly be in a picture specifically for my blog...can be a challenge, ha.

Got him! Then he left to go fill the deer feeders on my dad's land ha.

1:30 pm - Kelly's kids came over to play!

I really planned to do a lot more local shopping this year...then Covid.

So I finished up a big Walmart order for gifts, sigh.

These 4 LOVE our swing and play on it a ton when they're together!

Living room forts and Disney Pandora

Oh Tanner! She brushed her naturally curly hair, eek.

2:45 pm - Kristen and I had been texting on-and-off all day, and I convinced her to come over too! I cleaned up the kitchen a little and read while the kids played.

3:30 pm - They arrive, yay!

My bestie/Godmother to all my babies, LOVE

Terrible picture but hilarious memory of Paige trying to pick-up Rhett.

She is 3 months older, but he outweighs her by 15 pounds ha.

4:00 pm - We put on Home Alone so the kids will sit still and Kristen and I can visit. Brent comes home! He goes down to our neighbors' house after a little bit to escape the insanity of 7 kids age 3-11.

Rhett telling me I couldn't take his picture, ha

5:15 pm - Keith comes and gets his and Kelly's kids, and Kristen leaves shortly thereafter. We do a little more picking up {we paused Home Alone and made the kids do a lot of picking up to earn popcorn}, and then I decided to do Body Flow because I was sore from working out this week.

5:45 pm - Start Body Flow {it's like Yoga and is offered at my studio and I can watch replays online - definite upside to Covid!}

Drew doing Child's pose

They gave up on doing the workout and did a dot-to-dot book instead.

Then they got out our wedding album and went through the pictures.

Drew took one of me!

Funny story - the last song is called Meditation and we do corpse pose. It is heaven. Paige whispered very quietly 'It's okay mama.' Then she said to Drew 'She's dead.' Love that kid.

She couldn't resist curling up next to me.

6:30 pm - Make the kids dinner - Trent and Paige want spaghetti noodles with parmesan and Drew wants chicken noodle soup with no chicken. Easy peasy! I eat leftover rice from Chipotle which is like crack to me.

7:00 pm - Realized I am so close to closing my rings, decide to walk around the house a lot to get 100 more calories burned. #watchofshame

7:40 pm - Done!

8:00 pm - Read to both girls - we read an I'll Read to You, You Read to Me book and then The Bears' Vacation. Tuck Drew into bed, and then stay in Paige's room until she falls asleep. I told her when she's 4 we aren't going to do this anymore. I'm hoping if we talk about it enough over the next 3 weeks we can get there!

8:35 pm - Success! 2 sleeping daughters!

8:45 pm - I get a little more breakfast casserole and sit down and read.

9:00 pm - Text with Brent for a bit while eating and reading.

We have a laugh when I find the almost empty bubble gum package...

that was mostly full earlier today. No clue who snuck a bunch of gum!

Yes! Closed all my rings!

10:00 pm - Decide to take a bath, I'm still really sore. Go tell Trent to get ready for bed and let him know where I'll be. I sit in the steaming hot water {reading of course} until I can't stand it anymore and get out and get ready for bed.

10:30 pm - Get ready for bed, and tell Trent to do the same.

11:00 pm - Turn all the lights off inside and out and realize Trent is still up! Force him to go to sleep and get into bed to read. Text with Brent a little while reading.

11:15 pm - Good night!

When I set this goal to get back to regular DiTL posts for 2020, who could have guessed what the year would hold? Here's hoping 2021 isn't quite such a crazy ride!