Nov 19
Everyone,
So here is what I did today. You tell me if you think I got anything done.
Woke up at 6:30am (let’s be honest, I didn’t get up until about 6:50am with a lot of prodding from Juice) and went to the local church. I helped bag over 200 shares of food for Thanksgiving. I came home with 2 bags of food and a turkey. (I now have 2 turkeys. I am crazy.)
Home by 8am. Fed myself breakfast and got the kids all dressed. Juice got ready and I boxed up 2 boxes of kid books and 2 boxes of board games. I fought with the packing tape that kept tearing and ripping. SO frustrating.
By 9:45am, we were ready to head out the door. We stopped off at our storage unit and dropped off the boxes, plus the extra seat to our van. That way we have room to pack the van with boxes and the seat doesn’t have to be in our house.
By 10:15am, we were headed down the road to Ikea. We discovered at 11:20am that ALL of our kids can go into their Smaland (which is their child care area) and we were thrilled! We giggled as we left them swimming in a pit of balls and went on our merry way. We sat on couches. We discussed what kind would be go in our “new” house that we haven’t even bought yet. We saw people from our church there who were couch shopping too!
After lamenting the price of couches, buying new lights for our kitchen and a few other impulse buys, we went back for our kids. Lunch was next on the agenda, and we all had meatballs. Well, Pirate had macaroni and cheese. And some of my meatballs.
We picked up our shelf, browsed the As-Is section, and then loaded the kids into the car. We drove to the LDS bookstore from there, and bought a few things. Juice won a book. The kids all got free candy and flag pins. I got a free Christmas CD.
When we got home around 4pm, we listened to our messages. We had locked our storage unit open. Oops! Juice started to install the new kitchen lights and I ran to the storage unit to fix the problem.
While dinner was cooking (macaroni and cheese, second time for Pirate today!), I helped Juice install the lights. It is now brighter in our kitchen. We discovered we bought the wrong shelf and made plans to go back to Ikea. We broke up a few fights.
We had dinner about 6pm, and then Juice took everyone up to have baths. I did a few reviews and ate way too much candy.
Which brings us to now.
So, do you think I accomplished anything?
Oh I know! I washed all the sheets today. Go me!
Safire
Safiredaily stuff daily
Nov 15
Everyone,
Seems daily life has caught up and consumed me. I was thinking today about how I went out of the house 3 times. Once to drop Butterfly off at the bus stop, once to pick her up from the bus stop, and once to drop dinner off at a friend’s house. She had just had a new baby and she had to remind me that it was my night. Oops.
In my defense, I did ask for either tonight or tomorrow and no one let me know what day. (We organize it through our church.) Also, I have provided dinner for different people for three nights in a row now. Sunday night, we had the missionaries and our friend Lavender over for dinner. Then Monday, we had friends of Juice’s over for dinner. Then tonight, I dropped off dinner.
I’m kind of all dinnered out guys. Tonight for our own dinner, we had leftovers. The kids ate cereal and cold pizza. I’m not sure what Juice had as he ran out the door for one of his many meetings. I had steak and veggies. Not leftovers.
Okay, now I realize that this blog post has deteriorated into what we are eating. Shows you how small things have gotten lately. Or maybe it shows how small I have allowed to get on the blog. There are big things happening in my life. Huge. Life altering things.
I just don’t want to talk about them on here.
So instead, you get dinners and the fact that I almost didn’t drive my car at all today.
Daily life is mundane.
Safire
Safiredaily stuff daily
Nov 05
Everyone,
We spent the day together, the 5 of us. So here are 5 things we did.
1. We spent part of our day collecting firewood for our friend Lavender. We filled 4 big boxes with the branches and the logs from her back yard. The kids had a great time because Lavender has a swing set. And a back yard. It was a beautiful day, with bright blue skies and crisp crunchy fall air. I got sunburned.
2. We went on a scavenger hunt for my mom and some Christmas presents. The store we went to was giving out free cupcakes and cookies and punch. It was awesome. I also scored a really fun item, and a big chunk of my own Christmas presents. Plus the kids were distracted by cupcakes so I bought them while they were with me.
3. I have done at least 6 loads of laundry today. 6. Whole. Loads. Can someone please remind the boys that they are potty trained? Mostly.
4. For 2 days in a row, the boys did not nap. They were cranky. They were willful. They were full of fire and sass. And today I really did not mind. They were just so cute and full of life! I was having the best time watching them. And Butterfly too. What a fun day they had.
5. We love Halloween candy. Pirate got a full sized Twix bar and he was so excited when he opened it that he had two. “Two! Like me and you Professor!” He was so sweet and gave one to Butterfly. What a sweet kid we have. Kids. All of them are just great.
Safire
Safireall 3 kids, daily stuff, Lavender
Sep 22
Everyone,
Ever have one of those days when you just want to capture it all? Lucky for me, my ipod has a pretty nice camera on it and I spent the day snapping away at little bits of my life.
A friend and I went to the park and to Target today. On the way, we stopped by the railroad tracks and watched HUNDREDS of these military vehicles go by on flat bed cars. The boys were mesmerized!
Free ice cream with the family today! Thanks to Carvel and their customer appreciation day! Everyone loved the little ice cream sandwiches. (Even if Professor only ate the ice cream out of the middle and left a huge goopy mess of the chocolate cookie part in his car seat.)
On our way to Butterfly’s school for an assembly tonight and the sky was just stunning. I couldn’t help but wonder at how lucky we are to be able to see this. It’s been cloudy or rainy for weeks, and this little ray of sunshine peaked out just as we were watching. A happy sign.
Safire
Safiredaily stuff pictures
Sep 01
Everyone,
Since before our beach trip, I have felt like I was running and running and running.
Then when we got home from Utah, hurricane, school and life caught up and overwhelmed me.
So it was a big surprise today that I found myself with NOTHING on my calender.
And NOTHING to do beyond school, work, etc.
So that’s what we did! NOTHING. The boys stayed in their pjs all day. I missed Butterfly during the movie marathon that I allowed the boys to have. They napped extremely well. I did a few odd cleaning jobs around the house that have been neglected. Like cleaning that mesh thing underneath the hood of the stove. That was gross. I feel better about having it done, though. One day when I’m rich I will replace that stove hood with one that includes a microwave.
Of course, when I’m rich, I’ll do a lot of different things.
After dinner, we took the kids out for a walk. And yes, the boys stayed in their pjs. Because this was the kind of day I was having.
OH! Pirate decided that today was the day he was going to sit on the potty. And he did! And he went! And we cheered! So I guess we are officially potty training. Wish me luck.
Safire
Safiredaily stuff lazy days
Nov 03
Everyone,
Because I’m too tired to think of anything more original, here is our schedule for the day.
7am-I had intended on waking up earlier than this but didn’t. I’m up and ready in half an hour.
7:30am- I get Vinny and Mimi up. I get Professor up. Butterfly and Pirate are still snoring so I leave them in their beds.
7:45am- After everyone is changed and dressed to go to school, we go down for breakfast. Frozen pancakes and waffles for everyone! While I make lunches, Vinny and Mimi eat and Professor screams on the floor. You see, he wants me to sit with him. While he eats.
8:15am- I finally get Professor to eat.
8:25am- I get Butterfly and Pirate up and dressed.
8:30am- I start getting shoes and coats on everyone. I shove a bagel into Pirates hand’s and rush everyone out the door. (Butterfly eats breakfast at school.)
8:50am- I drop Vinny off at school.
9:05am- I drop Butterfly off at her school.
9:30am- I arrive at the grocery store. We are completely out of string cheese and people are going to revolt in my house unless I get some.
10:30am- Home. Barney for the kids. I put away the groceries (minus the cheese sticks and some grapes they eat.) This then morphs into full blown lunch. Oatmeal all around.
Noon- NAP!!
2:30pm- I wake everyone and gets coats and shoes.
2:45pm- Car pick up line for Vinny.
3:25pm- Pick up Butterfly.
3:45pm- Park! I figured these kids all need an out! We play for about an hour.
5pm- Dinner crazies back at home. The big kids pull out their homework (not that Butterfly has any, but she played along).
5:15pm- Juice comes home and we eat! Yay dinner!
6pm- We start bath rounds. First up, my boys. I help Vinny with his reading and clean up dinner.
6:30pm- Mimi’s bath! Her hair curls very cutely.
7pm- Butterfly bath.
7:45pm- Vinny is finally done with his home work. He gets in the shower and we put the little kids to bed.
8:15pm- Big kids finally in bed.
8:30pm- Big kids BACK in bed.
9pm- After cleaning up the rest of the kitchen, I exhaustively flop on to the couch.
Not included in the hourly list:
Several fights broken up, several very scary diapers, lots of deep breathing from me.
Maybe we DON’T want any more kids…
Safire
Safiredaily list, daily stuff
Jun 29
Everyone,
Our little outing to DC yesterday warranted a full day at home for recovery. Seriously, I was totally beat and ready for bed when the sun went down. Convenient since we had no power and only 2 flash lights between the 3 of us. Note to self: buy more batteries for flash lights; also, candles. We did manage to stay up late-ish and play card games which was loads of fun in the dark.
Juice’s alarm clock has a battery in it that is supposed to remember the time (but not display it) until the power goes back on. Our power came on with a whump in the middle of the night. I turned on the fan because I was hot and went back to sleep. Juice got up when his alarm went off. The clock said it was 6am. He came downstairs and glanced at his watch. 4:30am. Oops. He ended up at work before 6am today and worked over 12 hours. I’m not thinking that battery is working too great. It’s brand new. Maybe it’s the clock.
We have introduced the kids to the video game Pikman and they are LOVING it. It’s what we played all day long. We also made cookies, totally awesome dressing, and blueberry casserole.
I think we’re mostly recovered and ready for our next adventure!
Safire
Safiredaily stuff daily
Jun 27
Everyone,
This week’s question at the Multiples and More blog is all about our daily life.
Describe (in detail!) a full day in the life of YOU!
Here goes:
7:00-7:30 am- The kids wake up and wake me up. I hear them over the monitor or I hear Butterfly getting up to go potty. Juice has been long gone to work as he gets up at 6am and tries to get to work by 7am. All 3 kids are sleeping in the same room right now while Flower is here so she can have a room to herself. If they are crying, I wait for them to calm down a bit before I go get them. For some odd reason if they calm down in their beds they do better than if I rush in there and get them up.
8am- Breakfast! Sometimes the kids play before breakfast but most of the time Professor is begging me to feed him. We have cold cereal in the mornings and yogurt. Sometimes Pirate wants cheese for breakfast so I will give him left over mac and cheese.
8:30am- Play time! If the kids are really cranky I will put on a show for them. I try very hard not to turn on the tv at this time. Lately they’ve been really good playing so I just let them play. This is the time that I turn on my computer and look at my email for the morning for about half an hour. This is also the time I change diapers and get everyone dressed for the day.
9am- Exercise time! Well, I try for it to be my exercise time. I will turn on a show for the kids and pray that they don’t get into any mischief while I’m doing jumping jacks. It works about 80% of the time. I often have Professor in my room with me playing quietly. Pirate, if he’s with me as well, likes to jump when I jump. He thinks it’s funny. And nothing can pull Butterfly away from the tv. That girl has some serious concentration skills. After I exercise some I take a shower as fast as possible. With Flower here, it’s better and the boys don’t get into too much trouble. Flower gets up sometime in this time frame and get herself breakfast and helps with the boys.
10am- Out we go! Well, most of the time it’s closer to 10:30 am but still, we get out. Before the summer started we either went to Lolli’s house for preschool or out for a walk or errands. Now that Flower is here and it’s summer, we are trying to play tourist again. Tomorrow we’re headed downtown to a couple of museums.
12pm- I try to get back to the house by this time but it rarely happens. Once we get home, we have a very rushed lunch. I am tired from wrangling everyone away from the house and they are tired from being out of the house. Lunch is either macaroni and cheese or cheese and crackers and fruit. Honestly I’m just happy when they eat something at this point, especially Professor.
1pm- Nap time. I am pretty stricked about their nap time. Once they’ve had a diaper change, up they go to their beds. They are mostly unhappy about it but they MUST sleep. Once the boys are settled, I get Butterfly started with her show. This is her quiet time. The only way for her to actually BE quiet is to turn on a movie for her. She’s actually very good but our house is small and her voice carries.
This is also the time that I try and get some work done. It’s all computer work. I sit on the couch next to Butterfly (and Flower) and she keeps me company with her show.
4:00-4:30pm- Sometimes the boys wake up earlier, sometimes not. They are CHAMPION sleepers and will often sleep for at least 3 hours. This is the time that Flower becomes my right hand lady. She gets the kids up from their beds so I can either finish working or start on dinner. TV goes off. Let’s get ready to rumble! It’s now that most of the fights happen.
5:15pm- Juice comes home! We’re so glad when Daddy comes home.
5:30pm- Dinner time! Yay for dinner time.
6pm-6:45pm- Family time. Sometimes we go for a walk. Sometimes we just play in the living room. Sometimes we play on the Wii. Either way, we spend this time together.
6:45pm- Bed time for little boys! On Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday nights, they have baths. Or at least we try to give them baths. Pjs and family prayers and hopefully into bed by 7:15pm. Sometimes they sit through a bedtime story, most of the time not. I am in charge of putting the boys to bed and Juice spends some quality time with Butterfly one on one.
7:30pm- Time for Butterfly bed! Juice is in charge of putting her to bed. Most of the time this is when I write in my blog or read blogs. Sometimes I clean the dining room up a little.
8pm- Juice come down from putting Butterfly into bed and goes and does the dishes. He’s so good at doing the dishes. I love letting him do them.
8:30pm- We settle down into our nightly pursuits. With Flower here, it’s been movies every night. We love that. When Flower’s not here, I try to do some work or I do a lot of blog related work. I figure this is my time to be online and do the blog thing. Juice mostly plays on his computer or will join me on the couch and watch a movie of his choice. Friday nights are our date nights and we don’t do anything else but watch movies and spend some time together.
10:30pm-11pm- We start heading upstairs to bed. I take Butterfly to the bathroom (she has peed in her bed for about 2 weeks straight so now I just take her to the bathroom before I go to bed). She sleep walks through it and goes right back to sleep.
I count it a good night if I’m in bed by 11pm. Sometimes I’m up later but I’d really rather not be.
Here’s a few other questions asked on the blog I’d like to answer:
- How much (or how little?) “help” do you have?
Flower is my helper for the summer. I love love love having her here. It’s so awesome to have another set of hands on deck. Plus, we totally play tourist (2 things a week in the area) and have a great time. Come the beginning of August, she has to go back home *sniff* and so I’ll be without my extra set of hands again. But then Butterfly starts school and we’ll have to figure out a whole new schedule.
- What chores do you do on a daily basis?
I try to unload the dishwasher and load it in the mornings when the kids are eating. I do at least 1 load of laundry a day. At least. Then there’s always the toy pick up through out the day.
Of course, all of this is subject to change. A lot of change.
Safire
Safiredaily stuff, questions, schedules daily, questions
Feb 27
Everyone,
This morning I got up super early to help bag and receive my share of food from Share DC. I always love going because the people are so nice. I always get a good feeling after going there. Today, another member of my church and I were in charge of the vegetables. He put in the potatoes, the onions, the carrots, the lettuce, and I put in 4 apples and 2 grapefruit. I also moved the full bags to the pass out tables. We seriously rocked the time. The vegetables got done before the meats did which I think is a record. The other workers even commented on it.
On my way out, I talked to the guy who was in charge of this share. We were joking around and I asked him if he ever thought of turning the order around. Basically I got tired of walking from one end of the room to the other with full bags of groceries. I thought if he started on the other side of the room, the bags would end up full right next to the pass out tables, instead of starting there.
A light came on in his face and he asked me really loudly, “Are you a brain surgeon?! Because you are smart enough to be one! Why didn’t I think of this before!”
I can have some few good ideas in my life. I guess this was one of them. So by the time I got home this morning I was flying high on feeling good. We rushed off to the hardware store and the grocery store. They were having a grand re-opening with a bunch of samples at the grocery store. Turns out my kids love brie, steak, bread dipped in olive oil, soup, chocolate (we knew that) and the little toothpick flags they stuck in everything. I also got about $100 worth of groceries for $25 dollars. I love coupons sometimes! (Plus I won a $25 dollar gift card! It was a very cool shopping trip.)
The rest of the day I felt buried in my computer. But not just surfing the Internet like I normally do. I’m helping out my brother with some kind of research project and I have a bunch of companies to look up for him. Ouch this makes my head hurt! It’s due soon so I’ll be spending all my free time in that. It’s not too bad, although I do start to have problems with the i’s and the l’s looking the same.
Off to bed for me!
Safire
Safirecoupons, daily stuff, Share DC
Feb 22
Everyone,
Instead of forcing the boys into clothes this morning, I let them run around the house with just their diapers on while I exercised. They brought me clothes because they were cold (the scrunch up their arms next to their bodies and rock back and forth…that means cold) and happily got into them.
Instead of saying no to a movie this morning for Butterfly, I said yes. I also explained to her that she did not get a nap time movie and she agreed. There was only a few minutes of pouting when I reminded her of that at nap and she willingly had quiet play time in my room.
Instead of trying to hustle everyone out to the car as fast as possible, I allowed them to make snow balls and throw them. I clapped over every one. I oohed and aaahed as they smashed the snow under their feet. I let Butterfly run through the snow in mary janes and no socks. She came back very quickly.
Instead of ending the fight at the grocery store as who got to sit where, I let them work it out. Butterfly is very smart and knows her brothers well.
I wish I could say that instead of hissing at Butterfly when she dropped our lunch on the ground because she was too impatient, I took it all in stride. But I didn’t. She got in trouble. The food was saved (by still being wrapped up) but she moaned and whined while we ate. She told me “I am NOT going to EAT! I will STARVE FOREVER.” And I answered her, “Fine.” In my head, I thought “I’m not going to cry at your funeral. You did this too yourself.” Then I felt guilty. Then I probably realized that I would cry at her funeral. And instead of stewing over it like she was, I gave her a big hug and kiss on the head and she started eating.
Instead of saying no to puddle jumping, I let everyone get their feet wet at the glasses repair place. (Juice’s glasses broke and this place is amazing! He fixes your glasses for a very reasonable fee and you don’t have to get new ones. Awesome!)
Instead of listening to the radio on the way to Butterfly’s dance class, I listened to her. I answered her questions about the rain (yes! rain!) and her plans for the future. (She’s going to marry Vinny and live in Utah next to Nana.)
Instead of dragging everyone out after dance class, Juice and I stayed home. We could have gotten a free scoop of ice cream at our favorite place because it was raining. But we figured it was cold and wet and we’d rather not.
Instead of blogging, I sat and watched Super Bowl commercials with Juice. We laughed some, but mostly shook our heads over them. I really liked the Clydesdale one. Very cute. We then spent 45 minutes talking about the kids and the cute things they’ve done lately. We wondered about Butterfly’s future ourselves. We chatted about our future and upcoming birthdays. It was nice to reconnect with no other distractions.
So…tomorrow do something out of the ordinary and then come tell me about it! I hope it changes your day for the better like it did mine.
Safire
Safiredaily stuff
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