Dancing with Daffodils

Maybe this is super boring for the five of you reading my blog to read, but writing is helping me process right now, so I hope you'll be forgiving. Monday was the best day of the week. Laundry day! Woot, woot! Sad that I get so excited for it but it is like the one thing from my regular routine that hasn't changed. This week I had all the kids strip their beds, we washed all their sheets and then they mostly made them all again. I love it. I honestly only wash their sheets maybe once a month because it is such a pain with all of their stuffed animals and the bunk beds and I always find at least 10 books in their beds too. But with them home, they get to do it, so we've been doing it every other week. Small joys! Then I mowed the lawn. I used to do it as a teenager and actually kind of like doing it and hey, it was one more productive thing for me to accomplish so that felt great. I have mostly been mowing our lawn for the last year anyway since Josh has bad allergies and ...

Exciting week! Monday I spent doing laundry and then all morning organizing my two closets and that was so fun. I love organizing but don't do it often because I always get interrupted and that is annoying to me but the kids were busy with school and playing and only came in a few times. They both look beautiful and that makes me happy. Then that night I got to see Michelle, Sarah and Joni on the house party app. It was so wonderful to just talk to them and play games together. We had planned an hour or so and ended up being on there for three, just like a regular girls night. :) It really lifted my spirits. Tuesday night was so fun because we had book club. We tried it out on zoom and it went way better than I thought it would. We had a great discussion about Little Fires Everywhere and I just love talking about books and it made me so happy to see everyone, even Rachael who was in the hospital! She had just given birth on Monday and still tuned in for book club and to show us...

Goodness, when I put in my pictures on the last blog it cut off the rest of what I had written. So let me finish the weekend. Friday night we watched a Dave Matthews band concert from 2005 that I had recorded awhile ago and it made for a more unique date night than just watching the same old shows we always watch and it made Josh really happy.  Saturday I went for a long bike ride and realized how important it is for me to exercise. I had been feeling down for a few days and super unmotivated but after my bike ride I felt so much better. Exercise had just become such a consistent part of my schedule that I hadn't even realized how much it was helping my mental well-being and I really miss it. I love bike riding and always have so I'm glad I get to do it at least once a week when Josh is home. I am struggling to do anything else though even though I know I need to. I can do stuff with the kids and that is nice but isn't a serious workout for me. The rest of the da...

Another week! Monday was technically our last day of spring break so I decided to take a day off from being a mom as much as possible. I told the kids before we jumped into distance learning that I needed a break from making sure they were doing all their stuff all of the time. So, they did not have to ask me about food or TV and could do pretty much whatever they wanted as long as it followed house rules, was safe and kind. They were pretty excited and so was I. Lily and Emma made a schedule and were really cute about it. I slept until 9:30 am, which was dreamy, and then got up and found them all eating breakfast (pop tarts) after having already watched two TV shows (normally not allowed until all their responsibilities are taken care of). Unfortunately, a crazy storm went by at that time and for the first time ever living in Maryland, we lost power. It was really unnerving and freaked the kids out at first but nobody lost it. It went on for three hours so that disrupted their plan ...

Want to know some funny things about me? I don't like folding clothes that aren't warm. I leave clothes in the dryer until I am ready to fold them and then warm them up if they have cooled down. As soon as they are out of the dryer, I fold them. Cold clothes are just ew. I don't mind dishes in the sink but the counters had better be clear and wiped. I have a strong sense of smell and love it when things smell good. My favorite scents are bread baking, fresh-cut grass, cinnamon, peppermint, popcorn, and musky cologne. I love smelly lotions and soaps and body wash and candles and I know Josh is serious about our date when he actually puts on cologne. I love mashed potatoes. I mean I really love them. I can eat a whole lot of them and always have. On Sundays after dinner if we would sit around the table and talk, my dad would joke that if we sat there long enough we wouldn't have to worry about putting away any potatoes because I would just keep taking spoonfuls. ...

We made it through another week and it was a busy one for us. Birthdays are always a lot of work and I feel so much pressure to make the child or my husband feel so special. It takes a lot of energy and work, which I think is exactly what makes it special. Plus we had Easter to prepare for. Lily was a rock star kid this week though and prepared a craft for her siblings to do each day. She researched it on pintrest, got the materials and even pretty much cleaned up when they were done. They did sock bunnies, flowers made from a paper towel tube, salt dough creations and one day she printed off a bunch of egg shapes for them to color/paint. Monday I did laundry, taught a few virtual piano lessons (totally awkward and weird but we're doing the best we can) and we cleaned and my kids watched Carmen Sandiego, which all of them totally love. We had a nice family night that included a family soccer game and chocolate mint cookies that Lily and Brandon made. Lily has really loved being i...

This has been a week of celebrating for us and we still have one more big one to go. I will get to all of that in my weekly post but this one is all about my baby girl, Miss Emma Lynn. Today is her seventh birthday and I have to say that she is the most fun kid in our family to celebrate. She is expressive, excitable, loves her birthday and the attention it brings, and she loves to have fun. Emma was our most happy baby. She was so smiley and sweet and happy and friendly. She loves people and their attention and was one of those babies that adults loved because she would react and smile and play along with you. We left her with the Rays for 2 days when she was four months old (at Michelle's insistence) while we went to a BYU football game a few hours away and by the time we got back, Emma was everyone's best buddy, even Grandpa Ray. Her birth was a bit crazy because she was 11 days late. We went to the hospital to be induced first thing in the morning on Monday, April ...

Another week has gone by. This week was a bit more challenging because Josh had to go back to work on Wednesday. We had gotten into a really good routine and then his being gone messed it all up and required us to come up with a new routine, again. Monday and Tuesday we stuck to our do a cleaning job, get ready for the day, practice the piano and play outside routine. I went for a long bike ride that felt really good. It was the most of a workout I've had and it felt good to be tired and a bit sore from actually using some muscles. Curtis got really into doing chalk art and unfortunately it started raining before he finished. He was right back at it the next day and had to reuse tape because we only had a little bit left, and he reduced all of the chalk we had to nubs barely big enough to hold on to, but he did it! He finished and it looks super cool and it has lasted all week. We got Cafe Rio for dinner on Tuesday (we really don't want them or Nicolletti's to go out of b...