a slice of everyday life

we try and have breakfast together every morning, at the table, while damon reads scriptures at 7:05 a.m.- except for thursdays and saturdays

nolan asks every single day if he can have a friend over- within 30 seconds of walking in the door from school.  elli doesn’t bother to ask, she just has a bunch of people that follow her home everyday.

damon wakes up first- usually at 6:15, after he’s hit snooze twice.  then i smile and stretch out onto his side of the bed and sleep for about 10 minutes more because it feels so freeing to not have to be the first one up.

at the end of every month, i upload and order all of that month’s pictures from snapfish.  most of the order is done in collage prints to save space in my scrapbooks.  some months it takes me 10-12 hours to complete this. 

we have  a prayer system.  7 members of our family, 7 days of the week.  Ray is monday; damon is sunday.  strangely enough, elli and emma hardly ever say the prayer.  i think we must not be praying on thursdays and fridays.  weird.

i don’t like to be behind a closed door.  i like to leave doors open- just in case. 

we try to have family home evenings every monday night.  even if it’s superbly simple.  sometimes, the adversary visits me about 30 minutes before FHE should begin and i get the urge to be extra cranky and impatient and sometimes even cancel that precious family time together. 

when my kids tell me they’re bored, i find it very easy to find something for them to do.  they don’t tell me they’re bored very often.

i like to think ahead.  and be prepared.  some people might call that controlling.  i call it organized for my own sanity.

emma likes to help me in the kitchen.  especially on tuesdays when i’m trying to prepare meals for 3 families.  all the other kids like to “help”, too.  the difference is that emma is actually helpful.

i usually wear a bra, but i always wear a shade undershirt of some sort.

elli asks if she can have a facebook account every day.

i go through the kids’ backpacks and folders on friday afternoons and take care of all the forms/signatures/sign-ups/homework etc right away so that i’m not scrambling to figure it all out on sunday night.  or monday morning.

i like to take a nap on sundays.  my kids think that whispering nonsense questions to me while i’m trying to sleep is respecting my wishes to leave me alone.  locking my door only makes it worse.

i pay all the bills.  with damon’s money.

nolan and ray sleep in the extra room instead of in their own beds.  elli and emma share a queen size bed. 

we rarely watch t.v.

i make a real breakfast every morning- except for thursdays and saturdays.

we eat breakfast together as a family more consistently than we eat dinner together.

i am a room parent in each of my children’s classrooms.  however, i don’t think i’ve lifted a finger this entire school year since october 13th.

elli looks totally put together (on the outside) when she leaves for school.  even though she usually forgets something every day.

damon takes leftovers for lunch.  the kids make their own lunches- except for thursdays.  savannah gets a free lunch because the state pays for it.  ellison buys lunch or “forgets to eat”.  ray is still working on his breakfast at lunch time.

elli and emma can’t seem to keep their room clean.  no matter how many times they clean it in a week.  will they ever learn?

nolan and savannah empty all the garbage cans in the house every tuesday morning.

savannah {and sometimes ray} unloads the dishwashers in the morning.

i feel the need to give savannah chores in the morning to keep her on task and so i know exactly where she is and what she’s doing. 

elli and emma {complain that they have to} load the dishwashers

i (sometimes) re-load the dishwashers after elli and emma do a sloppy job.

i sort all the laundry, but only fold and put away mine and damon’s clothes.  savannah folds and puts away the 3 little kids’ clothes.  elli and emma put away their own clothes.  nobody (except for damon) folds underwear or pajamas.

i hate cleaning the floors.

someone is always on the computer in the kitchen.  someone else is always complaining that someone is always on the computer.

i wish we played more board games.

savannah is the first and easiest one to put to bed at 7.  ray should be the first, but definitely isn’t the easiest to put to bed. 

the 3 little kids go to bed by 7:30, sometimes earlier if i’m having a bad day.  elli and emma are supposed to be in bed by 9, but we all know that doesn’t really happen.

damon tucks the kids into bed every night.

we have cat fur on our couches.  i don’t like animal hair on our couches.  or anywhere.  ray likes to use the sticky lint brush on the couches.  or directly on the cats.  they’re both fun.

nolan is the first one awake- if we’re not using an alarm.  if i didn’t wake her up, elli would sleep in until dinnertime.  savannah may or may not sleep at all during the night.

we have an alarm on savannah’s door that is really loud if she gets up in the middle of the night and tries to leave her bedroom.  interestingly enough, she hasn’t left her bedroom after the first 2 times she set it off.

i sleep much more soundly knowing that savannah is in her bedroom where she’s supposed to be. 

i love being the sunbeams teacher.  damon wishes he was more organized as the YM president.  elli is the beehive secretary.  yes, secretary.  which means she should be organized.

i hate running errands.  damon doesn’t mind.  i prefer to stay at home doing things while he prefers to run the errands.  we both prefer to leave the kids at home and run errands together.  that’s the ideal scenario.

we all miss calvin.

we have cookie wednesday every wednesday from 1-5.  i bake about 20 dozen cookies every wednesday.  anywhere from 15- 25 kids show up at our house throughout the course of the afternoon for cookies.

when i leave the house, i make sure to have my cell phone, my keys, my purse, and my burt’s bees’ chapstick.  and usually my rain boots.

my in-laws used to come to dinner every wednesday, but they haven’t come since calvin’s birth.

thursdays are insane.  I wake elli up at 6:30, fix her an easy breakfast, wake nolan up at 6:45 and do the same.  nolan, ellison, and i leave at 7:15 to take nolan to chess club at mann and elli to junior high.  i wake savannah up when i get home at 7:30 and feed her and drive her to school at 8:10 and wake up emma when i get home so she can be ready to go to her school at 9, which damon takes her to on his way to work.  ray plays video games.

on thursdays, ray and emma and savannah and nolan all get out of school at 3 p,m.- from three very different locations.  sometimes i have to leave my house at 2:20 and start picking them up early in order to gather all of them.  it takes me over an hour to pick them all up.  good thing i have “connections” and i’m not responsible for getting them all EVERY thursday.

ray still wears a pull-up at night.  and that’s the only thing he wears. 

damon and i try to say a prayer together every night.  sometimes we forget.

i read my scriptures online for 10 minutes right after i post everyday.

i try and attend every sports game that my children are in.  it’s a big deal to me because i wished my parents had attended all of my sports games when i was in high school.

i am the safe arrival chair at the elementary school.

we have sleepovers at our house every weekend.  anywhere from 3-10 extra kiddos.  which is totally fine by me- unless they stay up until morning.  that’s not totally fine by me. 

our kitchen table as been hijacked by the projector and all its equipment.  i hate it, but love playing xbox/rockband and watching movies on our living room wall.  it’s give and take.

our house is still unfinished.

our mailbox is across the street.  and seems very far away- even though it’s only one house down (and across the street).  i usually go out of my way when i’m out and about in my car to come home to my house from the correct driver’s-side-door-on-the-mailbox-side-of-the-street in order to get the mail from the luxury of my car.  when i do this,  the kids usually ask if they can “walk home”. 

when savannah listens, she is a huge help to me. 

i keep the 3 little kids’ clothes in cubbies in the laundry room.  they don’t have any dressers or clothing in their rooms.  i like having control over their clothes. 

the older girls keep all their clothes on their floor.  even though their closet is bigger than the master closet.

all of our kids’ bedrooms are bigger than our master bedroom. 

i have the 3 little kids take off their church clothes right after church and lay them on my bed.  i keep them in my closet in complete outfits so that i never have to look for anything on sunday mornings.

emma was just diagnosed with hypo-thyroidism- just like her mom (me) and grandma.  we are hoping that the medication she started taking this week will make a difference in a lot of areas of her life.

ray has a mild form of sleep apnea.  we are hoping that having his tonsils and adenoids removed will make a big difference in his sleeping pattern.

savannah talks to the cats like they’re her children.  ray still doesn’t know the difference between our two cats.

savannah is easily distracted.

so are the rest of my children.

i weigh less than damon.  i think this is important to me.

damon makes a killer bed in the morning.  way better than me.

i do at least one load of laundry every day- usually 2-3 on mondays.

we usually run both dishwashers at least once every day.

my kids love to make smoothies.  my kids also love to promise that they will clean up the mess they make when they make smoothies.  my kids think setting the blender jar in the sink is all they need to do to clean up the mess they make when they make smoothies.  doesn’t even come close.

we drink orange juice for breakfast every morning.  for some reason, i don’t like my children drinking juice at any other time of the day.  we drink water or milk for dinner.  and have water the rest of the day.

i cook on tuesdays, wednesdays, and sundays.  shaws deliver dinner on thursdays, fleigs on mondays, and we have leftovers or make-your-own-dinners on friday/saturdays. 

when my kids are responsible for making their own dinner, they make cup o noodles or top ramen.  and they are in heaven.  and they also leave their cups out. 

my kids bring cereal for lunch on wednesdays.

i only take my calvin necklace(s) off to shower.

i have a new cell phone that finally simplifies texting and has gps and e-mail capabilities, but it {literally} takes me 2 minutes to figure out how to make a phone call.  sometimes i just stare at my phone and don’t know what to do next to try and make a phone call.   i’m not sure if it’s worth the extra trouble.

ellison and emma are disrespectful to each other.  elli thinks it’s all emma’s problem.  and emma thinks it’s all elli’s problem.  i might think it’s savannah’s problem.

ellison is still eligible for the $500 reward for not kissing any boys until she turns 16 (thank you for the brilliant idea, april!).

ray plays video games way too much.

i waste a lot of my time during the day right now.  i give in to the temptation to take a nap after the kids leave for school way too often.  i am either ON and crazy/productive.  or OFF and slothful.  there is no in-between for me.

our second most frequented place for date night is coho cafe- where they offer a microsoft 2 for 1 discount. 

our first most-freqented place for date night is our own home.

damon and i end every evening on our laptops next to each other in bed.

damon and i fall asleep on his side of the bed all snuggly and stuff.  then, when when my neck and back start to hurt from falling asleep with his arms wrapped around me (or when he starts to snore too loud), i move back over to my side of the bed with just thumper. 

all of the kids do their homework independently.  they rarely ask for help.  when they do ask for help, it is usually just as confusing for damon and me so we’re not very helpful.

i try and get together to scrapbook with my friends at least once a month.  i scrapbook here and there on my own.  scrapbooking is one of the few things in my life that i take seriously and have a very organized system figured out in a way that works for me. 

we fill our suburban up with gas about every 2 1/2 weeks.  it costs about $75 to fill the 26-gallon tank.  We fill our cars up when they hit the 1/4 tank mark.  we learned this lesson as newlyweds when our brand new jetta ran out of gas in the middle of an intersection and we asked the people behind us to gently bump us into the gas station on the corner, which they very hesitantly did.  and ended up scratching up our bumper with the screws from their license plate.  damon and i were just leaving arizona to head back to utah.  i don’t think we said a word to each other for the entire (12-hour)  return trip back.  (painful) lesson learned. 

i don’t like to eat lunch.  mostly because i don’t like to make lunch.  or clean up after lunch. 

i don’t wear make-up.  unless i’m feeling really bold.  then i put on mascara.  damon assures me he prefers me make-up-less.  which is a good thing because i’m a no-frills kind of girl.

the kids shower/bathe on tuesdays, thursdays, and for sure saturdays.

all of the kids have special blankets they prefer to sleep with.

our favorite meal is brisket with my mashed potatoes and homemade rolls.  hawaiian haystacks and baked spaghetti are my fall-back favorites.  i usually have all the ingredients for those meals in a pinch.

my favorite breakfast is an egg sandwich with cheese and bacon on a whole wheat english muffin.  unless the egg is runny.  then i will spit it out and it’s not my favorite.

ray has to be reminded to go back in the bathroom to flush the toilet and wash his hands every time he goes to the bathroom.

after damon puts his lunch containers on the kitchen counter when he walks in the door from work, he gives me a really long hug. 

i go to costco about once a week.  usually on the same day.  i rarely shop anywhere else.  i prefer woodinville costco over kirkland costco.

i like to answer e-mails as soon as i receive them.  if i don’t, i forget about them.  and i hate going back into my inbox to figure it all out.  i get really irritated when i send an e-mail with a request for simple information and it goes unanswered.  i wish everyone would hit REPLY as quickly as i do. 

nolan loves the diary of a wimpy kid book series.  emma loves reading high school level books.  ray loves reading i spy books.  savannah loves reading anything.  elli is always complaining that she doesn’t have anything to read.   damon and i always keep books on our nightstands.  which we may or may not read, depending on lots of factors.

savannah is the only kid who consistently puts her backpack and coat and shoes away when she walks in the door.  all the others are perfectly content to set their backpack within inches of their locker and step over it every time it presents a problem.  which is often.

i have my ‘e-mail toast pop-up thing’ currently disabled because i can’t seem to accomplish anything on my computer when i am alerted every single time i have an e-mail.  the temptation to click on that toast is sickening.  i can’t handle it.  i am actually able to finish a task when i don’t know that i’m receiving e-mails. 

the most played with toys at our house are Legos, Barbies, train tracks, books, dress up, and video games.

if the sun is out in any form, i prefer for my kids to be outside playing.  or anything.  just not inside.

damon has a {slim} chance of getting lucky if all the kids are in bed and asleep before 9 o’clock.  and the floors are cleaned.

i try and only spend 15 minutes of my time blogging, but sometimes it takes much longer.  usually i’m ok with that because i’m documenting something that i want to document.  something i want to know a year from now or 10 years from now.  strangely enough, these are all things i want to know about my life 10 years from now.