Week in the Life - Day 7

My first Week in the Life will come to a close with today's post. It was a wonderful experience to capture our everyday routine for a whole week. I know it will be a treasure to look back on in years to come.

Since this is the beginning of my blogging experience and my first Week in the Life, if you've stopped by this week, I would love it if you would leave a comment. It would make my week! All this is new to me so any words of encouragement would be greatly appreciated. Thanks again for dropping by.

On to Day 7 . . .

To be honest, this was one of the toughest days for me. I was in a really down mood. I think I was exhausted from all of my daughter's birthday activities, staying up late, and working so hard on these Week in the Life posts which meant so much to me. Plus, I just missed my husband a lot this week and I fell apart a little today. Usually, I hold it together for the kids, but sometimes it gets the best of me. But that's real life.

I took a photo of the girls in the morning who had spent the night for my daughter's birthday party. They were up until 2am; therefore, so was I.

Doing the dishes after the girls big breakfast.

When I went down to feed my son's turtle, since he was spending the night at his friend's house, I discovered ants had invaded my kitchen. Ugh! We have had such a problem with ants and this was one of the last straws that broke me down today. So I spent the next hour spraying and vacuuming up ants.

It was laundry day for me as it is every Sunday. Here are the piles of clothes all sorted, ready to be washed.

To try and pick myself up, I went for a little walk on the path behind my house.

In between loads of laundry, I decided to watch a movie on Netflix, "Hope Floats." With my down mood, I needed to just lay low today.

 I worked on a knitting project while I watched the movie as I like to keep my hands busy.





My cat, Molly, kept me company while I watched the movie.

At the end of the day, here are the results of all that laundry: big piles of folded clean clothes.


Life is full of ups and downs. I wish my last day was more lighthearted but that's the reality of life. The important thing is that we are all given the gift of another day to start fresh. I'm grateful for this
gift.

Week in the Life - Day 6

Friday was my daughter's 13th birthday so I got Day 5's post up very late. Understandably, I was running around helping her celebrate her day with our family. On Saturday, she celebrated with her friends and that's what I captured on Day 6 among other things. Thanks for looking as we wind down this week of documenting our Week in the Life.

On to Day 6 . . .

In the AM, I did some cleaning since we were having a sleepover party for Meghan's birthday party today.

Then I went to Walmart to do our weekly shopping plus get some last minute party supplies. I always leave with my cart overflowing.

Ate a little snack on the way home from the grocery store -- my new addiction.

And then when I got home, to offset my treat I ate something a little healthier -- another favorite of mine  --Yoplait Yogurt Whips, always strawberry, and always frozen. It tastes so good that way.

Here I am driving a full van load of kids to EZ AIR, a place where the kids can jump on trampolines, do flips, and jump into pits of blocks of foam, etc. The kids love this place. It's always entertaining to be in the car with 6 teenagers! Ha! But I know I will miss every minute when they don't need me to drive them anymore.

At 5pm, we head back home. The girls run to Meghan's room and close the door and do 13-year old girl things.

I set to baking Meghan's birthday cake. I know it's late, but I've been rushing from one thing to another. Know what I mean? I know you do. Plus, my kids really prefer a homemade cake so what's a Mom to do.

Around 6:30pm, the natives get restless and hungry. Time to order pizza. With 5 girls and one of my boys and his friend waiting to be fed, we need the extra large pizzas tonight.

At 7:00pm, I'm off to go pick up the pizzas. This is one of the many tasks that my husband and I use to tag team and share duties. One stays here and sets the table, for example, while the other goes and gets the pizza. Going through Meghan's party plans and day without my separated husband around to help is just plain tough. It seems to be the little things that remind me of his absence lately.

Around 8pm and after pizza was devoured, my daughter asked to open her gifts from her friends. We have a fun tradition of how we open gifts that I started when the kids were little. We play musical chairs and when someone gets out they get to give the birthday kid their gift so no one ends up feeling bad and everyone has fun. I was surprised when my too-cool 13 year old asked to play musical chairs. I thought she might've thought it was too silly now. It's nice when they love traditions as much as we do.

At 9pm, we sang Happy Birthday and ate the birthday cake that I did finish! Although it did break coming out of the pan, so I had to patch it up with frosting. Oh well. It's what it tasted like that counts right?

Around 2am, all 5 girls crowded into my daughters room and fell asleep -- finally.  And then off to sleep I went.

Looking back my day revolved around my daughter but I guess that's how it should be. Thanks for reading about our life!

Week in the Life - Day 5

I'm noticing the patterns in our days and I find comfort in those routines. Sure, sometimes we may get bored by the same old thing, but more often the things that give a rhythm to our days are comforting. Then there are special days like today when it's someones birthday. Where everything is new and different. But even then there are familiar traditions.

Here is our Day 5 . . .

Woke up tired today from staying up late these past couple of nights to get my Week in the Life posts ready for the next day. Plus, I stayed up late preparing a special surprise for my daughter that could only be done in the wee hours of the night.

It's our tradition to surprise the kids on their birthday by filling their bed with balloons while they're sleeping so they wake up to a bed full of balloons on their birthday morning. Here's Meghan on her birthday!

After I got up and dressed, I wrapped my daughter's birthday gifts while she was at school.

After lunch, I clipped coupons for my Saturday grocery shopping trip.


I went around the house and took photos of a few special parts of our home. It's funny how you don't think much about things in your house until you stop and really look at them. So many things in our homes have a special story. They reflect so much about ourselves.

Yes, we have a basketball hoop in our living room. We let the kids play with a big soft Koosh ball and they love it and so do their friends. It shows what a casual home we have and that kids live here!

I love my windowseat in my craft studio. I store our photo albums right underneath the windowseat. It's the perfect quiet nook to read or just to think.

This is the view from our backyard. I love the wide open space and the lake with all the wildlife. I'm thankful for this view everytime I look outside my window or step outside my back door.

In the afternoon, Eric at his Lacrosse game, waiting to go in.

We took our daughter out to dinner for her birthday.




Opening birthday gifts!

Last chore of the day - fold some laundry.

Off to bed - soooo tired. Good night.

Week in the Life - Day 4

Keeping up with this Week in the Life project is challenging. Is everyone else up late uploading their photos and writing their blog posts? Or is it just me? It's my first time doing this project so I know I have a steep learning curve. What keeps me going is that everyone says the end result is so worth it. And it sure helps that all the other Week in the Life posts and links are so inspiring. I'm too far in to quit.

Here is our Day 4 . . .




A little beauty to start the day.

6:45am  My son, the entrepreneur, gets his big box of donuts ready to bring to school to sell. He sells donuts and sodas at school to other students to make extra money. It's the "in" thing to do at school.

8am  I started my day by uploading my Week in the Life post while sitting in bed still in my PJs. Then I spent probably too much time reading other people's daily activities. So fascinating and fun.

I like to make my bed right after I get up.

10am  Worked out on the treadmill while watching a great Showtime series called "The Big C." I like to watch a compelling TV show while I workout to keep my mind off the exercise. Ha!

In the afternoon, I worked on my son's School Memories album which I'm trying to finish so I can surprise him with it at his graduation in June. These two albums cover all his years in school and include all his hobbies, interests, etc. Im so excited to give this to him. And there's Molly the cat again.

At 3:45pm, I drove Eric to his daily Lacrosse practice.

For about an hour, I pinned on Pinterest -- addicting!

My oldest son and I called my sister (his aunt) and sang an off key version of Happy Birthday to her.

At 6:30pm, I took my son, Kyle, to his Art Show at his High School. Nice to spend some one-on-one time with my 18 year old.


After the Art Show, we popped into the grocery store to get balloons and wrapping paper for my daughter's birthday.

7:30pm  Hurried home to cook dinner. Here we are saying our nightly prayer before dinner.

After dinner, I went to get the mail with two of my kids. I like that we make it a mini event and walk together to the mailbox. Meg received 3 birthday cards! Yeah, Happy Mail!

9pm  I washed the dishes and did some other glamorous chores like the kitty's litter box, etc.

10pm  I printed out waivers for my daughter's birthday party to give to her friend's parents. It's one of those "jumpy" places and unfortunately, we have to fill out those forms. Also worked on uploading photos for this WITL post.

11pm  Time to blow up balloons for a birthday surprise for my daughter -- her birthday is tomorrow! This is one of those little times when I miss my husband now that we're separated. We use to blow up the balloons together and work on the surprise for the birthday kid together.

12:30am  By the time I finished working on WITL and Meghan's surprise, it was getting pretty late. Even I was too tired to read. Plus I had finished my book the night before.

Good night or should I say good morning. Hope you're all enjoying your WITL.

Week in the Life - Day 3

I'm half way through my first Week In the Life and so far so good. I love looking at everyone else's ordinary days. It makes me feel so connected to people all over the world. Your photos have also inspired me to capture different parts of my day that I didn't even think of -- so thank you.
On to Day 3 . . .

Intruder?
At 7:30am, my day started with quite a scare. My kids all leave for school by 7am so when I heard my front door slam shut at 7:30am I bolted up out of bed. Being the scaredy cat that I am I thought there was an intruder. So I crept downstairs in my PJs and grabbed the first weapon I could find, my daughter's Lacrosse stick. And just like in the horror movies I yell out "Hello, who's there?!" Like the intruder is going to answer. When I got no answer, I proceeded to go around the house checking all the closets and rooms with the lacrosse stick poised for battle. Of course, now I feel like an idiot. But at the time you never know. I find out afterschool that my son left the house later than usual because he got a ride from a friend instead of taking the bus. Geez, scare your mother to death. The rest of my day seems quite boring after that.

We were expecting rain today so I got outside early in the day and photographed some of the flowers in bloom in our yard in Nevada.

Molly sleeping on my lap while I catch up on blogs and email.

Molly laying on my Project Life. Her way of helping.

Molly peeking out behind my computer

In the morning, I take care of all the pets, filling water dishes and checking food. My son, Eric, also has a Russian tortoise named, Yoshi. Meghan has a cute little hamster named Spencer. And you met Molly, the cat, who keeps me company during the day. She especially likes to sit ON me or whatever I am working on.

Before noon, I loaded and ran the dishwasher which I do daily with three kids.

The kids get out early from school on Wednesdays so my daughter and I went and did some birthday shopping for her. We went to Ross and she found some great things. We had fun trying on really high heels. She's turning 13 so she got a kick out of this. Of course, I wouldn't buy them for her though. Mean Mommy.

Then I went to my weekly Physical Therapy appointment. My daughter was with me from the shopping trip and took this photo.

After PT, Meghan asked if we could stop at Starbucks and get a treat since it was close to her birthday. Boy, she sure is working this birthday thing. I caved.

I put a load of laundry in around 5pm when we finally made it home. For a stay-at-home mom, I feel like I'm rarely home.

At 5:30pm, Meghan's Grandma picked her up to go to dinner and more birthday shopping.

At 6:15pm, Dad came to get the boys for their evening with him.

While the kids are visiting with their Dad, I ate another exciting dinner -- this time it was bagels and cream cheese. I seem to like to eat breakfast for dinner when I'm on my own.

After Meghan got home from her 2nd round of bday shopping, she modeled her new outfits. And then to my delight hung out in my room and talked and played me some of her music. Love when she's in the mood to hang out with her Mom. Then she had to do some homework.

Even my 18 year old was in the mood to hang out with his Mom. Here he is lounging in my bedroom chair chatting with his Mom. Hanging out with the kids today was definitely the highlight of the day for me.

And good old Molly is never far away. In fact, she sleeps with me every night.

Well, I transferred the wash to the dryer but never got around to folding it. Luckily, they're towels and will keep until tomorrow. Just enough time to straighten the kitchen, read a little bit before bed (a must) and then off to sleep around 12:30am.

See you tomorrow.