Monday was a marathon day.
In the morning Abe and I got up early to go running. I ran one lap more than a mile, which is great for me–especially since I thought I would never run again after this last pregnancy.
Then we came home, showered, and I folded a million loads of laundry. I also bathed and groomed all of the kids. They played dress up all morning while I cooked like crazy for our back-to-school feast. Dress up started with them putting a doggy-backpack leash on Ammon and morphed into dressing Ammon up in all sorts of costumes.
Meanwhile I made pie dough, apple filling, and then put it all together for a pie. Then I made some sour cream rolls and put them in the fridge to bake right before dinner.
By that time it was time to go to the fire station to take a tour with Henry, Vika, and Jessi. Henry loves fire trucks and scheduled this tour himself weeks ago. They were so sweet to invite us.
Ammon almost sabotaged the tour, though. He ran all around the station touching EVERYTHING. He touched every nob, tried to scale every fire hose, and peeked under and in every opening he could find. I almost lost my mind telling him to stop. He would punctuate his explorations by giving me and random firemen huge hugs. Finally one of the firemen gave him a ride in the stretcher to calm him down. It didn’t help, but it was funny.
Then we hurried halfway home, only to realize that we needed to pick up Mary’s glasses, so we turned around and after another hour returned home with those.
By then it was already 5:30, so I quickly made the girls’ two favorite soups and baked the rolls. Then we had our feast! We lit the candle, sang a happy first day of school song, and talked about the upcoming year and what the girls want to learn. Mary is excited about art and Lydia is excited about social studies.
Then I gave them presents: new crayons and flashlights. The crayons are for drawing after family scripture study, and the flashlights are so they can read in bed at night.
Then we cleaned up, got everyone in bed, and got ready for school the next day. Abe and I finished by watching some of The Good Wife. He is extremely stressed out by work, so watching this show helps divert him from current stresses and anxieties.