Month: September 2021

On Labor Day we drove to the Salamander Flat Trail in the Alpine Loop. We had hiked part of this with Jean during her summer visit and wanted to see more of it. It was so beautiful!

Today Lydia sweetly helped Clarissa learn to ride on her training wheels.

We passed the afternoon at a school park near out house. The weather was great, and the school had beautiful sunflowers.

Today, I took the kids to a church parking lot and worked on helping Clarissa learn how to ride her bike:

Today Lily was super productive and among many other things made a very nice lunch for the kids. I made a plate from the spread as well, but unfortunately, I didn’t eat much because I’ve had a stomach bug today and didn’t have much appetite.

The highlight of my day was at dinner when Lydia spontaneously announced that she loved her family. It made me so incredibly happy to hear that. Clarissa confessing the Lily that she accidentally ate all the m&ms was a close second.

One of my favorite things ever is to watch my kids play with Basil. It makes me so, so happy to see them all getting so much delight out of their dog. And Basil is such a good dog! I have been brushing him a lot lately and he feels like a shag rug or a stuffy. We love him so much.

With Lydia and Clarissa still recovering from Covid, we continued our family quarantine today.

I got up around 6 to take Basil out until 7:30 on a walk/jog. After that I made bread in my bread machine, tidied, did Clarissa and Mary’s hair, brushed Basil, did a load of laundry, fed the kids breakfast, cleaned breakfast, did Ammon’s piano for almost an hour, did Mary’s piano for an hour and a half, made grilled cheese sandwiches from my bread for lunch, cleaned up lunch, did Ammon’s reading practice, did another hour and a half with Mary at the piano, biked, showered (a cold shower because of the 75 hard!), folded two loads of laundry, and started catch up blogging. After blogging I hope to get the car rental situation all figured out for Greece, plan the North Carolina itinerary, figure out what everyone needs clothing-wise as the Labor Day sales start, and plan tomorrow. I also am almost done drinking my gallon of water for the day. I love, love love the 75 hard and honestly just want to make the daily goals continual.

Abe is working hard as it nears the last month of the quarter, and he’s also continuing to lean in at home. Right now he is playing basketball with Ammon and Clarissa while Lydia practices her harp and Mary does her math. He’s also doing all of dinner and the night routines with the kids while I blog and get my other to-do’s done. If we are both done in time I really hope we binge watch Madam Secretary some more after the kids go down tonight. Here’s hoping!

On another note, I have tried to night time potty train Ammon multiple times but something always happens to interrupt the training. I started nighttime training him two nights ago and he was dry again this morning. This time I hope we stick it out and he gets potty trained before Greece. The last thing I want is to have to haul around sixty pull-ups for him and Clarissa!