We LOVE Daddy!!!
Why?
Because….
He understands the hearts and joys of little boys.
Today is…Friday
Grandma’s Coming!! Grandma’s Coming!!! Grandma’s Coming!!!!!!
(This is my over-ruling thought for the day. We will be picking up my mom at the Calgary airport (2.5 hours away) tonight!)
7:20am: Scripture Study. (sing, pray, read, sing, pray)
Done! (Thanks to my wonderful hubby)
8:30am-9:30am8-9am: Cleaning Time. (Mommy works on her chores. Giant works on his jobs. Ettin helps.)
Oh yeah. My hubby has started his summer hours and doesn’t start work until 8:30 on Friday. Very good news since I didn’t get out of the shower until 7:45am!
Giant kept himself busy while I did some cleaning.
9am: 9:30 (is there really a point to keeping track of time?—Other than to show how off track I get?) Gathering Time. (We greet each other, clap for good work, pray, study a gospel picture, and read the morning message)
Wow. We actually did this. A little late, but we looked at the picture (Christ healing a blind man) and talked about how we need to wipe the “world” off our eyes to see Christ’s light.
Then we erased yesterday’s message:
And drew one for Grandma (Ettin helped, of course)!
Giant wanted to draw her an Elephant and a Turtle:
Independent Play. (Boys play without mommy)
Mommy had a lot of preparations to make for our trip. Cleaning, packing, planning, etc. I was quite happy to let little boys play for a while.
But they still needed to eat (a nice, easy, but nutritionally lacking snack):
And my conscience couldn’t let me not have some sort of learning time.
So we made animal finger puppets:
Ettin was pretty sure this was a “beh” (bear), and not a monkey:
Nifty yes.
But kind of sad considering I had planned on a rather big to-do with a ringmaster puppet and several other animal and circus people puppets.
Oh well. Time to put the pride factor behind me, do what I can do, and make sure to take time to cuddle a boy (he brought a cuddle blanket to me in the midst of mess. I chose cuddle):
Grandma’s Coming!!!!!!!!!
Today is…Thursday
7:20am: Scripture Study. (sing, pray, read, sing, pray)
Check.
8-9am: Cleaning Time. (Mommy works on her chores. Giant works on his jobs. Ettin helps.)
Check. But I might have overdone it. For some reason we were cleaning until 9:30.
This is no good.
We have an immunization appointment for Ettin at 10:25am, which will take us 15-20 minutes to walk to.
Mommy starts to get grumpy.
9:30am 9am: Gathering Time. (We greet each other, clap for good work, pray, study a gospel picture, and read the morning message)
Thankfully I have my day somewhat prepared for. I pull out the story of Jesus for the day and read my notes. We talk about how Jesus taught important principles in the Sermon on the Mount. We sing the “Wise Man/ Foolish Man” song, and discuss how faith in Christ is like building a house on the rock.
We start on the message. Giant is so giddy at the thought of doing the morning message:
Okay, okay. He is giddy at the naughtyness and fun of pushing the message board back and forth. Have I mentioned mommy is already grumpy?
I distract Ettin a little longer (he loves shoes):
Then I try to get the boys to clean up their stuff—toys and such. I say “try” because, again, I am running behind and the boys are not being very helpful.
Giant asks me why I am grumpy/mad/sad (he tried a few different words).
I pause.
My first thought is “because you didn’t clean up and haven’t been listening well and now we are late for an appointment.” (Kids are so easy to blame everything on, aren’t they?)
Instead, I tell him honestly: “I guess because I’m choosing to be. I’m worried about getting to Ettin’s appointment on time. But I could choose to be happy instead.”
Oddly, clean-up went very smoothly after that and we only left a little late. (Ettin made it through his shots with just a couple of tears)
Tired and hot we return home, where I am quite tempted to let the boys go play while I get some other stuff done. Unfortunately (or rather, Thankfully), I have enticed the boys home with the thought of making elephant ear hats (my planned project).
Thankfully some more, I have already photocopied the ears to colour, so our project isn’t a big effort.
Giant colours (and then cut out both ears by himself!):
Ettin makes some marks of his own (Hello Bubba in the belly. When are you coming?):
Oh. My. Heavens:
Why don’t we make these everyday?
The boys tromped around like elephants, laughing and jumping and blowing their trunks until Daddy got home for lunch:
A nice end to a grumpy mommy morning.
Today is…Wednesday
7:20am: Scripture Study. (sing, pray, read, sing, pray)
I thought I’d share a glimpse into our scripture study.
And undone laundry:
Ettin has way too much energy in the morning. Daddy is being very patient with a little boy who is bouncing up and down, back and forth, side to side, while we study scriptures.
Giant looks like I feel:
8-9am: Cleaning Time. (Mommy works on her chores. Giant works on his jobs. Ettin helps.)
This day is different. We have a play date at the park at 10am-ish.
Technically this means we should have lots of time for cleaning time and gathering time, and then walk to the park around the time we’d do independent play.
Technically I should be prepared and on top of things.
However, I get distracted.
Aren’t these cool?
We found a really fun bubble blower at this site, and proceeded to play with them for half an hour while mommy tried to get the dishes done and the house tidied.
There are about a billion bubbles on my kitchen floor at this point. And my Ettin should really be dressed. And we should be leaving in about 20 minutes. And we should have started Gathering Time. But look at how much fun they’re having!
9am: Gathering Time. (We greet each other, clap for good work, pray, study a gospel picture, and read the morning message)
9:30am: Independent Play. (Boys play without mommy)
10:30am: Snack/Lesson Time. (Have snack and a lesson, and then work on a project together)
11am: Independent Play.
We forgo our schedule. Ettin is now (9:40am and definitly behind) needing to use the potty.
Ettin doesn’t know how to use the potty. But don’t tell him that. He gets very upset.
We go through the motions (pants down, stand on stool, and his favourite—flush the potty):
Mommy is breathing.
I tell Giant about our planned story of Jesus (Jesus calls the 12 apostles), not even planning to pull the picture out. He wants to see the picure. I find it. He starts to ask questions. Not about the type of clothing the people in the picture are wearing. Real questions. About the apostles and how we can also help Jesus. As we are heading out the door (Giant is holding the picture for the day):
I’m glad and thankful I made the time for this important part of our day. It would have been so very, very easy to have skipped it. Yet I love that amidst the chaos, we made room for a glimpse of perfection. Suddenly the mess and undone tasks of the day seemed a lot less important, and the need for raising righteous young men to help as Christ’s apostles helped Him seemed key.
Then we headed out the door to play 🙂
YUM!
The last few weeks we have been heading into a city an hour away, pretty much every week, for various Dr’s appointments.
This would normally irk me and wear me out. Especially having to take my two little boys with me.
However, we have the most wonderful family living nearby the city.
My hubby’s sister’s family.
They have kids. Cousins play with cousins. There is joy.
There are also amazing treats:
Yummy treats:
The kind I see in magazines and books but never actually make, even though I really want to eat them.
I worry that if I make them, I will eat them. All of them.
Even better, I think she actually follows the recipies.
I start feeling guilty the minute I try making cookies. Thus I decrease sugar, substitute whole wheat flour for white flour, raisins instead of chocolate chips, and never add enough butter. Okay, I don’t even use butter, I use a little bit of olive oil.
Do you know what cookies made with these substitutions taste like?
Not like this:
Not even close.
I ate them all.