A day in the life...

5:45am- I don't normally wake up this early, but today I did because I was headed for the 1 day Meat Sale at Lin's, a local grocery store. I get 40 lbs of chicken and 40 lbs of ground beef. I LOVE stocking up on food.

6:30-7:20am- Wrap beef in freezer half pound portions in freezer paper and put chicken in bags to freeze. Two years ago my mom and dad got my a deep freeze and it is FULL today. Love that feeling. I think I am going to can the chicken, but not right away. It is nice to have some quite time, just me and the raw meat.

7:30am- Wake up Silas and the boys and go to the SkyFest. Every year a dozen or so hot air balloons take off. We get some donuts and OJ and sit in our camp chairs watching people unroll and fill the balloons. The boys love it. We also get to see Brett and Chette and the girls which we always like.

8:30am- I nurse Grant for the first of only two times today. His birthday is a little over a month away and so I'm starting to ween him. He is SO attached to me and he loves to nurse, so I'm doing it slowly. He's getting so big. He took 4 steps by himself today and I think he'll be running around before his birthday.

I start a load of laundry. I have been trying to do a load a day instead of cramming it into one day. It's nice except for when I forget about it. (It's still in the dryer.)

10am or so- Cleod and I go out back to pick tomatoes from our garden. That is all that grows and they are everywhere. We've made homemade spaghetti sauce with the tomatoes in the past which was great. It's really fun to have Cleod help out with the garden.

10:30- We call Tunex to come and pick up Gordon (that's the name of Silas's '71 VW Beetle. We bought a new battery yesterday but it still wouldn't start. Silas is making some extra money helping my brother Darin with a website so we are finally going to get Gordon fixed. We've been down to one chair again for about a month and so I am ready for it to be fixed too.

11ish- I cut hair. Lost of hair. Not mine...the boys'. It's been a really long time but they are all good and it doesn't take too long. I get all three of them in the bath. I can't believe how dirty boys get. Grant loves to take baths with his brothers but he also starts to drink the water. Then Ryan and Cleod start making a watery mess so we ubruptly end bath time. The boys get to stay in their room for a while. Meanwhile, Silas is doing homework and I get to shower.

Around 1pm- I vacuum the basement before letting the boys watch some TV. The Disney Channel has a cute show called Phineas and Ferb that even Silas and I will sit and watch. After that was over Cleod came and found me and said that there was a big kid show on. I said they could pick a movie and they picked the birthday video my siblings and I made for my Dad's 60th birthday last month. Cleod and Ryan think it's great.

Help Silas with some math but I'm not very helpful. I love math, but the class he's in is Discrete Math which is weird logic stuff. Bleh.

I call my mom. I like to let her know when I fill the freezer. Plus I haven't talked to her as much this week as I normally do. I am excited to go to Vegas for a few days in October.

2:30pm- The boys and I dropped Silas off at the school to meet a classmate. They needed to work on a take-home quiz. We used the time to first go to Deseret Book. We needed a few gifts and I wanted a picture of the First Presidency. Going to small stores with three boys is always crazy but I made it through.

3pm- We get to Wal-Mart. The main purpose was toilet paper. The I remembered that Grant needed baby food, and baby snacks because he is spoiled and doesn't always eat the baby food. So then I decide to get milk and margarine, bread, tortillas, grape juice (Silas's new favorite thing) and sour cream. Cleod reminds me that we were going to look at costumes, so we make our way to the other side of the store. Cleod wants to be Bumblebee, from Transformers, and we see that there is only one left in his size and two total of the style so we get it. He's actually "earning" money for it but I told him that he can pay me back instead. I'm not sure how well he understands that but that's fine. Needless to say, the toilet paper run turned into $42 of groceries. At least I remembered the toilet paper.

4pm- We pick up Silas from SUU and run by Tunex. They hadn't really been able to work on the Beetle but we're ok with that. Hopefully they will figure it out early Monday and it won't be too much. When we get home, Ryan falls asleep, Grant is happy and Cleod runs around the house in his new costume. It's pretty cute for $12.

5-6pm-Silas helps me make dinner. He remembered a few days ago about a meal that his family used to eat a lot. It's basically beans with brown sugar, honey and mustard. We made a decent version but hope to improve on it next time. At least I'm getting him to eat beans though. It's harder for me to get Silas to eat healthy than it is for me to get the boys to eat healthy. Not that Silas eats junk, but he doesn't prefer beans or wheat. We're getting there though...one loaf of bread at a time.

While dinner was simmering, Cleod helped me straighten the living room and dining room. I do not like to wake up to a dirty house, especially on Sunday morning.

6:30pm- Take Ryan with me to a reception of a friend. She's actually the daughter of my old employer so it was fun to see some of the old gang from the days at Papa Murphy's. Those were good times...I met Chette there, at Papa Murphy's in 2002. Actually I met Chette at the reception too. We usually combine forces on gifts to mutual friends and we like to go together too. She had her girls and Ryan ran around the gym being crazy, as usual.

7:30pm- Grant hugs me for 5 minutes straight when I get home. He's such a doll. After a minute, Silas leaves for work. This is not a normal Saturday thing, but it does happen. He had something he needed to finish by Monday so he needed a few hours tonight to work on that. That man is amazing. He works 40 hours a week and goes to school full-time and then spends time doing homework on top of trying to spend time with me and the boys. I can't WAIT for May.

8:30pm- I put the boys to bed by myself but I don't follow the routine and they are all crying. I start blogging but have to stop. Cleod and Ryan say they're starving, which is kinda true because they have been having a really hard time finishing their dinners lately. I give in and give Ryan some cereal, Cleod wants toast and Grant gets a few crackers. I REALLY want some Cap'n Crunch...I know it's silly, but I LOVE cereal. I resist the temptation and drink some water with organic apple cider vinegar and organic honey instead. GROSS, you say? Yes. It is pretty gross. Brett's mom told me about this. She is reading a book about the benefits of these foods and there is a specific example of someone with arthritis feeling relief from pain through the vinegar/honey drink. Silas's arthritis has been pretty bad lately and I need a good energy boast, so we are doing it together. The honey is even from a guy in town would has bees. Cool.

While the boys finish eating I do dishes. I am constantly doing dishes. I despise a sink full of dishes so I try to keep them as empty as possible but this means rising and washing several times a day. I keep telling Silas that I am going to start paying myself for every load of dishes I do, but I haven't figured out how to do that yet.

9pm- Put the kids back to bed and start blogging again. I know this is long and most of you won't care, but I need this. It's like a kind of therapy.

It's 9:45pm and I am resisting the urge to watch Thursday's episode of The Office. I missed it because I had an Enrichment Board meeting where we planned out Super Saturday. It's ok, because NBC puts the episode on their site the next day so I didn't mind, but I didn't think it would talk me this long to watch it. I am resisting because I really need to get off the computer and study for my lesson. I am teaching Relief Society tomorrow. That's the woman's group at church. I LOVE teaching but I always feel anxious about giving the information that my ladies need.

So off I go to study my lesson. Then I will try to retire before midnight because as you can see, I am had a LONG day.

Happy Birthday, Pop!!!

Today is my Grandpa's 90th birthday! He lives in St. George which is only about an hour from where we live, so we went down yesterday for a little family party. It was great to be with family and to see him. He is such a great man and has been a wonderful example to me. He's the reason our family loves music and he has always encouraged us to use our talents.

Happy 90th, Pop!

Labor Day Weekend in Colorado

Over Labor Day weekend, we were able to drive to Silas's sister's house in Parker, CO which is near Denver. Silas's parents had come from Missouri so we not only got to hang out with Selissa, Phil and their kids, but we got to spend time with Silas's mom and dad. It was a long drive, but it was worth it. We went down to Colorado Springs on Saturday to The Garden of the Gods which was cool. Here we are:
We also went to Seven Falls...

I started playing the license plate game, pretty much by myself because my kids aren't old enough, but then I started taking pictures of Cleod next to different state plates. We got photos with 18 of them but we saw 37 of the 50 states. I was pretty happy with that. :)

On Sunday we went to the Denver Temple to walk around and there was a security guard there who let us into the Visitor's Center to see the Christus, which was awesome. Ryan ran up to it and said, "It's my brother, Jesus!"

Monday we spent the whole day traveling so we didn't have to rush. The 8.5 hour trip turned into a 12.5 hour trip. It was fine until Cleod started to throw up. Luckily we had a container he could hold and he's old enough to tell us when he needed to.

Overall, it was a great weekend and we are glad we went. Thanks, Sis and Phil, for letting us crash at your place!!!