Thursday

 Snapshot of a typical Thursday as told through voice to text:

I woke up at 5:30 AM. John went to basketball, I went running around the neighborhood. Returned home at 6:30 AM and put The leftover applesauce muffin dough in the oven for the kids’ breakfast. Checked in on Caity in her room, and gave her a side hug. I next went upstairs and woke up the younger boys, and snuck in a morning reading of “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets” while I helped them get for school. Then we all came downstairs to eat breakfast while I helped the boys work on their homework and helped Cate make her lunch. At 7:00 AM we load the car and headed to drop off Cate at seminary, then drove the most beautiful scenic route into Jacksonville to drop the boys off for school. William has safety patrol, so Matthew and I, sit together in the car to finish the rest of his math and language arts homework. Next, I head home to grab Emma and Johnny so we can drop Johnny off at the middle school. Johnny is waiting for me reading a book while Emma is cuddled up next to him with her blank ie. I get home around 8:30 AM. John finishes getting ready for work, and we chat and plan out our days. Emma plays quietly while I finish last night dinner dishes, Wednesday night is our youth group, and the kitchen can get a little neglected in a business of the evening. I Dress Emma and the cutest outfit in the whole world, but maybe it’s because she’s so little, every outfit is the cutest thing in the whole world. I buckle her in the car and her and I head out to run some errands. I pick up a prescription at Walmart and some small pumpkins because October is right around the corner. We do our target pick up grabbing paper plates for the Halloween party at the end of the month as well as Caity‘s vitamins. We come home and Emma is exhausted, I put her down for her nap. I get on some chores. I put away the groceries from the days earlier errands and divide up my vitamins for the next two weeks, I clean out the closet underneath the stairs and organize it. I pick up bathrooms and bedrooms, and finish cleaning the kitchen. I spend a couple hours fixing the carpet cleaner and attempting to remove the stains in our living room carpet… Unsuccessfully may I add. Emma wakes up and her and I cuddle as we watch Elemental, her favorite cartoon movie. I get up and finish cleaning the rest of the house mopping the floor. Emma walks over every section of the floor that is freshly mopped looking at me and saying “oh no!” She knows she’s not supposed to do it, but also finds joy in doing it and then recognizing she shouldn’t do it. She brings me so much happiness. Cate has a free 7th, so I buckle Emma up and we drive to the high school to pick her up. Cate is on cloud nine to come home for an hour. She works so hard at school and it is so nice when she can get a little break. I Bring her home and john is home for a Time and the boys have made it home on the bus. We have an afterschool snack while I touch base with John About how the rest of the afternoon will go. The boys and I talk about their day and how spirit week starts Monday. There’s no school Friday so yesterday afternoon felt like freedom. Cate and I watched 30 minutes of the movie The uglies, since we’ve both read the book. Then I wrap William’s birthday present for his friend and we pile everybody into the car. We dropped Cate back off at the high school for her cross country practice where we meet up with the Cummings so Luke can hop into our car and I drive William and Luke to the movie theater for their friend Landon‘s birthday party. They are watching “The Wild Robot.” From the movie theater Matthew, Emma and I drive to the middle school to watch Johnny’s football game. We sit by Kym Warner and Jon Cummings. It is so fun to be there supporting Johnny! Also, he looks soooo cute in his football uniform! John meets us there from work, and Matthew, Emma, and I head over to Jacksonville Elementary school to attend the open house. It was chaos, but it was also so fun to see his classroom and get an idea of what his every day looks like. It’s always nice to see friends that we’ve made over the years at the elementary school. We also went to William’s class. Matthew took me out to the playground to show me a project in his friends been working on for the last few days, it’s a bug sanctuary, and it is the cutest thing in the whole world. John picked up Cate from cross country after Johnny‘s game while I ran back over to the movie theater to pick up William and Luke. Luke’s parents meet us at our house to take him home, and I run inside to get started on dinner. It is 7:15 PM at this point , which is pretty regular these days. John had to attend an employment services open house because of the service mission He is doing right now for our church.  So I made sourdough waffles for the kids with strawberries and buttermilk syrup. It was so wonderful to have all my children there, to be feeding them, to have them so excited and telling me all about their day. I will be honest,  by the time everyone finished eating and I sat down to have a waffle. I craved silence with every part of my being! It was a busy day with a lot of noises and I was very overstimulated (and I may have snapped at one of my children that interrupted this sweet silence.) Cate and I did dishes, while she sang her choir songs. I tidied up my bedroom, got Emma ready for bed while I hung out with Johnny in his bedroom. When John got home, we went upstairs and watched “Inside Out 2”. It had just been released the day before. It was such a good movie and it was so fun to spend time together as a family.  We all went to bed at 10:30 PM. Exhausted but grateful for a good day.