a slice of life

Today has been a day.  It started out rather horribly and has ended on a much more normal note.  Lack of sleep and the constant surrounding of sick germs has finally caught up with me and I am feeling slightly under the weather.  And even though I went to bed early last night and managed to get a solid night's sleep {a small miracle}, I was still feeling less than my best this morning and had a 2 hour delayed start to deal with as well.  BOO!!!  Let's just say that I was a bit of an ogre this morning. 

Once I managed to get the kids off to school and drop off an overdue book at the library, I came on home and was able to start settling down into our normal daily routine.  Which is what has inspired tonight's blog post.  I thought I should document a little slice of our daily life.  Not all of the following pictures are from today, but they're all representative of some aspect of our life these days...

 Toys in the fridge.  Apparently Alex thought Ariel and Rapunzel needed to cool off this morning.  

 Knit headbands and ponytails.  This "look" has become Grace's signature style.  She so graciously allowed Sophie to copy off of her one morning last week.

 Posing for pictures.  Me and Jane are twins.  She wanted to take a picture of me so I thought I'd do her patented Princess Sophia pose.

TV and Jane.  Sophia the First is seriously her favorite show right now.  She's watched this one episode on demand about a million times and for some reason, each time she watches it she gets the biggest kick out of a certain scene where Sophia is leaning her head on her hand and smiling.  She has to stop and act it out for me and explain what she's doing AS she's doing it each and every time.  Each and every time.  "Look, her is going like this.  Her is putting her hand right here and her is smiling.  Like this."  Hahahaha.

 Notes coming home from school.  Hmmmm.

 Un-expectations.  Someone sent us these books in the mail from Amazon today!  It was such a fun surprise and the kids were so excited.  Sophie's comment when she got home from school was "They're so pretty!  And not damaged!"  Hahaha.  I've already read them SEVERAL times to Alex, Jane, and Sophie.  So thank you, thank you, thank you whoever you are that sent them!

 Even more picture taking.  More evidence that Jane and I are twins.  I tried to get Scott to take a picture of me to document my birthday, but I didn't really like any of the results.  As I was uploading more pictures today, I saw  one of Jane doing the exact same head-tilt-smile-pose and I had to include it for comparison. 

 Go-to poses.  This is Jane's signature look when taking pictures 9 times out of 10.  I guess now I see where she gets it from.  Hahaha.

 Art Projects and Service Projects.  This painting scene was from yesterday after school and it was definitely one of the highlights of the day {and week}.  The girls were painting happily and quietly together at the table, Alex was enjoying just hanging with the big kids, and ETHAN surprised us all by working on some signs to put on Sophie's bed in an effort to increase the love he has for her in his heart.  {You never know when a mother's words of wisdom will sink deep into a child's soul.  In this case I told him when you serve people, your love for them grows.}  The signs said "I like Sophie" and "Sophie is Awesome"  and "I love Sophie."

 Messes galore.  Jane still loves her some rainbow colors.

 Second suppers.  Kids claiming they're hungry right at bedtime is a regular occurrence around here.  Grace enjoyed a second dinner tonight of granola and whole milk.  She really LOVES whole milk.

 Stalling at bedtime.  While Grace was finishing up her second supper, Ethan was hunting around the house for markers and a big bowl to put a bunch of reading suggestions in.  Apparently he's having a hard time deciding what to read next so he thinks this will help him.  Keep in mind that it was already half an hour past their bedtime and neither one was anywhere near ready to start the process of going to bed AND I was all on my own because Scott was at church for Mutual.

 Jack-in-the-Box syndrome at bedtime.  Did I mention that Sophie was still awake, too?  And it was now an HOUR past her bedtime?  Well she was, and it was partially my fault.  I started reading a new chapter book to her tonight -- one of the rainbow magic fairies books -- and when I was done I told her if she wanted to try and read some on her own she could.  Well, I was just heading up with Grace to finally start reading to HER when Sophie almost collided with me on the stairs to come and tell me that she had finished the book.  What???  After some more questioning she admitted that she did skip some of the pages when she didn't know all the words, but overall I think she still managed to get the gist of the story because she was excited to tell me all about it and show me the pictures.  Getting in and out of bed and going up and down the stairs, unfortunately is not an isolated incident around these parts. 

And as always, a little lagniappe.  Ethan solved his problem of finding something to read tonight by whipping out the newest blog book that I had ordered and printed up a couple of weeks ago.  I've heard him chuckling out loud at several parts while he's been reading it and that pretty much makes my life.  I always appreciate it when others appreciate my humor.  Hahahaha.  For the record, I went with Blog2Print this time instead of Blurb and I have to say that I'm conflicted by the results.  On the one hand, Blog2Print was SOOOOOO much easier.  You essentially slurp your blog over to their site and then choose the layout where everything appears exactly the way it was on the blog when you posted it.  The major downfall, however, is that there is absolutely no way to modify or format things afterward.  Or at least I couldn't figure out how to do it.  I would have liked to been able to make the pictures larger but couldn't find a way to make that happen.  I think I prefer the way my Blurb books LOOK, but the hassle of formatting them and editing them in that program is definitely not worth the massive amounts of my time it took get those books ready to print.  Are there other options out there that I don't know about?  Or that would work better?  Please let me know if you have any input! 

And that is basically that.  Other things going on in life right now include the trying of more new recipes, navigating ward boundary changes, delivering Girl Scout cookies {which I have finally managed to get picked up so the girls can start distributing their orders and collecting their money}, and getting excited for the approach of Spring Break.  We were really hoping to be able to utilize that week for a house-hunting trip this year, but it's not looking likely that we'll be able to make it happen that soon.  Hopefully, we'll at least be able to make it to the cousins' house so we can all have a much needed break!  And that really is that.  Until next time!