What did you do today?

The day started at 6:25 am ...well...back track. I would have to say it started at some obscure hour of the morning when Emi came to the bed asking, or rather telling, me that she wanted to sleep with me. So I pulled her over into the bed between Nathan and me. Then came 6:25 am, when the alarm went off demanding Nathan get up to work on his Axia College work. But he ignored it until 7 when I got up to get Alena ready for school.

I rubbed Alena's legs to wake her up, and she was already grinning under the curtain of hair covering her face. She got up really well (today) and got dressed in her school clothes (She goes to a charter school that requires a uniform). Then we made our way downstairs, and she sat at the table while I got her cereal ready. Before I brought it to the table though, she "had to go potty!" so she rushed upstairs to take care of it when Emi made her entrance. I told her to go ahead and start eating the bowl I made for Alena and made a new one for her since I felt like I put too much in the first bowl anyway. She doesn't eat much in her rush to get to school.

While the munched on breakfast, I let the dogs outside to do their duty. Bingo left us yesterday :( and :). He's at a wonderful family now, and I am going to miss him dearly dearly, but that is also why I wanted him to have a real permanent home, not one filled with transients (dogs, not people...although we have experienced our share of human transients as well...hmm...). I digress!

Dogs fed, everyone awake now, we kneel down for the family prayer and then rush to the car to take Alena to school. I try to leave by 7:40 but that didn't happen today at all and she was "tardy" (if they care to count kindergartner's a minute tardy). I opened the door for her, made sure she got into the right class (since we had to go a different way due to our tardiness), and I was back on my way home!

Emi and Cielo were still snacking on breakfast while Nathan worked on his Axia College stuff (he's a teacher, not a student. yes, he has been a student long enough!) I decided to put Zorro on the treadmill (we bought it from DI, whoo hoo!). Yes, I put the dog on the treadmill! And he hiked it for a good 40 minutes. I joined him for about 10 min at the start and then I took the little ladies upstairs to get dressed.

Of course, I had to argue with Emi about wearing a dress in this chilly weather. Then about the pants she wanted to wear, they had to be "soft" pants. After figuring out what that meant, my 3 year old was finally dressed for the day. Cielo, fortunately, had no opinions, and her shirt and pants almost matched! After hair brushings, attempting to style Emi's and not attempting to style Cielo's, I dressed myself for the day and then headed downstairs with a bag of the girl's laundry.

Before I could get it into the machine, however, Nathan popped his face in and begged me to help him get ready to leave in the next 3 minutes. That consisted of my grabbing him a pair of socks, pants, and packing a lunch while he hosed down. Just like that, he was out the door for work!

Switched out Zorro for Shortcake on the treadmill, she was not quite as excited to exercise. But we decided to just go cold turkey with it, and she managed for about 20 minutes. Emi and I walked with her at the end of it, and she did much better with company.

Then I played some make-believe with Emi. She was the little princess, and I was Buzz...no clue. But we had to run around the house, for a very long time, in order to get to "sandy's house". Sandy's house was probably a mile away apparently. And Buzz was required to repeatedly ask the little princess to slow down, then hurry, then slow down, then hurry....Finally, we arrived, knocked on the door, and no one answered. (Alena was appointed to role of Sandy and, well, she was at school.) It was movie time.

Cielo and Emi enjoyed learning about numbers from Baby Einstein while I finally got to the laundry. Did some miscellaneous laundry and tidying so that the folded laundry could be properly put away, when the movie ended and the girls joined me upstairs while I put clothes away. But their arrival also was the cue for the time to go get Alena so everyone was gathered into the car to go pick her up.

I was pretty early. Emi and I played "I spy" until Alena came, and Cielo undressed her feet. When Alena finally came she wasn't very happy to see me. She was upset that I wasn't giving her time to play "mother may I" with the other kids waiting for their parents. I apologized and promised to remember to be late next time. Go figure.

We stopped at the bank to deposit Bingo's adoption fee. The girls each got lollipops from the teller (although Alena contested that they were in fact suckers), and then we went to DI to spend the money. Just kidding! We did go, but I was just hoping for a set of scriptures because pages of mine are falling out now. Nothing satisfying was there, but I did find those children readers of the New and Old Testament published by the church. I was quite thrilled because we had already finished the Book of Mormon reader and, as necessary as it is to read and reread the Book of Mormon, mommy can only take so much repetition.

Home again, home again, and now it's time for lunch! The girls immediately sat at the table to start work on the coloring book I also picked up and I put together some toasted tuna sandwiches and ramen. Sandwiches were scarfed down, the heat of the soup required a little more patience. I did some email checking and web browsing while they finished their lunches, then sent Alena to change out of her clothes. I know we did something together for a while here, because I remember it had to be put on hold for Cielo's nap, but I can't remember it now.

So, Cielo was lied down, which she was more than grateful for, and the girls popped in a movie they got from the library. Something called "animal tales" with footage of real animals with voices dubbed over to create a story. I sat down to work on Alena's school vest I am trying to knit. After about half an hour I was getting close to half way done (I've been working on it for about 4 days) when Alena came up because the movie was over and to my utter dismay, I discovered that I was making the vest way to small. aaarrrgg. And just finishing it of for Cielo was not an option because the vest has to be white and this was the only white yarn I had. A very well contained and bottled in hissy fit later, I grudgingly unraveled the whole thing to start over. Cielo called out to announce that her nap was done now.

It was about 2:30 now and time to let the dogs out again. I decided to make an outing of it and invited the girls to come outside to play. I was graciously denied so I got Cielo ready, and she accompanied me out. Oh! She's really going outside to play! Emi and Alena rushed to get their shoes on too.

The weather was good autumn weather to play in. After assuring that the dogs took care of their business, I played with the girls. They wanted to jump on the trampoline so I helped them up and then took the opportunity to go poop scooping. It had been a while. I love it when the three of them are on that trampoline squealing and cracking up. I hate it when I hear Cielo start to scream, and no one stops to heed her protests. I had to make Emi sit twice because she wouldn't stop jumping when Cielo started screaming. At the end of it all they were doing well. I played with the dogs a bit. Zorro doesn't do much, but I learned that Shortcake is a playful little thing. She chased the tennis ball and played a fierce tug-of-war. And when she tried to play with Zorro it was hilarious because she couldn't even hope to catch up with him, his being able to actually breathe through his nose and all.

Everyone was eventually ready to get out of the trampoline, and they ran around playing the little mermaid. Emi was King Triton, Alena was Ariel, and I was appointed Athena, Ariel's mother. Athena supervised Cielo throwing the ball for Shortcake. It was about 10 to four when I decided it was time to get in so that I could prepare for preparing dinner. I invited the girls to come swing for the last 10 minutes before we went in. I pushed Cielo and Emi together, while Alena was intrigued by a stick she had found. She scraped off the leaves pretending they were barnacles, and then made the bare stick into a flag by tying a napkin to it. Then I was instructed to stop pushing the girls whenever she waved the flag. We actually all had fun with the little game she made up. Cielo and Emi laughed and enjoyed the high flying swinging. It was a little past 4 when we all went inside, with the promise of a snack being the perfect bribe to make sure that the request went without protest.

Everyone had a banana and a red vine for a snack while I took care of some dishes and mulled over what to cook. I finally settled on taco salad while the girls entertained themselves with games and make believe. It was about 5 when it was time to feed the dogs and have Alena sit down to do her "homefun" (as defined by her school). I don't have to supervise her work because she can read it herself, ha ha! Literacy is a gift to everyone! Emi loves it when Alena does her homefun and seriously cries when we tell her that she didn't have any for the day. Alena reads the instructions out loud and Emi follows along through the whole thing. She is practically going to have already completed kindergarten by the time she gets there!

Cielo was 'cooking' in the play room in the meantime, she has no interest in math, and I set to work on dinner. About an hour later, everything was done, Nathan informed me that he would be home late tonight, and so we sat to eat.

The dinner was a hit with everyone, they enjoyed it very much! I think I took care of some dishes while they finished eating. When they were done we all went upstairs to the toy room. We scavenged through an "I Spy" book from the library while Cielo played on her own. We were all sprawled on the floor looking at the book trying to find things. Then I sat up to read some stories to Cielo. We were in the middle of one when we heard the front door opening, and that triggered screams of "DADDY!"

We all greeted him, and I had the girls put on their pjs while Nathan ate his dinner. It was nearing bed time, and we all gathered in the living room, I thought to say our prayer, but we ended up jamming to a new found favorite song of Nathan's. He pulled out his Uke to try to learn it and the girls each wanted a piece of the action. So he would play through the song once for each girl, and he would help them strum the uke while he fingered the chords. Whoever wasn't playing along was dancing on the coffee table. Emi had a nasty spill off of it, scraping her thigh, but she survived! Finally, it was indeed time for bed, so we had our prayer, goodnight kisses, song, drink of water, and lights out.

Another potty break for the dogs, and then they were allowed some house time...on their beds. And I sat myself down to write this entry. I've just learned that I've been at it for an hour and half! There goes my evening, hence why I hardly have time to make entries and never write ones like these. But I was in the mood today. And no, no, no, this was not a typical day in the life of, I promise! It was an exceptionally good day with an exceptionally good mood mom. And I felt like remembering it.

(picture was not taken today by the way!)