Natalie's Scrapbook

Today I took care of another goal priority. I got Natalie's scrapbook done! Not a huge important thing to me, but it looks from the smile on this little girls face that it is pretty important to her -

Two down, two to go...

I think I'll try to do Owen's and Daniel's while I've got it on my mind and while I have all the papers and supplies out to do it. Even though they aren't nagging for it and don't feel slighted at the moment. Natalie got the glittery paper for her cover initial too.

Some other great things I've gotten done the past 24 hours - showing some of things I get done on a good day... I continue to get up at 6 to exercise (and stretch!) everyday. I've been keeping on top of tracking our family finances, doing pretty good at keeping the blog updated here this month and last month. (...yes, I've still got posts to catch up on over the summer... I think the worst behind I am is June) Yesterday I: raked pine needles in the backyard and filled up both garbages and got them out before the garbage truck came. Yesterday I saw the full moon set, lovely. I fixed Wesley's costume at 5:30 am before he hand to leave for school, then exercised. I cleaned off a black desk downstairs so Natalie has a place to draw while I clean down there. I also mopped the kitchen. It's been a good week. With my EJC group, one of the ladies shared that she's been tracking her WINS since January, and I thought that was something I could do, so I'm focusing on that this week.

I go back and forth between feeling like I'm super on top of it - to feeling like our family is crazy and we have no structure. Holly has a saying "Either you run the day or the day runs you..." I think I could change that to "Either you run your family or your family runs you..." I've gotten good at managing myself, but not so good at managing all my unwilling family members. This evening was kinda nuts - my day was good enough through just before the kids' coming home - Owen and Daniel were taking a nap, I picked up Sophi from school and then Corey picked her up for her violin lesson, then Wesley had a halloween dance concert tonight and Corey stayed out there to bring him home after it was done - around 8:30. I knew Corey's car didn't have enough room for everyone that had stayed after school. So I ran out there to pick up some of the kids. I brought home Melodie, Sophi adn Hyrum. Melodie had wanted to go to a friends house, but forgot once she got in the car, and didn't remember til I'd brought her all the way home "Can you take me back out to Skyline?" (cause we only had one car at home, the van)  I wasn't willing to, cause that was stupid, we just came from there! Lucky for her Ethan got home just then from his sax lesson in Orem. ...which said lesson he slept though - he was tired after driving down there, got there early at 4 (lesson was at 4:30) so he left the car on with the air on "cause it was hot" as he took a 20 min nap (that's a big no no, isn't it?) but he ended up sleeping through the lesson cause his phone died cause it wasn't charged so his alarm didn't go off... he woke up 90 minutes later at 5:30 - the car in idle that whole freaking time, ran in for a minute to get 10 min of instruction, and then came home. So that was a waste of money for his lesson and gas, and the car said "0 miles until empty" on the meter when he woke up cause it was almost on empty anyway... luckily it died as he pulled into the gas station and he was able to coast to the gas meter. And I'm hearing all this and shaking my head at all the easy things they could have done to plan or be ready ...charge your phone... fill up the car before it gets that empty... It's like living with the foolish virgins all the time who are scrambling around panicked last minute cause they're out of oil and didn't think to prepare until the moment of... And then Corey ended up taking a trip home to set up chairs at the church for the Chili cook off tomorrow- which if I had known/ about, could have saved me having to take a trip out there, saving time and gas money. And since I was gone taking that trip, when I got back the house was in chaos with a mess in the kitchen and stuff - shoes, jackets, backpacks everywhere on the floor. But I had a stake meeting to go to at 7 and so I begged Abi to be the mother while I was gone and create some order in the mess I was leaving behind with her. Sophi was her helper, and they did create order, the house looked great when I got home, they are angels. So, when I got back it felt calm again, thus why I was able to sit and finish Natalie's scrapbook. I don't know if that all made any sense, but lesson of the evening is: if we want life to look and feel less crazy, we need to plan, coordinate, and check in with each other.