First Day of School

Today is the first day of our academic year schedule, as Daniel and Peter have joined their older siblings at school. Happy first day! Peter walked and Daniel rode his bike to the bus stop. I rode up with Katharine in the trailer. Daniel hid his bike behind a bush and they got in line.

The bus was there right on schedule at 8:42. BYE!

And then I biked with Katharine over to the school so we could take a picture of them entering the school on "the red carpet". I found Peter standing in his class line and him come stand on the carpet for a pic. I assumed that when his class entered the building, it would be too busy with parents and children for me to see him, and I was correct. 

I walked around to find Daniel but he wasn't there. He went into the school for breakfast. So then K and I started to get ready to go back home, when we saw her friend Scarlett. I invited her to come over to play and that worked for her mom so yay, Kat has a friend today!

They are a cute little duo.

So, with this beginning of the school year, these past few weeks I have looked things over and have planned out for my new schedule to be for me to give my mornings to my children, and then when they get home from school, that's when I take my break for exercise. So after Lily got home today, I took a ride. It was quite warm (low 90s) but it was great, the sky was so blue! It was beautiful. 

I biked to the ruins. I got across the creek tonight in the place by the ruins where I've been trying to make some piles of rocks for me to hop over across. 

Today I finally made it and cheered for myself at my victory, and I didn't fall in and get my shoes wet. It helps a little bit that the creek water is low as we approach the end of summer weather. Sigh, I love the canyon though. It's my happy place.

Corey takes carpool MWThF, Tuesdays we both go to the temple (me usually at 5am) and Corey stays home from work that day so I have a car to run any errands or take care of appointments. Daniel and Owen both have soccer, O on Tuesday nights, Daniel on Thursday, and Owen also has trumpet on Thursdays. Wednesday is YW. Another part of our new schedule per Corey's request: sit down dinners. Thanks to Lily for helping that happen tonight.

I've planned for the girls to each take a night to help me out: L - Monday Mexican, Sophi Tues Asian, Natalie Thursday Potato Bar or leftovers, I do Wednesday, and they also have a younger brother help them out with setting the table: Peter Monday, Daniel Tues (before soccer) and Owen Thursday. So those are a few ideal goals for now, we'll figure out the other days later. Baby steps. Wednesday is YW so that's an early dinner night and I'm taking that one. We asked the kids about school and Natalie was making really silly expressions as she reacted to everyone's tales of their day.

They are funny. 

Only 7 kids around the table, such a small group. Monday is FHE (though I'm going to try to persuade Corey to move that to Sundays). Tonight we had a paper airplane contest. Corey showing a video on the side room tv for people to follow. 

Ready to launch. 

Corey made a few targets with the hockey goals. Daniel's planes did the best. 

No prize other than bragging rights. And while they were making their planes, I was cleaning up the kitchen and trying to do laundry. I say trying, cause both of our machines are having issued. The washing machine does not for it's life want to spin the clothes. It will be unbalance and do a "Ub" code, then sometimes if the code doesn't stop it, it will start a rinse and spin cycle again. Sometimes a load of wash will still be going after 2 hours and not be finished cause it's not spinning and just keeps rinsing and trying again. So that was what it was doing tonight when I was washing, thus I tried but am probably going to just pause it until morning. If I do catch it when it is unbalance (sign for that is a big thunderous rattling from the laundry room) then I'll come up, hit power to turn it off, then turn it on, put it on spin cycle, reach in and try to balance it out again, start, it will say "21" minutes, and at minute 18, I'll know if it's still unbalance. Then I have to go stop it again, rebalance it, and try the spin cycle again. Other methods are to hang all the clothes in our shower or out our bedroom deck until morning. It's almost making me want to cry, the constant interruption to any task I'm doing to go stop it so doesn't start the rinse cycle again. Frustrating to be trying to clean the clothes but not be able to clean the clothes. I feel like I'm damned and unable to progress/move forward with life. I really need to wash towels, but it can't handle towels. It doesn't like it if the kids loads have jeans or hoodies. The boys always have jeans, and the girls and jeans and hoodies, so yeah, it's been a struggle for the past few months. I need to dry some clothes too, but I can't leave the dryer on at night, cause it doesn't turn off. So I either need to wait until morning or set an alarm for an hour to turn it off. When it does it's "3C" code, it will just go all night. When it used to do 3C, it did room temp air, so it took several hours for the clothes to dry. Right now a good thing is that it is blowing heat for the first hour. What I've been doing lately is opening the door (that's the only way to turn it off) and leaving the door open when I power it on, then I'll select the cycle, press start, and then it will blink "dc" for "hey dummy the door needs to be closed" and then I close it, and it still flashes "dc" but then I press "start" and it will be "on" with heat until the time of the cycle ends, then it flashes 3C as it continues to spin and blow neutral air. I was texting Corey about getting new machines today, cause these machines are driving me crazy and this needs to stop. I can't go on like this.

But the first day of school routine was good. I have alarms set for different things. Every evening after dinner, I will also be chopping veggies and making Corey's breakfast in prep for when he has carpool mornings. We don't even need to do carpool - Lily could just take Owen and Natalie when she and Sophi leave, but Corey said we should contribute to the good of the neighborhood, so that's ok. It will be good for him to be able to get out the door and start his work day early and come home early for dinner. AND we'll do scriptures earlier and go to bed earlier too! I know we could do that of our own free will, but it helps to have an obligation to make sure we don't get lazy about it. 10 pm is the new bedtime goal, but it's past that cause I'm trying to help the washer spin. I'm going to go power it off now though and go to bed, I'll try to finish a few loads again tomorrow.