1. Friday night has been family movie night for years. We eat pizza in the basement while watching a movie together. Lately it's been Costco, Little Caesar's, or Domino's rather than the homemade pizza or yore--gasp, I know, but a labor-cost analysis on my part revealed that buying pizza with a coupon is close enough to the price of ingredients for our homemade pizzas to make the work much less inspiring. Probably less healthy, but oh-so-easy! Family movie night is a staple in our house.
2. Kids sleepovers: on non-school nights, the kids are allowed to have sleepovers in each others' rooms. Mostly we don't want Jay keeping Rose up till all hours of the night on school nights because Rose NEEDS all 11-12 hours of sleep to function and Jay only needs 8-9. Amber has started joining in more and more with the big kids' activities and every now and then I find her snuggled up in the top bunk with Rose, even on a school night. But it's so cute that their shorter sleep time is bearable.
3. Saturday morning: the kids wake up and watch three cartoons while Jeff reads and I slowly peel myself out of bed. Then breakfast and Jeff and I take turns running. The kids play, then we usually try to do some sort of work around the house (although that does not happen every Saturday).
Up, up, and over! Saturday mornings are for playing.
Amber's hair still only really grows in one forelock clump right on top. It's awesome.
Amber is currently more than half of Rose's weight, so it's quite a feat for Rose to lug her around piggy-back style.
An example of a semi-rare Saturday project: Jeff assembled these Ikea shelves in the garage and later in the week I stocked them with our slowly growing pantry food storage. Right now we save $20 per month towards food storage, and every 12-18 months or so we use those savings. This year we managed to get these shelves and that blue water barrel. I normally get super overwhelmed about food storage, so this way I only have to think about it once per year, aside from keeping the pantry well-stocked.
4. Saturday evenings are for pancakes at Grampa Dan's house with the cousins. It gets loud and wild fast with 6 kids ages 7 and under in one room. We haven't gotten to do as much with the local cousins this winter so any time they get together feels like a party.
These trampoline pictures were taken at our house this week. It was 40 degrees outside and snow was still melting, but the kids thought it felt like short sleeve barefoot weather, so out to the tramp they went.
Amber (2), Layne (4), Rose (6), Tate (3)
5. Sunday mornings are long this year since we have afternoon church at 1pm.
The kids like to look at their personal project life binders. Amber kept saying "cute!" while looking at baby pictures of herself.
Rose kept saying "I remember that! I remember that!"
Last week it was actually sunny and warm enough to go on a Sunday morning family walk! So we strolled a mile around the high school block while the kids galloped along in the sunshine.
That blue sky was such a welcome change to the grayness.
6. Sunday mid-morning means get ready for church and eat lunch. Every time I see my kids all polished and dressed up for church, I seem to attempt taking pictures of them. I guess it's a good thing I keep on trying, because I have success very infrequently.
Two weeks ago, Rose did her own hair and both sisters wore headband bows to church.
Rose was proud of doing her own hair.
Jay did his own hair all by himself too.
And the group shot was too sunny.
7. Drive to church: 17-20 minutes. Half of the Sundays, Jeff goes early to ward council. He rides his bike to the church in good weather since we only have one car. In bad weather, he drives our van to the church then drives home to pick us up in time for church.
Playing peek-a-boo on the way to church on February 5th.
I love it when Rose surprises herself and reads a new book. It's like she forgets that she can read lots of words now, and while she's looking at pictures suddenly the words jump out at her. She read this picture book on the way to church and flashed her signature Rose-grin in pleasure.
8. Sunday night crepes. This tradition has popped up again in the past month. In the past Jeff has made Sunday lunch crepes, but then I said if he's going to cook, why not cook them for dinner so we both don't have to cook in the same day. His new crepe pans make the process quite efficient.
Post-crepe messy faces
9. Monday morning things reset to weekday status. Jeff leaves for work before 6:30am and the kids dogpile me till I get up. Then it's a normal school day, with piano practicing and hair-doing and shoe-tying.
A good morning selfie.
Amber likes to do her own hair sometimes too.
I drop Jay and Rose off at school by 8:50am and the week has officially begun again.
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