Morning, Afternoon, and Night

Emmy is in a little preschool group. Two other moms and I take turns hosting "preschool" at our house on Thursday mornings. It's been good for Emmy to start making friends. She still talks a lot about Charlotte, Grace, and Marlee from our Las Vegas days. A couple times a month we go to "music makers" at the church and do some music/song activities and story time. Other than that, we are mostly at home...or at Trader Joe's or Target. Emmy likes to clean the sink and do the dishes lately.

She can be very particular. Lately she insists on wearing two different shoes, usually one on the wrong foot. On this morning, she really wanted two different bowls of cereal. As long as it doesn't cause too much extra work or trouble, I try to oblige.

Emmy knows when she wakes up from her nap Jansen and Natalie will probably be home from school. This morning she was watching Team Umizoomi and I heard a character on the show say, "Do you have a best friend?" And then Emmy answered, "Jansen and Natalie." It was so sweet. She likes to give them big hugs when they get off the bus.

Since they aren't home till almost 4, evenings can feel a little busy, mostly because they also need some time to just play. Luckily homework doesn't take too long.

Nate hasn't been home to eat dinner with us any night this week. I don't say this to complain, but it helps me remember the details of certain periods of our life and how it "really" was when I write it down. I had just cleaned up dinner one night, we had a short Family Home Evening (which I am terrible at doing usually if Nate's not home), and then we made another mess as we made pumpkin pie milkshakes. 

When we can, I like to start bedtime routine early. It gives us time to get bathed, read, sometimes watch Doc McStuffins, have the kids play in their rooms, and generally wind down. 

It's been hard having the kids' bedtime later than we're used to. I feel like there's not much time after they go to sleep to unwind myself or spend some time with Nate. After he gets home he warms up dinner, helps with the kids, and then studies till he's too tired to keep going. Before we know it, it's 11pm or later. I almost always make time to read and have some hot chocolate though. :)