The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Mother

Honestly, in my imperfect life, not a day goes by that I don't forget something. I try to be an organized, working mom, with well established routines and I do, to some degree. I've never been great at keeping up with a calendar or planner. I have bought all styles, from a pretty Vera Bradley to a wonderful leather one. I keep up for a week or two but then...nada, blank pages stay blank. I find for me, the only calendar I do any good at, is my dry erase, magnetic one in the kitchen. Even then, I am finding with our recent addition of track for Bailey and gymnastics for the girls, it's just not detailed enough. My principal gave me a lovely suggestion of putting not only the event, but who was picking up/dropping off and what was planned for dinner that night. It sounds like a great plan...but would I stick to it? It would have been handy on Monday when both John and my mom went to pick up Bailey from track. The confusion caused a bit of commotion that could have be...

It's amazing how many moments and memories get packed into these so-called ordinary weeks of our life. Feels like weeks have past since my last post, yet it's only been 11 days! Some days were simple, some we packed full of extraordinary... Valentine's day was filled with love and hearts!  I started the kids day with our tradition of pink pancakes!  They each also got a little treat bucket or bag at their spot at the kitchen table, another family tradition. At school, Jonas and I were both part of another tradition, the wedding of the letter Q and U...a super cute tradition on Valentine's Day at Carson Elementary.  Jonas was the letter Z wedding guest and I was their pianist!!  Notice the bride in the background!? It was a busy afternoon of track for Bailey (yes he joined the track team for distance running!!  He qualified for the 1st meet with a 2:55 800 meter run!) and the girls had gymnastics.   John was out of town on a roun...

We had a lovely and productive afternoon. I left school in time to pick up Bailey from middle school. I had plans to finish laundry and help the little ones get homework and Valentine's done. Lorelei was a champ! She buzzed right through her homework...about 6 pages of letter and number work. Then she hopped right into decorating her Valentine box and finished off by completing all of he Valentine's in one sitting!! I was piddling around the kitchen all the while. Being that it was Fat Tuesday we celebrated by having pancakes...Pancake Tuesday, and the kids love breakfast for dinner. It was fun and filling. The kids ate well and were helpful in the kitchen, too. After dinner, they packed up their own lunches. On Wednesday, I have morning duty and prepping 5 lunches is hard to do and still make it out of the house on time. When we remember and stay organized, we make them the night before. It's the little things like that and laying out clothes the night befo...

I just had an "A ha" moment. I follow a lot of blogs and they frequently talk about living in the moment, savoring the days, capturing life's little and big moments. But tonight as I spent 2 1/2 hours on various projects and homework, I neglected other things like making dinner. This weekend was amazing, filled with hockey games, a birthday party and an impromptu trip to Ikea, but because of these moments, reality of life was neglected...meaning projects that should have been worked on, laundry that should have been finished and cleaning and organizing that should have been done. So my "A ha" moment...you can't live life, while living life! In other words something has to give. I can't get the day to day things done and go to hockey games. It's not a balancing act, there is no multitasking...again, something has to give. Maybe it's just me, maybe these other blogging mom's can do it all, I can't, even with the help of the kids and...