Today IS the day

Today IS the day!

Why does it always feel so momentous when we come back to something after a long break?  I love Everyday Creative and being creative each day.  My family and the simple things in life are my love and joy.  A friend of mine mentioned how very much she missed reading my blog White House 3 recently.  You see, I’ve been treating Facebook like my little online journal for the last four years, and it hasn’t been nearly as fulfilling nor is it as easy to look through with all the junk.  So much junk in the way of the seeing the most interesting parts and memories.  There was also the sad truth that the last three years have been all with with very little play as we’ve had some financial difficulties needing a lot of hustle to keep us fed.  That fog is lifting with our new retail business doing a good first year and photography continuing to have great clients new and old.

So today I begin again, here on Everyday Creative, because we are creative folks and we get ever more creative in life and general craftiness as the kids get older.  Pretty sure our 8 year old, Maddie, is on her way to being a prolific artist and creative problem solver with her gift for memory.  As long as there is not a number to remember!  Today is Saturday.  It started off with an extra hour of sleep my body was desperately craving followed by an hour reading.  We have a cuddle tradition on any morning we are up without having to immediately jump into getting ready.  My bed.  All five of us!  Cuddles, talking and the inevitable tickle war commence.  This morning there was a twins head on each of my shoulders with their bodies snuggled into me and Blake had an arm across me on his sisters shoulder.  Guy got our 5 year old tornado named Landon which probably wasn’t fair since he is a bit sick.

A bit earlier Maddie asked me to teach her how to do gymnastics.  Uhmmm, yeah no.  My mind was filled with visions of trying to teach cartwheels and back bends with her landing on her head.  By the time I got downstairs after my leisurely shower she was sitting in a zen meditation position and remembered it was yoga she really wanted to learn.   Sweet!  This I can teach her and have been wanting to do more of anyway.  Now I just need to convince her to get up at 6:20 am each morning to do it with me.

Blake (the other twin 8 year old) was so excited to have me home this morning.  His favorite thing is to bond over a good game and loves the Deluxe version of Machi Koro played with pirate doubloons.  Maddie reluctantly agreed to play with us and the game was on.  Landon watches because while he is a crazy smart 5 year old able to strategicly play, he is emotionally very 5 with crying meltdowns when he has to pay someone money or loses.  He loves watching though and changing who he is rooting for based on how close he thinks they are to winning.

We also listened to Pandora all morning starting with our game.  The moment Adele’s song Hello came on…  The game stopped…  All must be quiet…  (according to Maddie with a dramatic hand gesture)  The singing with drama commenced while I photographed Maddie and Landon…   Blake waited with frustration mounting for the game to get our attention again.  Oh the moments that make life so very interesting and entertaining.

Blake and I have a similar game style and usually one of us wins.  Today Maddie lucked out with perfect rolls that hit her randome money making cards.  She won even after Blake took half her money 3 rolls in a row!

Blake took over the camera for a minute to capture a few images with me in them.  I’m a huge advocate of moms getting into the pictures so super excited they are finally old enough to learn how to focus and take a picture!!!  The coolest part is that this was all before 11:30 am with the day only getting better from there.  We worked on Blake’s Wolf rank requirements in Cub Scouts for a while.  Maddie and Landon made lunch with the kids cleaning it all up too.  I got to work on a photography class I’m taking then it was off to switch places at our retail store, Cariloha North Hills, where I have had a great day with lots of fun and interesting customers with good sales (yay for feeding the family).  In less then an hour I’ll be home to get some evening snuggles, read the scriptures with the kids, say family prayers, send off my little chickens to bed and watch a great Australian show with my Aussie Guy and the huge container of my favorite Cold Stone ice cream.  I only eat a small amount each sitting so mine lasts for a good week where my moms and Guy’s are usually gone in 1-2 days.  Poor them