All Night

Jocelyn has a sleep-deprived EEG tomorrow. In an hour (10pm) I will wake her up and then keep her awake until 2:45pm tomorrow. Yay!! How exactly does one keep a one year-old awake that long? I don't know yet but I have some ideas to try. Baths, books, high energy snacks, walks outside. We'll see how it goes. Then we get to drive into Vancouver for the test...and keep her (and us) awake for the whole drive! Here goes....

Crazy, Busy July

 Last week was VBS (Vacation Bible School). My husband is part of the music team and I ran games this year and our oldest daughter goes to the preschool class. Each morning of last week we were up between 6:40 and 7:45 and at VBS by 8:30 (ish). Devotions at 9:15 (ish) and then the kids would come at 9:30 and it would all begin. It was so much fun and runnning games was the easiest VBS job I've done yet. (Although I did use a louder voice than normal so the kids could all hear me and my voice was a bit hoarse for the weekend.) We got home around noon each day and the my husband would leave for work. Monday I picked (and cleaned and boiled) elderberries in the afternoon with my daughters, Mama and sister. Tuesday and Wednesday afternoon we made jam. Thursday afternoon I caught up on housework. Friday after VBS my cousin from Australia stopped by and then I went to a Discovery Toy party (where I discovered that they make 3 fun and educational games that I had as a kid!). By 4 on Friday my whole family was wiped but we had a party to go to that evening. My adorable, sweet niece was having her first birthday party. We went, we enjoyed it but it felt like we were on auto-pilot. We kept finding ourselves sitting on a couch in the corner away from all the action, just kind of watching everything, not really engaging in conversation. So then we'd make ourselves get in there again. We ended up going to bed as soon as we got home. It was only 9pm! Saturday my husband had to work again so I spent the day cleaning and playing with my daughters. Then in the evening we had our youth BBQ. Sunday morning, Daniel led worship at our church, then we were on clean-up. Daniel finally got a break and spent the afternoon relaxing at home (with his guitar of course!) while the girls and I went hiking and swimming in Hope (Devil Mountain and Devil Lake) with my parents, Aussie cousin and another guy. It was a great afternoon. We came home tired but happy. After dinner, Daniel and I took the girls to Castle Fun Park for their first mini-golfing experience. Home again by 9 ish. End of crazy week.

This week is Creation Fest....

At Rest

Yesterday was an amazing day. i'm not going to start with yesterday though. I'm going to start with Monday.
Monday was not a good day. I woke up later than I was planning to so when I looked at all the work I  had to get done I felt a little overwhelmed. The whole day I felt like I was fighting a losing battle. By 4 pm I was exhausted, discouraged, cranky and snappy. I felt like the day had won the battle and looking around my house and in the mirror seemed evidence of that.
That night before bed I made a decision. Even though there was still a lot of housework to do, I decided that Tuesday was going to be a good day. Then I remembered that on Sunday night I had decided that Monday was going to be a good day; full of accomplishments, so I put a clarifier on my 'good' for Tuesday. I said to myself, "Tomorrow will be a good day. I'll just spend it relaxing and being with my kids."
And you know, it was a good day. Even better than expected.

I woke up early (well I woke up early on Monday too so I could make Daniel lunch but then I went back to bed!) and did a workout. Jocelyn woke up just as I was ending it. We had some quality one-on-one time before Shaelynn woke up and then the three of us took my sister out for a birthday breakfast. We spent over an hour at the restaurant and then took our time coming home. We checked the mail and mailed some letters (Holly...). Once back home I layed Jocelyn down for a nap and turned on Diego for Shaelynn and did some dishes. Then we went to a magic show (followed by some reading time while we waited for the facepainter to arrive) at the library. We stayed at the library for 2 hours. And somehow after that, while Jocelyn napped again, I managed to clean the whole house and do laundry while playing with Shaelynn. My husband came home to a clean house and dinner on the table. I love it when that happens. Then I headed for the pool with a friend and had a great workout. When I came home, Daniel and I got the kids in bed and then spent some (much needed) time together.
Today is story time in the park and grocery shopping. Sounds like another good day!