A Day in the Pieper Life

6:15am- I'm woken up by Ellie shrieking happily in bed. She is instantly forgiven when I see her smiling face in the dark. While I feed her I say my morning prayers and notice the light coming through the window. I grab my camera and decide to photograph our day.

6:40am- Change Ellie's diaper and get her dressed. Take down diapers that were hung to dry and fold and put away. I hear J make noises in his room but he must be staying put until his alarm beeps.

6:55am- J's alarm beeps and I go into his room to say good morning and open his window. "The sun is waking up!" Then it is time for breakfast. J gets out a bowl and spoon and asks for cereal. I start water boiling on the stove for my (and J's eventual) oatmeal. I unload the dishwasher while I wait for the oatmeal. Joseph leaves unusually early for work to drive to a client site.

7:15am- Oatmeal is finished and J wants some too (moms always know). His goes in the freezer to cool off. He puts his dishes away in his cupboard while he waits. After eating I load the breakfast dishes in the dishwasher.

7:35am- Ellie goes down for a nap. J helps me make the bed. He plays Legos while I get ready for the day.

7:50am- I join J playing Legos. We build a train and a huge tower.

8:30am- Ellie wakes up and joins us in J's room to play. We listen and sing along to primary songs. We clean up the Legos and play cars instead.

9:00am- I feed Ellie and discuss the day with J.

9:30am- We decide that it is too cold to play outside so he settles for fingerpainting. We check on his pet snail and caterpillar.

9:45am- Trucks! (I love how he lines them up because they are all friends.)

10:00am- Ellie goes down for her second nap.

10:05am- Bananas for snack time. I clean the kitchen while J goes to play. I'm called in for an emergency intervention between McQueen and the ambulance. Someone was pushing and would not say sorry. We talked through things and all parties were satisfied with the results.

10:45am- I finished cleaning and join J to play. He asks for the marching song. We march around his room to "The Saints Go Marching In" on repeat about 100 times. Workout for the day, check! J gets tired out too and asks to wrestle(rest) and read in bed. We read Mercy Watson to the Rescue.

11:45am- Ellie wakes up and I feed her.

12:30pm- Lunchtime. J makes his own peanut butter sandwich, and even put the jars back in the fridge when he was done. And I only saw him lick the knife once!

12:45pm- We take our lunch and a blanket outside and have a picnic in the backyard.

1:00pm- I load the lunch dishes in the dishwasher while J hangs upside down on a chair. (He's eating second lunch inside. This boy is always hungry). I vacuum the living room while the kids sit at the table. Over the hum of the vacuum, I hear screaming and look over. Sure enough, they are just seeing who is louder.

1:20pm- Ellie goes down for her afternoon nap.

1:30pm- Start nap time routine. We clean up toys. Read 2 books on the couch. J picks 1 scripture story. J asks to say a prayer. "Thank you for Mercy Watson..." (the pig from his book).

2:00pm- J is finally in bed.

2:01pm- Both kids are sleeping and the countdown begins. I run to my room and start scripture study. Today I'm listening to and studying Elder Holland's talk, "Are We Not All Beggars?"

3:00pm- I start to outline my paper for my Marriage and Family class.

3:15pm- Ellie wakes up. I feed her while checking my email and doing Pinecone surveys. I make $6 answering survey questions about coffee. I open Lightroom and work on editing pictures.

4:00pm- J wakes up. We get suited up and in the stroller for a quick walk to the library.

5:00pm- We get home from the library. I kick J's cup of Cheerios from the stroller ride all over the living room I just vacuumed earlier. I laugh and help J clean them up. I try to put Ellie down for a nap but she is not interested. 

She goes in the high chair to watch J and I make dinner. Tonight it is scrambled eggs and hash browns (quick and easy because Joseph is still at work). J helps  by opening up the egg carton and mixing the raw eggs with the few that were hard boiled and set aside. I play egg roulette to make scrambled eggs. We eat and I clean up dinner and start the dishwasher.

6:00pm- I feed Ellie and read J from the stack of new library books. 

6:45pm- Joseph gets home. Ellie is over-tired and so I go to her room to sing and cuddle her to sleep. The boys play with the train set and then chase each other around the house. Ellie is so tired, she falls right to sleep amid the loud fun.

7:00pm- Bedtime routine for J.

7:30pm- J is asleep in bed.

THE END