Hi friends! I hope you had an enjoyable weekend! This was Jamie’s monthly weekend to drill with the Reserves, but he was home by dinner each night, and the girls and I had plenty to get into while he was working. I’m really proud of him and how hard he works to provide for us. I’m excited to share more about his transition from Active duty to the Reserves in a future post!
Today I have my annual July “Day in the Life” post to share, which makes this my fifth (!) year in a row to share one! I started these semi-annual posts (winter and summer) back in 2014 after being inspired by the videos that my dad created for/about us when we were infants. I only intended to do one, but I loved it so much that I just kept rolling with it! If you read these posts consecutively, you’d literally watch my girls grow from infants to the wild chicks they are now. 😉
I selected Friday to do this post simply because I lacked the motivation prior in the week to do it. Every day I’d wake up and think “Okay, I’ll document today”, but admittedly I was in a pretty solid funk last week (combination of trying but failing to juggle a bunch of different things + figuring out how to meticulously keep an eye on and care for Teddy as he recovers from back surgery).
But alas! I woke up feeling in my groove Friday and snapped away through the day. Sit back and see how our summery Friday unfolded. 🙂
My alarm went off at 4:20 a.m., so I hit it off and quickly started getting ready for my 5 a.m. Orangetheory Fitness class. While I was getting ready, my sister (who is 8 hours ahead of us) accidentally called me, so I decided to call her back and chat with her during my 12ish minute drive to the gym. Talking with her always helps mentally wake me up!
By 6 o’clock I was back in the car and headed for my next stop on the way home…
… Dunkin Donuts! I occasionally grab a half dozen doughnuts on Friday mornings after class to surprise the girls with, so I ran in, ran out, and headed home with a treat. The DeSpains love doughnuts.
When I came in, I could hear that Hadley was already awake and chatting with Jamie in the kitchen.
Usually I wait to eat breakfast until after I’ve showered off and gotten ready for the day, but seeing Jamie and Hadley sit down to eat was too sweet of a breakfast date to pass up.
Jamie had given Teddy his medications and taken him out prior to me getting home, so I was happy to see him up and moving around the kitchen.
Sadie was still sleeping (about 6:50 by this point), so I ran to grab a quick shower after I ate. Teddy is always my little shadow and chilled out where he usually does when I’m in the bathroom: on the carpet in my closet.
Once I got ready, I came out to see that Sadie was awake and already digging into her pink doughnut.
Jamie has gotten into a much-appreciated routine where he unloads the dishwasher before he leaves for work (we run it every night), and this helps me so much in the mornings.
At 7:30 he gave hugs and kisses and was out the door.
While the girls bopped around the house, I grabbed the bedding off of our bed as well as everyone’s laundry to start my daily morning load (except today it was two loads because of the sheets).
Once the laundry was going, I made some coffee and sat down in the living room, put on a show for the girls, and picked out a few things to purchase from the Nordstrom sale (it was finally open to the public!) I ended up with , , and . I wanted to buy so many other pieces but dug deep and stuck to what I “needed”. Ah.
I ended up turning off the TV once I was finished shopping and told the girls to go color, play with toys, etc. I had a feeling we weren’t going to get out that day, so I wanted them to go find something to get into for the morning. I chopped up some strawberries that I’d been meaning to cut all week, and then the girls ate close to half of the container as a snack.
I continued picking up around the house while I talked to my best friend Amberlee and then my mom. I swear that the only way I’m capable of deep cleaning my house is to talk on the phone and stay distracted while I’m doing it. 😉 While Amberlee and I were on the phone, we made spontaneous plans to meet at the McDonald’s around the corner for lunch and indoor playtime.
Once the bedding was dry, I tossed it back in my room to put back on the bed later (weird fact about me: I hate putting sheets and bedding back on the bed by myself and will always wait for Jamie to split the chore with me.) Also, we’ve been sleeping with these makeshift “rails” since Teddy’s surgery so that he can’t quickly hop out of bed in the middle of the night (which we don’t anticipate him doing but want to be 110% sure it doesn’t happen!)
I got the girls dressed and ready to go, and we started moving our way out the door!
I’m always the last one to get ready, so the girls played in the living room with some of Jamie’s childhood legos while they waited.
I obviously had no one to impress, so I threw my air-dried hair up, put on my comfiest t-shirt (from our beloved Varsity in Manhattan), and some Tempos and was out the door!
On our way to McDonald’s, we jammed out to Hadley’s favorite new song by Hillsong, “Who You Say I Am”. She learned the chorus really fast a few weeks ago and asks for it as soon as we get in the car. Even Sadie has started saying “Favorite song pwease!”
I ordered what I always get at McDonald’s: their crispy (or grilled) southwest chicken salad. Have you had it??? It is so flavorful, filling, and fairly low-cal!
Our kids played hard for a little over an hour while Amberlee and I hung nearby and discussed her upcoming 30th birthday weekend plans (or lack thereof since she didn’t know what they were doing but I certainly did – but played stupid – since there were going to be lots of surprises!)
We got home around 12:30 and slowly started getting ready for nap time.
I heard Hadley crying while I was getting ready to put Sadie down for her nap, so I hit my video on to figure out what was up. I knew it was surely a low-key crisis.
And here we are smiling from ear to ear that she found her Little People! Moms are so annoying for cleaning up toys and “misplacing them”. 😉
Once the girls were down, I made some homemade pizza dough after getting the go-ahead to do so. During breakfast Jamie and I were trying to decide whether we wanted to eat homemade pizza at home for dinner and then go walk around our local outdoor mall that night (and let the girls play in the dancing water) or simply eat dinner at one of the restaurants there. Jamie texted me at some point with the final consensus. #heissopunny
Once I set the dough to rise, I sat down to plow through my blogging checklist of things that needed to get done, but I could feel myself hitting that afternoon slump. I got up to make a cup of coffee and then sat back down to work work work.
Hadley woke up around 2:30ish, and since I was still working, I gave her permission to pick out her own snack. I heard come commotion and hopped up to find her dishing out 10+ iced animal cookies for both her and Sadie. Uhhh, good try, sister.
Sadie woke up soon after Hadley, so after they ate their snack, I set them up to watch The Little Mermaid on the Kindle (Sadie’s request).
I set a mental timer to wrap up blogging at 3:30, then got up to go through the mail. The girls’ passports arrived in 18 days from the time we applied for them. Talk about speedy… and really darn precious!
Both of my parents were off of work on Friday, so earlier in the day I’d invited them to join us for homemade pizza if they’d like. My mom called around 4 to say they’d be joining us, so I told them to come over around 5. I put away laundry and then told the girls to grab stools and help me get our pizzas rolled out and fixed up!
I love having this island to cook and bake with them at. They’re seemingly much less “destructive” of what we’re making when we’re all in a circle instead of side by side at a counter.
We baked two pizzas that were ready just in time for Grandma and Jamie to get here. My dad had been working outside at their house on a deck project that was taking longer than expected, so last minute he told my mom that he wouldn’t be able to make it over to our house. No big deal.
As soon as we finished up pizza, I got a text from my dad saying that he would be over in 15 minutes. He didn’t know that we had plans to go to the outdoor mall, so we decided to stay back and hang with him and then hit the neighborhood pool afterwards. The girls were so pumped to see him as always, and so was Teddy! He loves Grandpa, and Grandpa loves him!
My dad has the funniest, quirkiest sense of dry humor, so when he showed up, he had a cake in his hands! No one knew why until he smiled and said that it was for my half birthday (which was the day prior). He used to buy “half cakes” from the bakery all of the time when we were kids, and for some reason the idea struck him that it was my half birthday and that he should get a cake. He apologized that they were out of half cakes, but obviously the full chocolate cake was just fine. 😉 The thought of all of this really made me smile. He is a good one.
After we ate cake, we threw on our suits and headed a couple of streets over to the pool! There was actually a nice breeze that night, so my parents thoroughly enjoyed lounging in chairs beside the pool while the four of us swam. It was such a beautiful night.
As we were all drying off around 7, my parents asked if the girls wanted to come spend the night at their house. They’ve never spent the night with grandparents for no reason before, so Jamie and I were really taken back because we’ve never stayed in our own house without kids before. The girls said they wanted to, so we went home to throw clothes and toothbrushes in a bag, and then sent them on their way!
We considered going out to grab a drink and have a spontaneous date night, but we’re kind of homebodies past 7pm (LOL), so we poured some wine, watched What Would You Do?, and called it a night at an embarrassingly early time – and neither of us hated it. Ha. We loved having a quiet night, but I’d be lying if I said that we didn’t miss the pitter patter of their little feet and having two babes to check on and kiss goodnight one more time when we shut off all the lights.
Sometimes days with no plans turn out to be some of the best because you’re able to say “yes” to everything that comes your way. 🙂 Definitely the case with this particular day!
Want to see previous “Day in the Life” posts? They are so precious to me!
February 2015: Hadley was 15 months
August 2015: Hadley was 20 months
January 2016: Hadley was newly 2 and I was six months pregnant with Sadie (Jamie was also deployed)
July 2016 (weekend edition): Hadley was 2.5 and Sadie was three months
January 2017: Hadley was 3 and Sadie was nine months
July 2017: Hadley was getting close to 4 and Sadie was 15 months
January 2018: Hadley was newly 4 and Sadie was almost 2
As seen in this post:
Hi! I’m Erica, and I absolutely adore sharing my life on this website with you! I come here almost daily to blab about all of the things related to being a regular wife and mother in today’s ever-evolving society. I share about our new home, what’s on our kitchen table, what we’re hanging in our closets, where we’re traveling to next, my crazy 5 a.m. work outs, how I make time for girlfriends, our faith, and much more. We always have a lot of balls in the air and somewhat thrive on the chaos. I believe in the power of story-telling as a form of inspiration and entertainment, so I’m here to do both! I was born and raised in north Alabama and recently re-planted roots here again after my husband transitioned out of the Army (he is now in the Reserve and it’s going so well!) I’m a super proud mom to three little girls (ages 7, 4, and 1) who seem to be the stars of the show around here (for good reason – they’re pretty great!) I’m so glad you found me and are here reading! I hope we can get to know each other here on the blog as well as Facebook and/or Instagram. xoxo