The New Place and The Routine

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On November 16th, 2009, Jed, Taggert, Brigham, Ammon & I began renting the first floor of a house, along with the unfinished basement and the 2 car garage. The picture shows all the rooms we've got, except for Taggert's room. (The reasons I didn't include his room are two-fold: He was napping when I snapped these pictures, and fitting all our stuff in this place has resulted in his room--which is at least twice the size of his old room--being half-filled with boxes and the stuff we don't want to get rid of but can't store anywhere else.) So, starting at the top-left, we have a pantry room with lots of storage room for food, one wall of our bedroom, the dining/library/computer/shelves and boxes room, the hallway, the family room, our one bathroom, another view of our family room, the kitchen, and two more views of our bedroom.

It's quite different to live in a much smaller place, but the one of the only reasons I mind it at all is because I was so organized before. Everything had a place, and I knew where everything was. !! It's a bit too crowded here to achieve something like that. And some previous tenant's children have literally left their mark (aka their names and other random things) on some of the doors. But here's a list of things I really like about the place!

• The shower has a removable shower head which I didn't think I would love, but it's actually AWESOME for washing the dog and Tagg loves it when I take it down and let him use it to wash himself instead of a bath or a shower.

• The kitchen has a little spray thing which is great for washing my mesh strainers.


• Scorpions have been replaced by ladybugs! Yippee! (That is actually quite heartfelt!)

• Since I don't have a dishwasher, I've learned how to sanitize stuff that has had raw meat on it (Yuck!) -- Jed inspired me to come up with my current method of boiling water on the stove in our tea kettle and pouring it over all the stuff that touched that disease-y stuff. It's also working great for cleaning out those sippy cup spouts that get so un-cleanable... I'll still use this method for doing that when we have a dishwasher again!


• And, since we don't have a dishwasher, we have been really consistent about reading together!
• Vacuuming doesn't take as long!
• The moulding around the doors and windows is big and pretty, and the front door is pretty and vintage-looking.

So, we're having a good time. But my posts have been practically non-existent since we moved here because this pregnancy has wiped me OUT! Daily workouts from my first pregnancy have been replaced by daily naps... Here's my daily routine:

7:30am --Wake up cuz Tagg woke up. Knock on his door to be greeted with "Mommy, come!" Take him out of his crib and go sit on the couch to cuddle for a few minutes while we wake up. Usually we put on a movie or some tv to watch while we share a bowl of cereal on the couch.

8:30-11:30 -- Play! Tagg & I learn new words, new abc's, and new things about each other while we play, snack and take a bath or a shower/bath. His current favorite things to play with are his Star Wars guys, Legos, puzzles, and ladybugs.

11:30-12:30 -- Make and eat lunch. His favorite food right now is Scooby-Doo macaroni & cheese, which is stinking GOOD! :) (Any of these activities could be accompanied by random web-shooting ;)

12:30-1:15 -- Naptime Routine: Clean up the toys, go potty & brush his teeth, then run into his room to read a book and sing a song. The book is usually punctuated with a lot of Taggert-comments about each page, and the song is something that I make up by putting lyrics (which don't rhyme and which Taggert makes up and tells me beforehand--usually a story about something that happened or something we watched that day) to the tune of some pre-existing song. Lately, when I put him in his crib and start to walk to the door, he will say "Please don't leave, Mommy. I wanna show something really really cool to you." That something is clearly something he begins searching his brain for the minute he asks me not to leave, and it's so cute!

Pictures Taggert asked me to take of me coming to get him after naptime. Yes, they are staged. By a two-year-old. :)

1:15-3:00 -- While Taggert sleeps, I finish my lunch if I didn't get enough when we were eating earlier. Then I check my emails to make sure I don't have any hold that baby business to do. Immediately after that, I take my own nap! If I don't take one, I get unbelievably sleepy by like 8pm and I have to force myself to participate in the nighttime routine I adore so much! (By the way, this slot used to be filled with blogging. I am making a tentative return to that today, just cuz I got the blogging bug. :)

3:00-6:00 -- More playtime! We often use these morning and afternoon playtimes to visit family, to go to doctor's appointments, or to the library or the grocery store.

6:00-7:00 -- Make and eat dinner.

7:30-8:15 -- Another round of the naptime routine, except this one includes pj's and teeth-flossing. I didn't even consider flossing a two year old's teeth until I started noticing that they weren't really getting clean. So we started it up and he does great with it! (It encourages me to floss my own, too ;)

8:30-9:50 -- I do the dishes and clean the kitchen while Jed reads to me! LOVE IT! We tried to read together when we were first married because the idea appealed to both of us, but it never worked. Jed's voice is so soothing to me that I would fall asleep ten minutes into the book! Then we came up with the genius idea to read while I did the dishes so I would stay awake! Since then, we've successfully read the entire Harry Potter series and "The Name of the Wind" (which is the most amazing book! I couldn't recommend it more heartily!), and now we're on to "Angels and Demons." So far we've only read books that Jed has read and knows are awesome so that we don't lose steam and fall out of this fun habit due to a boring book.

9:54-9:59 -- (Yes, I mean those exact times :) Jed and I get snacks to eat while we watch The Office! They air one episode Monday-Friday evenings, and we really enjoy watching it together. It makes us laugh :)

10:30-11:30 -- We wrap up the day and get ready for bed.

Life is good! So I just had to document this routine because I adore it and want to remember what our days were like at this time in our lives! I love having such good things to count on every day and such good people to share them with.