Life on the Go

Life has been insanely busy lately, which explains why my first post in over a week is to share a few cell phone pics while pumping at work. Our weeks (Monday through Thursday) have been simply insane ever since I went back to work about six weeks ago. I'm glad to be a working mom, but we've just been run ragged. I will upload pics from my nice camera soon, but these few I had on my cell from the past few weeks offer a glimpse into our day-to-day life right now.

MONDAY
The start of another week. I wake by 5:30, get showered, give Claire a dream feed, and go downstairs to get things ready for the day. I love that early morning time, especially if we remembered to set the coffee pot the night before! Once the kids are awake, it's off to the races, and we all get out the door by around 7:40. I've been thinking that since workplaces are so casual these days, "Casual Friday" really has no meaning any more, and we should implement "Dressy Monday" instead. I often dress up a little more on Mondays—partly because it's easy just to wear whatever I wore to church on Sunday, and partly it helps get me back in the professional mindset for my work week.

I saw a blog post from Kem Meyer, communications director at Granger Community Church, asking people how they would depict their work in one visual. I immediately drew this:

My work, both when I edited books and now editing Ministry Matters and Circuit Rider, is all about making information and ideas more accessible to church leaders for use in their ministry. The arrows on the left, heading into the funnel, symbolize making authors' writing clear and well-organized and aggregating the work of many writers. The work is then distributed in print and/or online to reach many church leaders and advance the work of the church.

TUESDAY
Matt has been taking a pastoral care class on Tuesday nights this year, so every Tuesday afternoon, we "trade off" the kids at my office so that he can get on to his class and I can take them home. Usually I meet them in the parking lot, but sometimes Kate wants to come in to my office to color with my highlighters, eat my leftover lunch, spin around in my chair, and watch Abby Elmo on my computer. With all but that last activity, I can manage to get a little more work done before heading home with my girls.

Plus, I love having a growing collection of Kate-art on my wall.

WEDNESDAY

Just kidding. Not Chicken McNuggets. Amazingly, all our running around does not typically result in junk-foody meals. These are actually pictures Kate took with my camera of her play McDonald's food our dear church secretary gave her. Wednesday night is church night, and I meet Matt and the girls at church for dinner, a book study, and choir.

THURSDAY
Kate has gymnastics on Thursday evenings. She still gets anxious during the opening warm up, but gets really into it by the time they break into groups for various activities. My action pics never turn out that good, but here's Kate sitting patiently on the mat until it was her turn to do the balance beam again. She's done so great with the rings and uneven parallel bars—she loves hanging and flipping. I can't wait until the Olympics this summer. She will love watching the gymnastics on TV!

Matt and I love going to "'nastics" too and watching Kate play. (Matt is sad when he has a Thursday night meeting and has to miss it.) It's another "busy" thing, but definitely one of our favorites.

By the weekend, we are more than ready to chillax and have fun. Speaking of fun, I have to share this cool knit hat I saw in Parents magazine. Kate would look just like Matt if she wore that!

I'm sooo glad it's Friday again. Time to relax.

(Actually, this pic Kate took of me toward the beginning of maternity leave, back when I actually was relaxed most of the time!)

It's a very busy season of life, but it will be over soon enough and I don't want to wish away a moment of my girls being small. They'll still be small this summer, right? :0)