Work, exercise, visits and more!

On one of our walks this week Curtis and I walked from our house to our church building by way of cutting through neighborhoods since Midland doesn't have sidewalks that far. It ended up being about 2 miles each way. It was a nice walk but once again my left foot was hurting on the side of my foot. Sometimes even with these new shoes I still have problems but at least it's not every time. Some days I don't have any problems. Anyway, the sun was setting by the time we were coming back and even though this picture doesn't do it justice, it was a beautiful sunset looking out from the neighborhood we were coming out of looking at the fields and the mountains. I'm going to be sad when the fields are gone. They already started building a new subdivision in part of the field.

The only way I can get my little kids to eat corn is by eating corn on the cob because of course it's just so much more fun! This was actually only the 2nd time we've had corn on the cob this summer. Looks like I'll need to buy more of it and more often!

Last Saturday was the first Saturday in awhile that we really didn't have plans so Curtis took the opportunity to take his truck over to his dad's house to work on his brakes. His dad has the tools that he usually needs. However, after taking everything apart he discovered that his truck is going to need some specialty equipment to be able to do his brakes so he'll have to take it in somewhere to get it done. That's kind of a bummer because we can usually save money by doing brakes by ourselves. Oh well.

While Curtis and Garrett were over at his dad's working on the truck I was back at home working on spraying weeds. First I sprayed Round Up around the perimeter of the fence and house and other places that needed it. When I had extra I would spray weeds on our neighbor's driveways. Then I went through the lawn and spot sprayed with Zamzows Ultra which is safe for lawns. I ran out before I finished though. I did buy more but still need to finish spraying weeds in part of the back yard.

Curtis really wanted to play tennis and so he took the 4 younger kids with him to play tennis by the Rec Center and then drove over to a new park off of Midway that is barnyard themed. While they did that Nikki and I drove to Walmart to get her a skirt pattern, then went to Zamzows to get more of the weed stuff, and then on to Hobby Lobby where Nikki picked out some fabric that she really liked and is going to make a skirt out of. It's white with black owls all over. We're going to have to line the skirt so it won't be see through. So now Nikki will be making a skirt, shirt, and dress. She's so excited to do it that we already cut out the pattern for the shirt Saturday evening but are waiting to cut the fabric out at my mother in law's because it's been so long since I've done anything like this that I don't want to mess up.

Nikki wanted this shape of skirt. There was a different pattern she wanted at Hobby Lobby but it was $20. So she found this one at Walmart for half the price. She's not going to put the cummerbund piece on it though. She likes how it flares out.

Saturday was Grandpa Norton's birthday (I'm sure he celebrated in Heaven) and I felt bad that we didn't make it over to visit grandma that day so we made sure to get over there Sunday evening.  Curtis and Jack rode their bikes over to grandma's this time while the rest of us drove over in the van. Curtis and I have both been wanting to do more active things lately. While normally I would have wanted to ride bikes with him, it was too hot at that time of day and some one had to drive the kids who didn't want to ride bikes, lol. However, we put Jack's bike in the back for the ride home and Curtis rode his bike home alone since Jack didn't want to make the ride back. He's lucky his bike was small enough to fit. We visited, ate ice cream and played a game. This time we had Nikki choose the game so that she would play with us. She likes Mexican Train.

Last week I was about to go ahead and buy that Little House on the Prairie set that I had seen at Walmart that had the entire series in it but when I went back to the store it was gone. While I was disappointed, later I found reviews on Walmart's website about that particular set and many people said that the packaging wasn't good on the inside. That the discs slid into something on a piece of cardboard and also some discs would freeze up while watching. After reading those reviews I decided that I would just be content with what I had. But I had to at least finish off the set I had buy purchasing seasons 3 and 5 through Amazon Prime. They arrived in the mail yesterday and I'm so excited to finally have a complete series! I tried buying them years ago and had problems with the discs in both seasons so I returned them, twice! Hopefully these ones won't have any issues. I started watching the series with the kids on Sunday so that I could introduce Charlotte and Alice to the show. We watched the pilot and the first episode in season 1. They loved it! It kind of back fired though because after watching it Charlotte has been telling us that she really wants her own horse....again. Yes, we've been through this before, lol.

The nice thing about these is the boxes are the size of a regular movie box but it has 5 discs in it!

My Little House on the Prairie set. I love this show and am so happy to have the whole series now! Look how skinny the new ones are compared to the older sets. I may have to slowly replace them to save on space. 

Yesterday evening Nikki was working and neither Curtis nor I felt like cooking dinner so we ate a little bit of leftovers and then headed over to get some more food from Del Taco. It was the first time either of us had gone there and it surprised Nikki (in a good way). She was the one at the window doing the money tendering. She had asked us if we wanted sauce and we said whatever you recommend but she was looking at what we ordered and was partly still shocked to see us that she forgot to put sauce in the bag but that's okay because the chicken crunch burritos that we ordered were plenty good on their own! We also got churros and mini donuts for dessert. It was fun to finally go eat at the place our daughter works. She's grown a lot and become more confident. She's up to working around 40 hours a week now. Most of the time she's either taking orders or doing the tendering at the window.
Nikki decided to ride her bike to work today because she too wants to get more exercise and eat healthier. I wonder if Curtis riding his bike to grandma's might have motivated her, lol. All three of us also put an exercise app on our phones to help us with doing exercise at home. Nikki woke up yesterday and today around 6-6:30 a.m. to exercise before she showered and got dressed. I honestly was shocked to find out that she weighs a little more than I do now. So it will be nice to be on this being healthy/weight loss journey with multiple people. We can help each other! I also recently heard that my friend Whitney is trying to lose weight as well, so we're encouraging each other now. She even brought me some frozen fruit mixes for blending up and a couple of shakes.


Most days my girls don't like me doing anything with their hair. They don't even like me to brush it. Since Alice had an accident last night and had to take a bath this morning I took the opportunity to do her hair after she was dressed. She looks so cute in piggy tails. (I just looked over at Alice while typing this and saw that she took out her piggy tails already! And it's not even lunch time yet. Figures.)

One thing I decided the last couple of days is that I need to get my kids back on a routine and to practice things for school before the school year starts next month. Charlotte and Jack both have packets of papers that their teachers had sent home to work on over the summer. We are just now starting to do them. I think we had a long enough hiatus from school work. Even Alice did a little worksheet this morning from her preschool book. I have had this preschool book for years but can never really get my kids to do much out of it so there's plenty of undone pages in it. It was nice to take a break and not be on any kind of schedule this summer but it will also be nice to get back into a routine. School is just around the corner!