Picture An Hour: November 2023

The past few weeks flew by in a blur of Thanksgiving hosting and gift guide creation. (I still owe you one or two more — my Gift Guide for Guys is always my trickiest to assemble and I want to do it justice!) I’ve been meaning to snap pics of everyday life and share a day-in-the-life blog post with you guys for weeks. It’s finally happening today! We’re rewinding time to the old school blogging days when I had the ability to pop in and share my day-to-day happenings (3x a day!) before kids and craziness took over.

Picture an Hour: November 2023

• 6:20 a.m. Coffee + Devotional 

I set my alarm for 6 a.m. yesterday and let Pepper out before putting the boys’ lunches in their bags, refilling water bottles and getting everything organized for the day ahead. Then it was time for coffee, glancing through my calendar and my morning devotional. My friend Lauren and I are making our way through The Well-Watered Woman together.

• 7:15 a.m. Breakfast + Playtime 

Ryan had an early meeting yesterday and after we all said goodbye to him, it was time for breakfast and Botley! Botley is a coding robot toy we gave to Chase for Christmas a few years ago that was a bit of a bust. He thought it was really cool for a week or so but lost interest. (Honestly, this was probably our fault for not properly showing him how it works because I think it was over his head when we initially gave it to him.) I’m so glad I didn’t give it away because somehow Botley came back from the dead and has been the biggest hit with Ryder and Chase these past few weeks.

• 8:35 a.m. School Drop Offs + Cleaning Sweep + Mad Dash to Boot Camp

(Sparkle Leggings: Beyond Yoga — Ryder tells me I look like a Christmas tree whenever I wear these / Shoes: New Balance / Socks: Amazon / Top: Beyond Yoga but old / XL Scrunchie: Nike) 

(Okay, who is stressing over our unorganized dishwasher?)

After dropping Chase off at school a little before 8 a.m., we came back home and Ryder and Rhett played for 35 minutes or so while I did a quick cleaning sweep and got dressed for boot camp. Then it was time to head back out for preschool drop off before making a mad dash to boot camp.

• 9:25 a.m. Burn Boot Camp: Biceps, Triceps, Chest Workout  

The workout of the day at Burn Boot Camp focused on biceps, triceps and chest. We went through four rounds of the following exercises (40 seconds on, 20 seconds off): Chest press, triceps extensions, single-arm biceps curl with alternate arm in an isometric hold, chest flyes, triceps kickbacks, dead hang biceps curls and push ups.

• 10:15 a.m. Shower + Get Dressed

(Sweater: Target / Jeans: Levi’s Ribcage Jeans / Clogs: Amazon / Headband: Target) 

Quick shower and time to get dressed for the day before busting out some work on the computer at home.

• 11:00 a.m. Work + Love on Pepper

Excuse me, Pepper, why are you so cute? Pepper in a sweater is my new favorite thing. I figured you’d rather see a picture of her than my computer. Pepper served as a fabulous furry coworker and curled up on my lap as I worked for a few hours.

• 12:25 p.m. Lunch + Work

More work time as I ate leftover turkey soup for lunch! I also ate a million and one Chica’s lime tortilla chips out of the bag because I cannot be stopped with those things.

• 1:45 p.m. Angel Tree Shopping

After picking up Ryder and Rhett from preschool, we drove to Target to do some shopping for the children we selected from an angel tree. The boys wanted to buy them everything in all of Target (Ryder insisted a 5 month-old-boy needed Nintendo) but we did our best to make sure their wish lists were filled (and then some)!

• 2:55 p.m. Back at Home

We went straight to Chase’s school pickup from Target and then back home. I always get a kick out of looking through the boys’ schoolwork after they unload their backpacks. Yesterday Chase wrote all about the time we caught a giant snapping turtle over the summer. That thing was huge and shocked all of us when Chase reeled it in after I felt something pulling intensely on my rod.

• 3:45 p.m. Home Playtime + Random Household Clean Up 

I love Tuesdays because Tuesdays and Fridays are our “free days” with zero activities for the boys, meaning we get more time to simply be home or do whatever we want to do for the afternoon. The boys thoroughly entertained themselves by running all over our house, playing in their cardboard playhouse, building with Legos and tackling each other during indoor football (their latest obsession) with breaks sprinkled in only for snacks. When they were playing well and distracted, I knocked out some laundry and a few other household to-dos.

• 4:30 p.m. New Table Runner Arrives 

I was so excited when I opened up a package that arrived yesterday afternoon and found our new table runner! I ordered the same runner in blue earlier this year but wanted one with a little more of a holiday flare and opted for a deeper red this time around. (I initially found the table runner on Etsy when I was looking for extra long runners that would fit our table.) I love it so much and topped it with a faux garland and flameless candles I placed in gold candlestick holders. Bring on all the holiday flare!

• 5:45 p.m. Dinner

Dinner time! Last night’s dinner looked like leftover ham with peas and a Daily Harvest grains mixture.

• 6:50 p.m. Bed Time Routine for the Boys

Ryan and I tag-teamed bedtime as usual last night and while I didn’t snap any pictures, this morning I found the above pic on my phone from last night. Hiii Ryder! The pic was saved to my phone from the Colgate Hum app and oh my gosh that toothbrush has been the best thing to happen to the boys’ toothbrushing habits in long time. I bought the Colgate Hum Kid’s Toothbrush back in October after a friend recommended it to me and really need to add it to an upcoming Things I’m Loving Friday post because it has skyrocketed the time our boys spend brushing their teeth and makes them more thorough brushers. It was well worth the $15 I spent!

• 7:30 p.m. Holiday Mug Exchange 

Last night I hosted the annual holiday mug exchange my girlfriends and I have been doing for 5 years! It’s one of my favorite holiday traditions and began several years ago when we wanted to do something easy yet fun to celebrate the holidays together. Everyone simply brings one holiday mug to the exchange and then we all draw numbers to determine the order in which we get to pick a mug. When it is your turn, you may “steal” a mug from someone who has already opened one or pick a new one from the pile. Mugs can only be stolen three times before they’re “frozen” and the person who picks first gets to go again one more time at the very end. It’s always so fun to see which mugs people love (and why they love them) and we’ve even started including little extras along with the mugs like hot chocolate bombs, peppermint pretzels, a pair of fuzzy holiday socks, etc., but no one spends more than $15-25. We love this tradition so, so much!

• 10:15 p.m. Wrapping Up Our Holiday Mug Exchange 

Once all the mugs were exchanged, we chatted and laughed for a few hours before calling it a night! I joined Ryan in bed a little after 11 p.m. once everyone was gone and read my latest book until my eyes could no longer stay open.

And now I’m off to get this Wednesday rockin’! I hope you all enjoy the rest of your week!