A Sunday update in photos - some adventures from this weekend and beyond.
Today we went to the beach again! Two beach trips in one summer, wow. The twins loved the beach. It's 40 minutes from our house and parking is £4 and I intend to spend a lot more of my life at the beach (when the sun is out). Also, we practiced a 1 hour twin nap and it went fine and the world might open up soon when we are not home for 3 hours midday nap every day.
Also, how much sand is a toddler supposed to eat? all of it?
We have started to use the wagon more, which is a nice change from the double pram but also has some issues. For instance, I took the twins in the buggy to the charity shop to drop off a bag of clothes and then the charity shop had a no donations sign (boo!) but we also stopped at the store to get bread rolls for dinner and Aubrey saw the rolls and yelled until I gave her one.... and of course Clara got one too. In the pram the twins cannot see my shopping.
I often lament how british houses don't have closets. This is now the long term temporary wall of our bedroom. Andy and I share that dresser and wardrobe (on top of the wardrobe is the backstock of kids gifts, for our kids and other kid parties etc). The boxes on the right are all kids clothes. Unfortunately there just isn't another place in the house to put them. Those aren't even all the boxes, those are the "active" boxes.
- 2-3 Summer (twin current)
- 2-3 Winter (twin next)
- 5-6 Summer (Lily current)
- 6-7 (Lily growing into and Ezra growing out of... Lily is TALL)
- 7-8 (Ezra growing ito)
- 8-10 (Ezra future, and also the size we are currently getting the most "hand me downs" for.
Unfortunately this storage situation is the price of clothing frugality and reusing.
I found this bike on the side of the road! it looked good for Ezra as he's growing out of his current bike. Unfortunately it needed a lot of work to fix up so Andy donated it to a local bike recyclery instead of keeping it. Someday Ezra will be doing wheelies all the time.
I finished
Great Big Beautiful Life. It was great. I so enjoy Emily Henry! She is so good at what she does.
I finally retired my first ever trail shoes. I won them in a contest when we lived in Portland, so they are at least 10 years old, and my sock started poking out of the sides now. These shoes were great and I've run some absolutely brilliant trails with them. However... it was time to say goodbye.
I replaced them with these Saucony Peregrine 15 cross shoes. The colour is great, which is of course the most important thing when choosing a shoe. I did my first run with them this weekend which was a local parkrun 5k! I had such a fun run I decided to keep going and turn it into a 10k. I'm pleased that I can run a 10k again.
Our washing machine broke on Wednesday. We bought this machine when we moved into this house, which was 7 years ago. The door handle broke a few years ago but we use a screw to open and close it now, and there is only a hairline fracture in the other side of the door and also the detergent drawer is broken but as long as you don't pull it all the way out or try and use fabric softener then it's fine. Anyways, on Wednesday morning it started making a weird grinding noise instead of filling up with water and we decided it is probably done.
Although 7 years isn't a super long time it got us through a year of twins which was 1-2 loads of laundry a day (sometimes 3 or 4). We do around 8 loads a week right now and I feel that is a big ask for a machine.
We took our half wet load to a neighbours house to finish on Wednesday evening and then did another load at theirs on Thursday. On Friday I was babysitting for a friend so brought a load of laundry, which made me feel like a college student.
We are getting a new machine delivered on Tuesday so only need to survive 36 more hours before we can wash everything. I cannot remember the last time I went 3 days without doing laundry - we did have to dig into the above clothing boxes to find more trousers and shorts to make it through the week. One of the problems with a fairly minimalist kids wardrobe situation is that it's highly reliant on having a washing machine!
Those are all the photo and life updates from this week. Here's what 4 kids look like having fun in the woods
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| We were looking for fairies |
We have started to use the wagon more, which is a nice change from the double pram but also has some issues. For instance, I took the twins in the buggy to the charity shop to drop off a bag of clothes and then the charity shop had a no donations sign (boo!) but we also stopped at the store to get bread rolls for dinner and Aubrey saw the rolls and yelled until I gave her one.... and of course Clara got one too. In the pram the twins cannot see my shopping.
I feel like my shoes get holes in them after about 6 months. Holes in the top, I think I need to cut my toenails more often. (TMI!)
ReplyDeleteI’m sorry about your washing machine, 7 years is not long enough for sure. However, if there are plastic parts in there, as with most things these days, they are sure to break. We had a stove where the knob broke after just over a year, which really made me angry. I hope your next machine has a good long life.
The beach is (almost) always a good idea. I keep seeing that Emily Henry book, and am trying to remember if I’ve read anything by her…
Haha! I do not mind the toenail TMI. I have socks which I'm fairly sure had holes for this exact reason.
DeleteIn my mind I felt 10 years is how long an appliance should last, and I feel that we used it A LOT in the last two years. While I know they don't make things like they used to, I also think things are cheaper than the used to be. (as in, they cost less and are worse).
I would be so annoyed if it broke after a year though! I felt that 7 years was the minimum lifespan I would be happy with.
I think Book Lovers is probably my favourite of Emily Henry, but this one was close!
Love the beach days! It feels so summery and I'm sure is getting progressively easier at the kids get older. Soon NO ONE will be eating the sand ;)
ReplyDeleteOkay, I will stop my complaining about our house's small closets... We have them, but our house was built in the 70s so I feel like they are smaller/before it was common to have so much stuff. I feel for you with the clothing storage!! My husband built some shelving for our garage and we're able to store totes out there. It's nice when it works out to pass down hand-me downs though.
ReplyDeleteYour question about toddler sand consumption made me laugh out loud. Hope by the time you read this comment your new washer is up and running. Love saucony shoes! Only as an avid walker, though. Hooray for beach trips and forest fairies!!! -rachel
ReplyDeleteOkay, well I thought I made a shoe last a long time (usually I take them to about 800-1000 miles even though the recommendation is 300-500) but I don't think I have made a pair of running shoes last 10 years! That is impressive! I am also a Saucony fan, but could not find them in Türkiye or Georgia, so I had to go with Hoka, which by the way are already falling apart after maybe 500ish miles (bottom rubber is coming off, don't have any toenail holes yet!).
ReplyDeleteRe your wash machine, I had mine for 10 years and it was still going strong, but my average laundry is once a week so I think as far as uses you probably are in a pretty good place! I am laughing though at your situation of having to be a college student and take your laundry to your friend's house! Also I relate to having very little clothing, but usually wear most things more than once so that I don't have to do laundry as much! I still probably do it only about once a week (however, I will sometimes hand wash undies or socks or running shorts so I don't smell TOO bad!)