On Tuesdays two significant things happen at our household….(1) it’s trash truck day (which is practically a religious holiday for Clayton where all rituals and traditions MUST be observed or one faces the melt down tantrum of the century); and (2) Ryker stays home from school for some one-on-one time with me.

I find it hilarious that the first thing Ryker wants to do in the morning is take off his PJ’s so that he can put them in the laundry hamper and earn a star for the chore chart. He had just done so and was watching “The Stinky & Dirty Show” on Amazon Prime. Stinky & Dirty is one of Clayton’s favorites (obviously due to the garbage truck) and Amazon Prime is something I need to own stock in since I use it so much.

Once dressed for school we made waffles for breakfast.

We have mommy syrup (boysenberry) and daddy syrup (maple). Clayton goes with the mommy syrup and Ryker always wants a bit of both.

Speaking of boysenberries, we recently planted a boysenberry bush in our yard. I had one in the yard of the house I grew up in and my mom would make the best boysenberry jam. It should take two seasons for our plant to bear fruit and I can’t wait!

A quick shot of my weekday uniform….yoga pants (even though I don’t practice yoga) and flip flops.

On Tuesday’s, Ms. Lorraine (the story lady) comes to Clayton’s class room and it’s one of the highlights of the week for him.

After dropping Clayton off at school, Ryker and I headed to check out some paint colors for my home office. Ryker voted for blue but he’s going to be overruled by mommy on that one.


Back at home, we cleaned up the kitchen – this is my current view from my kitchen sink. In the almost two years that we’ve lived here, it’s already changed so much. We planted a loquat tree on the left and an orange tree on the right. In the middle I’m hoping to put a trellis of color someday….or maybe a water feature….not sure yet. We have a lemon and tangerine tree back there too and are planning to add a couple of avocado trees to the mix this year.


We picked up Clayton at noon so that we could get home for Ryker’s nap and so Clayton could see the garbage trucks. We use Young Living oils and at nap time for Ryker I diffuse vetiver with some citrus and thieves. Since starting regular use of vetiver I’m seeing a noticeable change in Ryker’s behaviors – he is still extreme but he doesn’t seem to have as many out of body personality shifts. I am so grateful for this!

Just like our bedtime routine, our nap time routine involves stories. Ryker loves the Rescue Bots and transformers.


During Ryker’s nap, I follow Clayton as he chases the garbage trucks around the neighborhood. His favorite is Ramiro who drives the yard waste truck (brown bins). He used to love Martin who drives the pee-yew truck (black bins) but we have a new driver for that truck now, Robert and Clayton is still getting used to the change in driver. We also have Juan who drives the recyclables truck (green bin) but he came early today and so we didn’t get to see him this week. In a couple of weeks, Clayton turns 5 and his birthday party is a garbage truck theme for the 3rd year in a row. The boy loves his trash trucks.

We had to wake Ryker from his nap to make it to swim lessons. He was NOT happy about being woken up before he was ready.

At swim, Clayton swam the entire long length of the pool for the first time!

After swim was play time at home.



Highlight of the day was face timing with Daddy!

When Daddy isn’t home for dinner, I bend the rules a bit….the boys had on a show AND brought toys to the dinner table. Note the Megatron transformer Ryker has and the garbage truck Clayton has. This is them right now.

Clayton is obsessed with cleaning and thinks that hand sanitizer is the coolest thing ever. He does not get that from me.

After getting the boys to bed, I made my way upstairs for a short peloton workout….it had been a while and I felt it!

Right about the time I had finished up my shower and crawled into bed to watch GOT, I could hear Ryker coughing and I got to him in time to see him throw up all over his bed (he tends to puke when he coughs, or gets upset, or really for any reason at all) but it was too much for me to clean up at this time of night with Clayton sleeping soundly on the top bunk so I grabbed a change of clothes for Ryker and brought him to bed with me.
I was looking forward to a few nights of a bed to myself and it ended up that two of the three nights I had company. Such is this crazy beautiful life.

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