Picture an Hour: May 2025

Hiii! It’s Wednesday and I’m popping by this morning with a mid-week check-in. How are ya? I hope your week is going well so far and not too jam-packed. Our highlight of the week occurred on Monday when Rhett graduated from his 4-year-old Lucky Ducks preschool class!

Rhett sang in his loudest voice, waved at me and Ryan in the audience non-stop and his excitement was palpable all day long. It was so fun to see! Rhett actually still has two more days of preschool left (Thursday is his class party) and then it’s SUMMER for our littlest dude. Chase and Ryder are out the Friday after Memorial Day weekend let me just tell you our whole family is counting down the days. We have one foot firmly planted in summer mode and one foot reluctantly hovering in school mode.

Picture an Hour: May 2025

Now let’s dive into the meat of today’s post! I managed to snap a bunch of pictures of our day yesterday to document our Tuesday with one photo per hour for a day-in-the-life recap of sorts!

6:15 a.m. 1.5 mile walk with Pepper

I was up just before 6 a.m. and can I just say how much I am loving the earlier sunlight and warmer morning temperatures? It makes it 1,000 time easier to feel motivated to throw on my sneakers and walk a 1.5-mile loop with Pepper before the boys are up for the day. Starting my day with movement, outside time and Pepper is truly my all-time favorite way to start the day! I’m hoping to make this somewhat of a routine in the summer months and sneak in some solo walk time with Pepper before Ryan heads off to work.

7:00 a.m. Diamond Art + Goodbye to Ryan and the big kids

Once I was back from my walk, I made a quick breakfast for the big kids. Over the weekend, Chase and Ryder starting working on diamond art pictures Ryder received in a diamond art kit at a friend’s birthday party. It’s an oddly relaxing and mesmerizing activity!

I’ve also noticed how much our boys chat and share when we do side-by-side quiet activities so I’m making more of an effort to pause my mental to-do list and take some time to participate in these calm activities. The connection time feels so important. I love it so much and pray it’s something we can continue as the boys get older through puzzles, projects or whatever feels age-appropriate at the time.

8 a.m. Breakfast

Ryan took Chase and Ryder to school yesterday, so Rhett and I had a semi-chill morning together. Rhett was up just after 7 a.m. and we cleaned up the kitchen, threw in a load of laundry and ate breakfast together. On my plate: Chocolate protein baked oatmeal topped with vanilla skyr yogurt and berries.

9:30 a.m. Coffee shop work time

After preschool drop off, I made my way to my favorite local coffee shop for a whole milk latte and some work time. Recently I was working on a blog post where I shared a breakdown of what my work time looks like, as I feel like I do so many random behind-the-scenes things to make my blog and social channels function. The most visible work-related stuff is the obvious – my latest blog posts and social media shares – but I spend a lot more time on things you may never see. Aaand then I thought that might not be all that interesting unless you work in a similar space? Let me know if you’d like to see more behind-the-scenes blog content and I’ll try to share more!

Yesterday’s work time was mostly consumed with updating old blog posts to make them more SEO friendly. Posts that got a little TLC include: Egg White and Oatmeal Protein Pancakes, Simple Sides for Your Summertime BBQ, Diane’s Pineapple Soufflé, and my Instant Pot Butternut Squash Chicken Curry

12 p.m. Workout

(Leggings: Beyond Yoga / Top: Amazon/ Sneakers: Reebok)

I don’t have any pictures to share from 9:30-12 because I was just working but I took a break at noon to sneak in a quick leg workout at the gym! It looked like 3-4 rounds of 8-12 reps of Bulgarian split squats (each leg), deadlifts, leg extensions, seated hamstring curls and stability ball hamstring curls.

1:15 p.m. Preschool Pickup + Lunch

Once Rhett and I arrived home from preschool pickup, it was lunchtime for me. (Rhett eats lunch at school.) I made myself a bowl with an assortment of random ingredients but somehow they all worked well together. In my bowl: Leftover salmon, leftover brown rice and quinoa, avocado, pickled cucumber and radish, cilantro, green onion and a homemade sesame ginger dressing.

2:45 p.m. Memory Milestone Boxes Organization

Longtime blog readers might remember these boxes, but years ago I made these DIY memory milestone boxes to sort and store our boys’ school projects, health records, pregnancy ultrasounds, etc. They’ve been so incredibly helpful for keeping kid stuff organized. For the sake of saving time after school, I usually just put some of their save-worthy projects on top of their bins in our office closet but yesterday I took some time yesterday to pack stuff away in their bins. Rhett had the best time looking through some of his old projects so it ended up being an oddly fun activity!

3:30 p.m. School Pickup + Martial Arts

Whenever Pepper joins us for after school pick-up, she’s always the superstar! You would think the boys hadn’t seen her in a year by the way they fly over to her. (Mom is very much overlooked when Pepper joins us. Ha!)

5 p.m. Swim Team Practice

I am normally a little bit psycho about not booking too much into our days (I see immense value in plenty of time at home for unstructured playtime for the boys to just be kids) but the next two weeks are an exception as we have some overlap with school, martial arts and the start of swim team for the big kids. Chase and Ryder are doing swim team again this summer and after a 30 minute practice at 5 p.m., the boys all swam around together in the pool until around 6 p.m. On the drive home I was quickly reminded why we don’t over-fill our days because phewwww we had some fussy kids.

6:30 p.m. Dinner

Dinner last night came together fast and looked like curried corn (corn cooked with butter, garlic salt and curry powder) and cilantro topped with pan-seared steak… plus a chocolate chip cookie dough ALOHA bar 30 minutes later because I was still hungry.

Oh and good news! The boys found their joy again once we were back home and they had food in their bellies.

7:45 p.m. Straighten up around the house + Let Pepper Out

Once the boys were all settled in bed, Ryan and I straightened up the kitchen and let Pepper out. I couldn’t resist snapping a picture of our hydrangeas because they truly bring me so much joy every day right now. My springtime allergies have finally faded so I’m back to fully appreciating all the beautiful blooms in our area.

8:30 p.m. Reading time with Chase

Chase and Ryder share a room but Ryder falls asleep much earlier than Chase every night, thanks to their three-year age difference, I’d assume. They both read in bed after we tuck them in but then Chase is allowed to come back downstairs for some read aloud time from a “big kid book” with me and Ryan once Ryder is asleep. He’s usually back downstairs 20-ish minutes after his faux-bedtime and then we read together for 30 more minutes or so. We have one chapter left of the third book in The Underland Chronicles series and I cannot tell you how much we’re all loving this one, even the adults. We read a LOT with our boys and it feels especially wonderful when a series comes along that captivates all of us with imaginative plotlines, creative characters and solid underlying themes.

9:15 p.m. Reading

I don’t have any pics to share after our reading time with Chase because then it was my reading time! I ended up staying up way too late finishing The Haters, a thriller about an author who is horrifically harrassed following the publishing of her first book. This one kept me guessing the entire time which is somewhat of a rarity for me!

And now Wednesday morning is here and it’s time to get this day rockin’. I hope you all enjoy the rest of your week! Thanks for stopping by the blog today!