Stephanie Schweitzer
Melissa Richard
Jill McMillan
Hour by Hour Challenge | by Elizabeth Perez
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“Our Saturday mornings are NEVER “typical”. Sat, February 1 seemed like a great day to complete the hour by hour challenge. My husband had to work and left crazy early. I often feel like our days are long, hours are INTENSE, and there’s always something random that happens. I love being a mom of 2 young boys and a milspouse. I often have NO Idea where our day will lead us, and I’m definitely OK with that. Random is embarrassed over here. I attempted to shoot at the top of every hour for my project.”
The morning for us started at 7:30 with my oldest who is 4 and introduced him to cinnamon toast. YUM!!! It was my favorite as a child and I realized I hadn’t ever made it before.
About 8:03 baby woke up. He’s 1 and starting to climb out of the crib. It’s too dark to tell that here in this image, but I like it anyway 🙂
After the routine of diaper changes we went down stairs and by 9am had popcorn for another round of breakfast. Which was TOTALLY A BRIBE so I could get my son to practice his writing. “If you write your name, I’m happy to make popcorn”. I didn’t think that would work actually, but he did. – of course, right? So popcorn it was. I realized it was baby Braddock’s first time eating from the big bowl too without breaking it all to tiny pieces first.
9am- ish
10am-ish -It’ll be fun they say….get married… have kids….it’ll be fun they say…then YOU never go to the bathroom ALONE again! Damn, even the dog. geeesh
11-ish morning bath for the baby is over and he’s teething on the tub. Cutting tooth #7. And now Big brother wants his turn.
I just felt this documentary image was too funny! He’s all grown these days. And it’s important b/c yesterday I moved him into the room with his own bathroom. He’s now a “MAN” he says. He wants a shower like a man too. (My 4 year old you guys! He’s just spoiled)
Little brother would NOT leave him alone.
11:45 was nap time so about noon I went up to take that hour. 🙂
BIG Brother was invited to a neighbor’s house to play so he’s OUTTA HERE. We live on post at JBLM and I know he’s perfectly safe. HE was so proud to go alone. (just to that house on the right). He told Rachel “I came here without anything on my feet”. hahah b/c I’m that mom and it’s not worth the fight when he would just forget them there anyway later.
At 1-sh the baby and I went around the block in his FAV blue car. He just loves to beep his horn on it. Our friends live just behind us and while I’m always photographing her kids, she’s the baker. Mrs. Jessica was making homemade marshmallows. Of course we’re coming over for sweets!!
Top of the hour at 2 – the marshmallows are ready to eat up!
3pm rolled around and DADDY CAME HOME EARLY!!!!
We’ve had nothing but rain for nearly a month now here in the PNW. We decided to pick up Brogan and find a water hole!
4-ish.
5ish – while out looking for another trail looking to ride in mud, we found this young Captain had a flat while riding. We definitely are trying to raise good young men and want them to remember us for helping others when we can. So yes we give him a ride back home and we talk about it with the boys about why it’s important to be a kind human.
About 6- we go over to Safeway because we are invited to a super bowl party tomorrow night and can’t go empty handed. Wine, cake, and a 7 layer dip…. we go to get. We get back to post and I feel so safe that we check in with these gate guards each time. It’s very normal for my son, but it’s still such a WOW thing for me.
Top of 7pm – BAD DECISION – All week we’ve had this battle he freakin peed in his closet!!! YES, you read that right…. remember that new big boy room that has a bathroom….. yes that one… well guess it didn’t matter. So my image for 7pm is of consequences. We’re on day 5 maybe 6 of him doing this 1x each day. I’ve tried EVERYTHING to change this behavior. I thought for sure this new room w/ bathroom and praising him to be a big boy would have worked. NOPE! It did NOT.. he stood on the boxes and peed behind them. GROSS….
So clean it up yourself. I’m sick of doing this. If you feel what it’s like to clean it up maybe you’ll stop.
8pm – he’s furious he’s still cleaning this and says “that’s so weird” when I take his photo again lol – but seriously son… STOP THIS.
And this leads me to the 9pm top of the hour and the boys are in bed and I go ahead and open that bottle of wine from earlier. And this image really sums up the day…. WINE for me, Bottle for the youngest, Downy because why wouldn’t it be on the counter lol
Seriously though I did laundry and it was empty on the way out to recycling. Then there’s a cold dinner, and my journal to write all these details of the day.
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“This was a great exercise! I realize there’s some images I missed and it’s also very hard to narrow them down too. I mostly photography our boys, but I do realize that for next month I’ll start focusing getting in the frame with them for this challenge. ”
Are you up for the challenge?
We want to start a regular feature to see how all of YOU spend your days! If you are interested in completing this challenge, and writing a few paragraphs about your day to go with your images, I’d love to feature you on the blog! Email your text and images (sized 2048px on the long end) to hellostorytellerblog@gmail.com!
This is just fabulous! And now, with so many of us staying home ~ what a great idea!! I’m up for it.
Very sweet and authentic! Love this series of images! ❤️
I love these! Very real and authentic!!
These images inspire me so much. Thank you for telling a very raw, very beautiful (because it is raw) story. <3