A day in the life

Several of my favorite bloggers have done posts on what a typical day in their life looks like. I think these are so interesting, and know I would love to have it to look back on in my own blog. My problem is that I can never remember to take photos as I go (because who wants a post with no photos?!?). Yesterday, I finally remembered to take photos of various things throughout the day. 

Different weekdays can look pretty different for us right now, so this post is what a typical Wednesday looks like. 

Brenson wakes at 7:00am (almost on the dot!) just about every day. Yesterday was no exception. He will always smile a huge smile when he sees me for the first time in the morning. However, he gets cranky in a hurry, so almost as soon as he wakes, I nurse him. Then, I get myself ready for the day. It doesn't take me long to get ready for days we are staying home or just running to Wal-mart or something. On days that we go to music class or "bigger" errands and I want to actually look decent, I try to get up before Brenson wakes up to get ready because it takes me longer. Brianna typically wakes around 8:00am, so just about the time I'm finishing getting ready, she is calling for me. When I get her out of bed, I love on her for a minute, she goes potty, then we get her dressed and her hair pulled back (otherwise, her breakfast ends up in it). 

Then, we go in the kitchen and we eat breakfast. She's a super-pokey breakfast eater, so I generally unload the dishwasher from the day before while she finishes up.

Brenson is typically hanging out in his swing while we have breakfast. Generally, he dozes off for his morning nap before we are finished. 

After breakfast, Brianna plays while Brenson sleeps and I do a few chores. Yesterday, she played with her blocks,

and I put away laundry that was washed and folded the day before. I like an empty laundry basket!

Brianna loves an empty basket, too! 

At around 10:00am, Brenson will wake up and nurse again. 

Brenson was quite fussy yesterday (no photos of this) after his mid-morning snack, so I didn't get to play much with Brianna. Normally, we'll color, sculpt with play-dough, paint, play a game, have a tea party, pretend cook, or something like that between his mid-morning nursing time and lunchtime. Brenson will "play" with us for a while, then go down for another nap around 11:15ish. 

However, yesterday he wasn't having that, so I loaded us all up and went to Sonic around 11:45am. 

No make-up, messy pony-tail hair, and lounge clothes is how I roll on stay-at-home days!

We brought food back home and ate it outside on our back porch. Brianna loves doing this! She ate her entire junior cheeseburger yesterday. 

Brenson was super-content to be outside hanging out with us (he never did take that nap).

At around 1:00pm, I nursed Brenson, then we played on the swingset for about 15 minutes. It was really bright, so Mr. Man wouldn't open his eyes!

Brianna didn't want to go inside, but Brenson was getting fussy because he was tired.

I put Brenson down for his nap early since he skipped his 11:15ish nap (and yes, he is still sleeping in the Pack-N-Play in our bedroom . . . I'm just not ready to move him into his crib yet),

and Brianna and I read books.

We almost always read (7 to 10 books depending on the length) before she goes down for her nap, but generally Brenson is awake and reads with us.

Both children are usually put to bed around 2:00pm each day, so this gives me about 2 hours before Brenson wakes to eat again. Brianna will get up from her nap between 4:30 and 5:00pm, depending on how long it took her to fall asleep. Sometimes, it takes her 45 minutes, so she will sleep later on those days.

During those 2 hours, I will typically do housework for about 45 minutes. Yesterday, I started a load and folded a load of laundry . . . the chore that is NEVER done. Especially when you have an infant that spits up {a lot}.

Then, I gave our living room a MUCH needed dusting and picked up around the house.

After housework, I might craft, get on the computer to check e-mail, facebook, blogs, etc, read, or sometimes take a quick nap myself. I am a terrible night-owl, so this depends on how late I chose to stay up the night before.

Yesterday, I uploaded photos from my camera to my computer, then I started a couple of blogs.

At 4:15pm, Brenson was up and ready to eat! He almost always wakes up very happy. . . smiling and stretching as soon as I unswaddle him.

Brianna had awakened just a bit before that (early for her), so this is what she did while he nursed (I just happened to have my camera sitting right next to me):

It was close to 5:00pm by the time Brenson finished nursing, and this is always the part of the day that things get a little crazy. Wednesdays, however, are especially bad because we go to Bible study every Wednesday night, and have to leave the house by 6:30pm. Unfortunately, this is also Brianna and Brenson's neediest, fussiest time of day. I say unfortunately because Chris usually gets home between 5:30 and 6:00pm - so it is right when things seem the most chaotic because the kids are needy and I'm trying to cook dinner - and I want him to feel like he's coming home to a peaceful place, but that's not usually the case.

So anyway, Brenson played happily on his giraffe,

I got ready to go (changed clothes, brushed teeth, put on make-up, etc), and Brianna had a snack.

I don't really cook on Wednesday evenings because it's too busy. We used to eat out, but it's too hard on Brenson to eat out and go to Bible study right now. Soon, we'll be able to eat out again, but tonight we ate soup and sandwiches. Things went very smoothly and we even had time to snap this family photo before walking out the door for Bible study:

I considered leaving this next part out, but it was part of the day so I'm going to include it. It is not typical, though.

On the way home from Bible study, Brianna wet her pants in the car while buckled into her carseat. UGH. This is so frustrating because we have to uninstall the carseat, take it apart to wash the cover, let it dry, put it back together, reinstall it, etc. It's just a HUGE pain. We always get home past bedtime on Wednesday nights, so we don't do baths. However, Brianna was a mess last night so she had to have one. It was past 9:00pm by the time we started our nightly family devotional time. Both children are usually in bed by 8:15pm, so it was definitely past time.

Every night, we do a family devotional. We have a cute little book that has a short devotional story for each day of the year. It's written for preschoolers, so Brianna can easily understand it. After reading the short little story, we read a Bible verse that relates to the story, sing a song or two, and say a prayer as a family. Brianna calls her devo book her "special book".

After the kiddos were in bed, I took a shower and Chris finished cleaning the carseat. It was about 10:15pm when we both sat down to unwind from the day. This happens quite a bit earlier on non-Wednesday nights. Chris went to bed around 11:00pm and I stayed up until midnight.

So, there you have it . . . the details of a pretty typical Wednesday. It's so funny to me to think about what my life is like now compared to 3 years ago. I used to have a career and wear heels every day and drive a sports car. Chris and I used to meet for dinner before Bible study, then go to Starbucks afterwards. We would come home, sit on the couch, watch TV, and just cuddle.

We also used to plead with God during our family devotional time to bless us with the life we have now :-).