Wednesday, April 26, 2017

A Day in the Life 2017

Since 2012, I have chronicled all the details of a day in our life during the month of April. It's so interesting to me to look back on a typical day and see how things have changed for us over the years! Right now, so much of my life is about caring for my littles and my house, and I think you'll definitely see that reflected in this post.

If you want to look back at my "A Day in the Life" posts from years past, you can find them here. 

The day I chose to chronicle was Friday, April 21, 2017. A typical weekday for us begins at 5:30am when Chris's alarm goes off. 

He will get up between 5:30 and 5:45am to begin getting ready for the day. I usually lay in bed and doze in and out of sleep until my alarm goes off at 6:15am.

By the time I get up at around 6:15am, Chris is ready for the day and has started getting breakfast for the kids. Brenson is almost always the first one awake, and he gets up around 6:30am.

We try to wake Brianna around 6:30am as well, so she can start getting ready for school. After Chris gets breakfast for the kids, he sometimes makes Brianna's lunch and sometimes empties the dishwasher.

We almost always open the shades on our living room windows as the sun begins to rise because we have a perfect view of the sunrise. This day, it was cloudy, so no beautiful sunrise to see. 

Brooke and Brecklyn are generally up around 6:45am. Sometimes, they're ready to eat breakfast right away, and other times they want to play for a bit.

Brianna gets herself all dressed before she comes out to eat breakfast. 

The children and I planned to attend Rise and Shine with Brianna on this morning, so that meant everyone had to be ready to leave the house at 7:30am. Chris typically leaves for work around 7:00am, but he stayed and helped me get everyone presentable on this day. 

While Chris was helping the kids with breakfast, I picked out clothes for Brooke and Brecklyn.

As soon as everyone was finished eating, Chris cleaned them up so I could get them dressed.

After getting dressed, I fixed hair while Daddy brushed teeth. 

Brooke

Brianna

Brianna even helped us by helping Brecklyn with her shoes.

Getting everyone ready to leave the house in the mornings is truly a team effort!

My goal is to be loading everyone in the van to take Brianna to school by 7:30 each morning. We made it this day!

Of course, I pretty much never leave time to eat breakfast, so I often eat a protein bar while driving to school. 

Rise and Shine begins at 7:45am. We could attend every day if we wanted to, but we only attend about once every two weeks. Brianna loves having us there, though!

By the time we left Rise and Shine, it was pouring rain! 

Rise and Shine was extra long this day, so we didn't get back home until 8:30am. I immediately took Brooke and Brecklyn potty then changed them into their panties (they had been wearing a pull-up). They had only been potty trained for about three months at this point, so I was still spending quite a bit of time taking them potty frequently. After the potty break, I started a load of laundry. If you look back at all my "A Day in the Life" posts, you'll notice that in every single one I am doing laundry! We are definitely thankful for laundry to do, though!

While I started the laundry, the kids were doing their morning chores. This includes picking up toys,

making beds,

taking dirty clothes to the clothes hamper, 

and putting away shoes.


They also love to help me make my bed!


I make my bed every day because I love how my room looks when my bed is made. Also, I fold laundry on my bed and it's much easier to do that when the bed is made!

I try to finish our morning chores by about 9:00am so we can move on to other activities. This day, the kids started playing with play-doh at the kitchen table at around 9:15am. 

Brecklyn

Brenson

Brooke


While they played, I continued with chores. I spent 10 minutes cleaning up the kitchen from breakfast,

(I love having clean sinks!)

and 10 minutes folding and putting away a load of laundry that was in the dryer from the day before. I'll often give myself a certain amount of time to work on something so that I don't spend my whole day doing nothing but chores and not spending time with my children. 

At 9:35am, I sat down to play play-doh with the children. 

About 15 minutes after I sat down to play with the children, we heard a strange beeping sound. I discovered quickly that it was the alarm on our septic system sounding! I called Chris who asked me to go outside and see which alarm was sounding. I wasn't thrilled to trudge out in the rain to address this, but I did it! I was able to turn the beeping sound off, and Chris addressed the problem when he got home.

When I came back inside, Brecklyn was upset because she had pottied her pants. I got her cleaned up and changed, then took Brooke potty. 

By 10:15am, the children were ready to move on to something else, so they went and played in the book nook for a while. 

While they did that, I cleaned up the mess from the play-doh. My kids love play-doh - and I like it too - but it does make quite the mess. I always clean it up immediately because if I don't it gets tracked all around the house. 

I wiped down the table really well, 

then vacuumed all the little pieces up from the floor.

It took me about 15 minutes to get the play-doh mess all cleaned up, then I sat down with the children to work a floor alphabet puzzle. 

This is great practice at not only recognizing letters and putting puzzle pieces together, 

but at taking turns, as well.

We have lots of teachable moments during these types of activities!

It was 10:45am when we finished the alphabet puzzle and time to change the laundry. The kids had free play time while I did that. 

Brenson chose to read

The girls sat on the stairs with their baby dolls and looked through some little color books.

Once I finished switching the laundry, I went to work on lunch (and putting dinner in the slow cooker). I had just started putting dinner on when Brooke got hurt and came to me crying. 

I comforted her, gave lots of kisses, and finished getting dinner on. Then, it was time to take the girls potty (again!).

After that, I started prepping lunch. Brenson is a great helper in the kitchen!

We sat down to eat lunch at 11:30am. 

Probably not the healthiest lunch I've ever served, but the kids enjoyed it and everyone ate it! We had pizza, oranges, pickled okra, and baby carrots.

Once we finished eating, I cleaned up the kitchen (again!) with Bren's help while the girls picked up toys in their room. They are great to pick up toys when I'm right there instructing them, but we aren't doing it independently quite yet. So, as soon as I finished in the kitchen, I went to pick up with them. 

While we were picking up in the girls' room, Bren picked up all the play food in the play kitchen. This is one area that I insist we keep picked up. Otherwise, I trip and fall and slip on the play food!

Right around noon, we sat down to read before nap time. I always read a good stack of books to the girls first. 

Brenson usually complains about the "baby" books, but he almost always sits and listens :-). 

At 12:30pm, I took the girls potty, changed them into pull-ups, and put them down for their nap.

Bren gets to stay up for another 30 minutes and read "big kid" books with me. Then, he goes to bed, as well. He doesn't always sleep (probably less than half of the time), but I do make him have quiet time in his room every day. 

After I get everyone down for nap, I'll often finish cleaning the kitchen, fold laundry, catch up on text messages or email, have quiet/study time, etc. However, at this time, I was a little less than 10 weeks pregnant and EXHAUSTED. I laid down a little after 1:00pm and slept until my alarm went off to go pick up Brianna! Since it was still dark and rainy outside, it was the perfect day for napping!

My alarm to pick up Brianna sounds at 2:30pm. Most days, I have to wake everyone to get them ready to go (and it's painful!). Brecklyn is a happy waker and typically gives me lots of smiles.

Brooke is generally not a happy waker, but she wasn't too cranky this day. 

My crankiest waker is Brenson, for sure. Sometimes, I like it better when he doesn't actually sleep!

Life in the school pick-up line!

Our school pick-up line is fast moving, so I really don't have any complaints about that. We arrived at the school around 2:45pm, and by 3:10 we were on our way back home. Our route home includes passing a field that blooms with the most beautiful, red, wild flowers each year around this time. So pretty!

We made it home by about 3:15pm. I looked through Brianna's school folder while she changed into clean clothes (I do everything I can to keep those school germs at bay!). 

Then, we all headed upstairs for some playtime while Brianna and I did her daily reading and homework.

Brenson could play Legos for hours every single day. 

The girls love their Duplo Legos, too!


After Brianna and I finished her reading (no homework this day because it was a Friday), she was so happy to be able to play, too! Our Barbie Dream House gets lots of love these days!

The time between getting Brianna from school and Daddy getting home was the most difficult time of day when I was in my first trimester. I was just so incredibly tired! So, on this day, the kids played while I relaxed on the couch until Daddy got home at around 5:20pm.

We're all always excited when Daddy gets home!

Sweet hugs from Brecklyn

And kisses from Brooke!

Of course, after playing upstairs for two hours, it was a MESS!


Not long after Daddy got home, we all head downstairs. Chris, Brianna, and Brenson prepped for dinner while I took Brooke and Brecklyn potty and washed their hands.


We all sat down to eat as a family at 6:00pm!

Bren is still our pokiest eater and still the last one to finish almost every night.

The sinks never stay empty for long! 

Since this was a Friday night (and still raining!), Chris and I decided to have a movie night. This is rare for us, but we always enjoy it! I cleaned up the kitchen and loaded the dishwasher from dinner while Chris prepped for our movie night. 

The kids put pjs on and picked up the living room a bit. 

Brianna even helped the little girls put their pjs on. She's a great big sister, and we are so grateful for her helping heart!

Then, we headed upstairs to pick up a bit up there, too. At 7:00pm, we got the kids all situated with their blankets and tubs of popcorn and started the movie.

We chose Disney's Robin Hood for the evening!

Because we rarely watch TV, it keeps our kids' interest really well. 

I couldn't help but feel blessed to see this sight!

About an hour into the movie (8:00pm), the little girls were getting squirmy and fussy. We paused the movie to say bedtime prayers, and Chris took Brecklyn and Brooke down to bed. 

We let the big kids stay up and finish the movie, and they were in bed by about 9:00pm. This is definitely later than they normally stay up, but we know how to party it up on a Friday night, haha!

Once the kids were settled into bed, Chris fixed us a bowl of ice cream to eat while we watched HGTV . 

I don't typically love ice cream, but it was super yummy to me during those early days of pregnancy!

We had about 30 minutes of time to ourselves before Brooke woke up screaming. We think she was having a nightmare (which is not uncommon for her), and she was very worked up. Chris brought her upstairs with us, and it wasn't too long before we saw some smiles out of her.

She was sent back to bed at 10:00pm after some snuggles and love.

Chris and I watched HGTV for a little while longer, then he drug me downstairs to bed at around 11:00pm. We pretty much always stay up until at least 11:00pm, but I was struggling with pregnancy fatigue and exhaustion, so I was DONE by that time of night. Really, I struggled from nap time on . . . notice how that load of laundry I did early on in the day never got folded?!?

Our days are certainly busy, but we try to be purposeful with our time as we know it's just flying by. We feel so blessed to have the house full of littles that we always dreamed of, and we don't want to take this time for granted!


6 comments:

Charlotte said...

Love these posts! Do you guys do snack time during the day? You never write about it, so I was just curious...my kids seems to need to be fed every 2 hours lol
Also, what was for dinner this night?

Chelley N said...

Charlotte - thanks for your comment! We don't typically do snack time during the day because if I give my kids even a small snack, they won't eat dinner! Every once in a while I will give them a snack if they ask for one, but it seems like I always regret it. They don't generally get whine about no snacks either, because they know I won't give in, haha. Also, for dinner this night we had what I call a Chicken Burrito Bowl. I simmer chicken, rotel, chicken broth, chipotle seasoning, and black beans in the slower cooker for about 3 hours. Then, I add rice and let it cook for another 2 hours. We sprinkle cheese on the top and sometimes the kids eat it with taco chips. It's super easy and yummy!

Anonymous said...

Hello I have 9month old twin girls and I would like to know where got the cabbage patch twin costume (preferably the box that goes on the stroller)? I really would appreciate it!

Anonymous said...

Oh and I only comment anonymous because I was trying through my google account and wasn’t successful.

Charlotte said...

That dinner sounds really easy and yummy! Thanks for sharing the recipe! I am always looking for new slow cooker ideas, especially ones that someone I know has already tried!
Wow, I am impressed about the no snacks! Mine eat around 7:30/8am and them by 9:30-10:30 it's a snack (sometimes second breakfast as I tend to eat a bit later in the mornings, I need to wake up and am not always hungry.) Then they eat lunch between 12-1 before naps. Occasionally my little guy (almost 2) misses an afternoon snack as he's not hungry when waking and just wants to play and that rolls into dinner. If we eat on the earlier side, they are offered some oatmeal or something small before bed as well. So they snack! But also eat their meals, too. You mug save a fortune in grocery money by not doing snacks!!!

Chelley N said...

Hi! Thanks for commenting. I actually made the "box" for the stroller. I describe how I did it in this post: http://thelifeofchelle.blogspot.com/2015/11/hallo-booooo-ween-2015.html?m=1

Please feel free to comment with any additional questions!