It's time, once again, for one of my favorite posts of the year . . . A Day in the Life! I know I've said before that I love looking back on this post from year to year and seeing just how much life has changed and simultaneously stayed the same. If you're interested in previous years' A Day in the Life posts, you can find them here: 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018.
Every year, I document the details of a full day in April. The last several years, I've barely made it in April and have specifically documented April 30th. This year, I did the same thing! I guess it's a trend now, haha.
April 30th was a Tuesday this year. My day started a bit earlier than normal because Chris had to get up at 4:00am to catch a flight to South Dakota for work.
Oftentimes when he has to get up and leave the house early, I don't go back to sleep. This morning, however, I did! Yippee! I woke up for the day when my alarm went off at 6:00am, and actually got out of bed at 6:04am.
If I'm doing the morning routine by myself, I will get up and get mostly ready for the day before I wake the children. At 6:25am, I went to wake Brianna and found Brecklyn in bed with her. Brecklyn will sometimes wake a few hours before time to get up (especially if someone else is up for some reason) and crawl in bed with Bri for the remainder of the morning.
I'm not sure anyone was quite ready to start the day, but I love these sleepy faces.
As soon as Bren wakes up for the day, he gets dressed for school. He has a place in his room where we hang all his clothes for the whole week, and it makes mornings much easier for him to be able to grab clothes for the day without having to think about it.
Almost every morning, Brecklyn will be one of the first kids to come out of her room. She will almost always lay on the rug in front of the oven for a few minutes while she wakes up a bit more.
Brooke is almost always the last one to come dragging out of her room. She doesn't like to get up in the mornings, but once she's up she finds her energy very quickly!
Once the kids use the restroom and get dressed, they start getting breakfast.
I make out a breakfast menu every month, and most mornings we cook something simple (eggs, oatmeal, waffles, toast, sausage, biscuits, etc). However, this morning we had cold cereal and fruit.
The big kids had asked me to go with them to Rise and Shine this morning, so that meant everyone had to be fully ready for the day.
Fixing Brecklyn's hair
Fixing Brooke's hair
Brooke and Brecklyn taking clothes to the dirty clothes hamper
By 7:30am, everyone was ready to walk out the door! It was a rainy day, so I put the little girls in their rain boots and everyone wore rain jackets.
My goal is to be pulling out of the driveway no later that 7:35am. We made it!
Rise and Shine starts at 7:45am. We arrived at the school with a few minutes to spare.
The big kids love to help the little girls walk into the school (Brooke and Brianna, Brenson and Brecklyn).
While walking into the gym, I noticed that Brianna's name had been added to the 100 mile Running Club plaque. I'm so proud of my girl!
Brooke and Brecklyn love Rise and Shine. They can't wait to be here with the big kids next year!
Brooke, Brianna, and Brecklyn (who did not want her photo taken)
Rise and Shine lasted a little longer than usual this day, but the twinbies and I were headed back home by about 8:10am. We pass the most beautiful field of wild flowers on our way to and from school, so I had to get a photo. The flowers are only red about 10 days out of the year.
It was 8:20am when we arrived back at home. The girls started with a few activities,
and tackled a few chores.
(dishes)
(laundry)
(bed making)
(tidying the house)
Yay for a clean kitchen!
I try to take time to tidy up every day . . . otherwise it gets too overwhelming for me.
You can see in the one of the photos above that the girls were helping me with the chores. They are great to help when I ask them to! I was dragging a bit on this day, so the morning chores took a little longer than normal. At about 9:00am, the girls sat down to paint.
I continued working on the laundry and doing a few other things, then I sat down and painted with the girls for a while!
The girls will sit and paint for a long time, which is great! It was almost an hour later when they finally decided they were ready to move on to something else. They went into the living room and worked together to finish the puzzle Brooke had started earlier in the morning.
Then, we played a game where we matched words that rhyme. They love this kind of stuff!
Once we finished the rhyming game, we went back into the kitchen to clean up the paint mess.
My sweet helpers :-)
All clean so we can eat lunch at the table!
At 10:30am, the girls had free play time while I worked on the laundry. That is one chore in this house that is never, ever, ever finished! In fact, I need to go switch the laundry from the washer to the dryer right now, haha!
Starting a new load,
while another load is waiting to be folded.
Thankfully, the girls are really good at occupying themselves while I do things that need to be done. Look how adorable they are all dressed up!
Each day that the big kids have school, I try to serve lunch by about 11:30am in order to give the little girls a solid chunk of time for a nap. At 11:10am, I started fixing tomato soup and grilled cheese for lunch. We sat down to eat at 11:25am.
Of course, we had a spill, so we had to pause eating to clean that up. Sigh.
At 11:45am, the girls were still eating, so I went to work on the laundry (again!).
The girls finished eating, used the bathroom, and at 11:55am we sat down to read a bit before nap.
While we were reading, Kaylee facetimed us, so we took a break to talk to her!
My goal each day is to have the girls in bed for nap by 12:30pm. Brooke doesn't nap some days, but I do make her stay in her bed and have quiet time (I need it as much as she does!).
Brecklyn almost always sleeps for nap, as long as she's not in the same room as Brooke. This day, Brecklyn napped in Brianna's room.
Once the girls are down for nap, I typically sit down and put my feet up a for a bit. What I do with this time varies from day to day, but on this day I did my bible reading,
worked on my scripture writing,
and looked at next month's finances (since it was the last day of April).
Then, I closed my eyes for about 30 minutes. I don't always do that, but it's certainly nice to have the option!
I have an alarm set for 2:30pm, and that's when I get the girls up, have them use the restroom, and get ready to go get the big kids from school.
Pick-up line life!
The kids start dismissing to cars at 2:55pm, so our wait isn't bad at all.
On Tuesdays, Brenson has guitar lessons at 3:30pm. This gives us enough time to pick up the big kids, drive over to the music store where his lessons are, and eat a quick snack (that I pack for us) in the car.
While Bren had his lesson, the little girls got screen time,
and Bri and I worked on spelling words and other homework.
Guitar lessons end at 4:00pm, so we got home around 4:15pm. It was stormy outside, and I heard on the radio that there was a threat of severe weather. As soon as we got home, I had the kids clean out the book nook (our "safe" place) so that we could get in there if there was a tornado warning.
While cleaning up the book nook, Brooke banged her knee and there were lots of tears and lots of drama.
At 4:30pm, the big kids sat down to do homework. Bren had his daily reading, spelling, and scripture writing to do. Brianna had some math, scripture writing, and piano practice.
While they worked on their tasks, I cleaned up dishes from lunch.
All clean for a few minutes before dinner!
For dinner, I had used a leftover ham bone to put ham and beans in the slow cooker. I find it impossible to make a smallish pot of ham and beans, so I invited my parents over to eat with us. They arrived at about 5:00pm.
Brecklyn and Grampy hanging out in the book nook
Not long after they arrived, Daddy facetimed us. The kids are always happy to see his face when he's out of town! While he was talking to the girls, Grampy and Bren ran to go get milk for dinner.
At 6:00pm, dinner was served!
Dinner was delicious, and Mom helped me get the kitchen cleaned up and the kids ready for bed, while Dad fed the kids ice cream and entertained them for me. They actually stayed a little longer than they intended because the weather was not good. They were waiting for the rain to let up a little before they left, but that just wasn't happening. At 7:40pm, they left in the pouring rain, which upset the kids because they did not think Grampy and G-Jo should be out in that weather!
The good news is that we did not have to take shelter from any tornadoes!
The kiddos were all in bed by 8:00pm. I talked to Chris for a while (who didn't come home until a few days later), then took the opportunity to put my feet up and relax.
At 9:30pm, I took a shower. After my shower, I read and watched YouTube until I went to bed at 10:30pm. I wish I could say I had a great night's sleep, but I don't sleep well at all when Chris is out of town . . . especially on the first night. It took me looooong while to relax and fall to sleep, but thankfully all the children slept really well.
Some days feel really long, and this was one of those days. However, I know that time doesn't slow down for anything, so I try to appreciate and be grateful for each moment. There's a lot of mundane (cleaning and laundry) in my every day right now, but I try to remind myself that I'm doing important work and these are days that I will forever cherish.
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