A Day in the Life

I wanted to document a day in our life right now before Summer hits and our schedule looks different. Monday seemed like a pretty typical Monday for our family this week.

5:30am- My alarm goes off and I lie in bed for a few minutes, ha! and then I get up and run on the treadmill.

6:30am- I finish running and shower and get ready for the day. Some of the kids wake up while I get ready and they watch TV in my room.

7:15am- I'm ready and head to the kitchen to make breakfast and pack lunches. The kids all choose different breakfasts (I'm okay with it). Nathan has granola bars, Samuel eats yogurt, and I make scrambled eggs for Elisabeth. I hear Katherine awake and get her up/change her diaper. She has a cereal bar and milk for breakfast. The boys are eating in the cafeteria, so I only have to pack one lunch for Elisabeth.

7:45- Everyone is finished with breakfast. The boys usually get dressed as soon as they wake up, but I send Elisabeth upstairs to get dressed/brush her teeth. They also each have one chore every morning, so I assign those (Nathan-empty trash, Elisabeth- unload dishwasher, and Samuel- straighten the living room, kitchen and dining room).

8:00- Katherine is her normal silly self wearing Elisabeth's high heels

Elisabeth recruits Katherine's help with the dishwasher. I'm not sure if that's a good move or not, ha!

8:25- Once the kids are dressed/fed/teeth brushed/and chores finished, they have free time with screens until it's time to leave for school. Samuel usually asks to play Minecraft, Nathan plays games on his computer and Elisabeth watches shows on her kindle. I also get Katherine dressed and hair done before we leave for the day.

8:50- time to get shoes on and load up for school

9:00- I drop off the boys at school. Elisabeth's school doesn't start until 9:30 so we always have a little downtime in between drop offs. If we have short errands, I try and save them for that window of time. On Monday we needed to run to Walgreens so we did that before her school started.

9:45- Elisabeth is at school, and Katherine and I run to Target to pick up a few things.

10:30- We head home, unload the car and play for a little while in her room.

11:00- I feed Katherine an early lunch because we have Mommy and Me gymnastics during normal lunch time. While she eats (lunch meat, cheese, grapes and a granola bar), I straighten up the kitchen and do some laundry).

11:20- We leave for Mommy and Me gymnastics. Katherine loves to run and play and especially the "sticks song" that they always sing at the end of class.

12:10- We're home from gymnastics and I put Katherine down for her nap. While she naps I eat a quick lunch, move laundry over, make some LEGO Gummies for Nathan's birthday party on Friday night and do some of my weekly chores.

1:15- Mondays are my bathroom cleaning days, so I get the three bathrooms cleaned and continue to start loads and hang up clean laundry as I go.

2:10- I wake up Katherine and we head to pick up Elisabeth from school.

2:30- We run to Braums to pick up milk (and ice cream) before heading home.

2:50- I send the girls outside to play while I prep dinner. I also let them have some down time and watch a show before we pick up the boys from school since we have a busy afternoon ahead.

3:50- We load up to pick up the boys from school and head straight to Soccer City for Samuel's class. He's really enjoying soccer this year and has improved a lot!

The other kids all have made some sweet friends and look forward to playing with them every week while Samuel is in his class. Even Katherine has a sweet little friend that she plays with every week at soccer (and she's at Elisabeth's dance class too, so they get to play together twice a week)

5:25- We drive home and pop dinner in the oven. I send the kids outside to play while it cooks and I get everything ready for dinner.

6:00- Dinner time. The kids all tell their best, worst, and silliest parts of the day while they eat.

6:30- We head for a family walk to our neighborhood pond.

The kids play at the pond, while Matt, Katherine, and I walk and visit about our day.

7:00- We head home. The kids change into their jammies and watch a night night show, while I put Katherine to bed.

7:45- Time for bed. We all go upstairs to brush teeth, read books and pray

8:15- Everyone is in bed. Matt and I finish cleaning up the kitchen and doing dishes.

8:45- I get ready for bed and we watch a show together. We've been having a hard time staying awake past 9:30 lately. Honestly, I don't even think I made it much past 9:00 before we were both asleep. These kids wear us out, ha!

As I was intentionally documenting my day yesterday to write this post, I really felt reminded with how grateful I am for this life. We're headed to Disney World soon, and I've been planning and planning and looking forward to this trip for months and months, but yesterday I felt that although those memories from a  huge vacation are going to be wonderful and life long, the day to day moments with my family are really what life is about. Seeing the joy on my children's faces as they participate in activities they love, caring for our beautiful home, reading and praying together as a family, those moments matter just as much as the huge milestone moments, and I'm so grateful for them and this life.