A Day in the Life

 Elisabeth has been reading the blog books and mentioned the other day that my "day in the life posts" were some of her favorites, and I kicked myself for not posting more of them over the last few years. I decided to choose a day and document it for her and the rest of us to look back on. 

This is how we spent Tuesday, November 18, 2025

For the past year, I've been walking with a couple of friends early in the mornings. My alarm goes off at 5:40 to meet friends at 6:00. 

Desiree wasn't able to join us this morning, so it was just me and Anne. We walk four miles around our neighborhood and chat the whole time. I always feel so energized and ready for the day when I get home, and quality time with friends is a great way to start the day. 

Katherine is my early riser and is usually always awake when I get home at 7:00. She usually watches a show while I get ready for the day. I've been saying I'm going to stop those for the past three years, and they're still going strong, ha!

I quickly shower and get ready for the day, and then my daily Bible reading with my coffee. 

Katherine asked me to play a game with her, so she set it up while I finished reading, and we played a quick game before the other kids woke up. 

Elisabeth woke up around 8:00 and got busy with her school for the day. She started with her science lab report. They were growing bacteria and had to leave the container in my kitchen for weeks. Not my favorite science experiment. 

Every morning I assign the kids chores for the day. On Tuesdays they always clean, dust and vacuum their rooms, and then each have another chore. 

They also have a list of their school assignments for the day that they can mark off as they finish. 

Katheirne eats breakfast (I made muffins the morning before that she ate with some milk), and then asked me to help her with her writing assignment for the day. 

Nathan and Samuel both are late sleepers and didn't wake up until around 9:00. Nathan always checks his robotics group messages first thing every morning. 

I left the older kids at home working on school and chores while I took Katherine to her dance class at 10:00. 

I always either run errands or sit in my car and read while she's at dance. I was teaching her book club at co-op this week so I re read the chapters of the Vanderbeekers book that had been assigned. I've read that book three times and have cried every time. It's the sweetest story, and I was very much looking forward to discussing it with the kiddos in class. 

I came home from dance to Elisbabeth making lunch. 

While they ate lunch we did what we call "group" for the day. Each school day we all five get together, watch World Watch News, do Bible reading together, and I read aloud our history reading, and our read aloud book. 

I've been asking the kids to read aloud during Bible. We're reading chronologically through the New Testament. 

When I look back on these days homeschooling my kids, reading aloud to all of them, will be the memories I cherish the most. It's always my favorite part of the day, especially when we're reading a good book. We just started The Boundless, and I think it's going to be great!

While I read, Elisabeth built with dominoes. 

She made a cool time lapse video.

After group, the girls asked if they could play a game together. I hesitated to say yes, because they each still had several things to finish for school, but then I remembered the wisdom of an older mom who tole me to (when possible) prioritize sibling relationships during our homeschool days, so I said yes. They've been on a kick playing this Junior Detective game. It's a fun one!

While they were playing, the boys were getting after their school. I caught a picture of Sam doing his typing exercises for the day. I think that's his favorite part of school. 

Katherine had a hard afternoon and threw a huge fit over being upset at something. She begged to ride with me to drop off Nathan at his physics class and proceeded to fall asleep on the drive. Sweet Nathan reached back to help her calm down when she was upset. 

Nathan has a physics class that meets on Tuesday afternoon from 4:00-5:30. I dropped him off at 4:00 and drove back home. Matt is able to usually pick him after class.

As I was driving home, Katherine saw the Pashkovets playing outside, so she ran home and grabbed her siblings and spent the next hour and a half jumping in the leaves with their friends. 

Neighborhood friends are the best! They've enriched my kids' childhoods in countless ways. 

While they were playing, I took advantage of the quiet house and worked on my power point presentation for my Biztown class I was teaching that week at co-op. 

At 5:00 I started dinner. 

Matt and Nathan arrived home at 6:00, and we all ate dinner together. Tuesdays are a rare night where we're all home for dinner, and I savor those nights!

Our after dinner routine is that the kids clean up the kitchen, while Matt and I walk around the block a few times. 

Afterwards the kids showered and a few still had some school to finish up. Matt read some of the Vanderbeekers to Katherine. 

Bella was in a playful mood too!

We usually have time to watch an episode of Home Impovement before we send the kids to bed some evenings, but we ran out of time on Tuesday. The kids took longer than necessary to clean up the kitchen, ha!

Around 8:30, we try and settle the kids in bed (or in their rooms). Katherine read in her bed before falling asleep. 

The older kids read too, and honestly, I'm not sure what else they do in their rooms at night. I know Nathan usually works on some of his co-op homework at night. We reached the age where they stay up later than Matt and I do. I usually try to be in bed between 9:00 and 10:00 and read or scroll on my phone before falling asleep. 

These are certainly the good old days! And I'm savoring them! Being home with my babies all day everyday is the greatest blessing. I'll never take if for granted. 

Halloween 2025

 We celebrated another great Halloween. The day before Halloween was Pumpkin Spice day at co-op. We had a potluck, and the kids could wear costumes. 

Instead of wearing her Halloween costume, Katherine wore her Jasmine costume for Disney World. She asked me to do her hair a certain way, and it turned out really cute. 

On Pumpkin Spice day our book club was celebrating finishing a silly mystery book. They all got disguise mustaches to celebrate. 

On Halloween just like the previous eight years, we spent the evening with the Shondelmyers. This was the first Halloween at their new house and new neighborhood. We were all curious to see how trick or treating was in the new neighborhood. 

Elisabeth dressed up as a Greek goddess this year. I really liked her costume. 

Katherine wanted to be a witch. She sure is a cute one!

She tried to give us an evil pose, but that girl can only give big smiles. I love that about her. 

For the last I don't know how many years, Nathan wore his penguin onesie. I'm just happy he still likes to trick or treat. 

Samuel designed and made his own costume- a dragon from the Wings of Fire series he's been reading. He has a gift in designing and creating things. He always impresses me with his creativity. This year was no different. 

We took a few group pictures before sending the kids out on their own. 

Elisabeth and Kaydence went out together, and the other five went together. 

It's still a little wild to me that the kids are all old enough to go off on their own. Corey, Brooke, Matt, and I stayed back sitting by the fire sipping coffee, handing out candy, and visiting. We always laugh about the first year we all trick or treated together, and how Corey had to rescue all the Little Ones whose legs were too tired to walk home. We all piled them in the back of his truck. Sometimes that feels like yesterday, and now they're all racing through the neighborhood on their own. I'm savoring each season of parenting these awesome kids. 

Katherine and Keaton came back earlier than the rest of the kids and traded candy and watched a movie. 

The kids were happy with the new neighborhood and came home with way too much candy.

Katherine fell asleep on the way home. I love the sucker in her hand. The sign of a wonderful Halloween night.