A Day in the Life…

I’m joining Rebekah at Simply Rebekah today and her annual A Day in the Life… link-up. The idea is to take a picture every hour that you’re awake for one whole day, just to see what a day in your life looks like. This is the first year I’ve participated, because I finally remembered to actually take my pictures. And with my iPhone, it’s much easier for me to just snap a picture wherever I am, whatever I’m doing.

I really enjoyed this project, and found that I was taking pictures more often then every hour, just trying to document everything that we did throughout the day.

Here’s a Day in my Life…

I wake up at 5:00, as usual, to get some alone, quiet time and work time. I’m reading Jesus Calling and really enjoying it. Then, as I start working, I see a reminder on Facebook to take pictures, so I decide this would be as good a day as any. I snap my first picture around 5:30, working and coffee, the two staples of my morning routine. Laundry is piled on the table behind the computer.

The baby wakes up around 6:15 and I nurse her back to sleep to try to squeeze in a few more minutes of work time. I love this view. The dark, quiet moments of nursing a babe are some of the sweetest moments of motherhood.

The kids get up and we get breakfast around 7:15. I made fruit-on-the-bottom yogurt the night before, and it was so nice to just grab them out of the fridge in the morning. It ended up being an unexpected snow day for my daughter because the temperatures were so cold. She’d already had Friday and Monday off for MLK day, so this was the 5th day that we were all at home together for the majority of the day.

After breakfast the kids settle on the couch with a book on CD from the library. Love her bedhead and the blanket over his head!

The baby sleeps in and is up around 8, I sit down to nurse her and try to fit in some reading, but this is what usually happens when I try to read while nursing. She’s a little distractable! Also, I really need to take off my peeling nail polish!

After I get up from nursing I find the kids playing quietly in their room. I love moments like this! And don’t mind the messy room – just showing you our real life here!

A while later, Kaelyn decides she wants to head outside to play in the snow. She’s wearing two pairs of pants and three shirts, but no snow pants! She stayed out for about five minutes before she decided it was just too cold!

The baby is taking her morning nap, so the kids and I decide to make some muffins. I made the grain-free pumpkin muffins from Healthy Snacks To Go. It was my first time making anything grain-free and I was so glad that they turned out so delicious! The kids gobbled them up. They each had two right away, and the whole dozen was gone by breakfast the next morning! Yum!

While the muffins were baking I enlisted a little manual labor from the kids. This is actually one of their favorite activities, they call it “soapy bubbles”, I call it “getting my floors clean!” Ha! I do have to mop up after they’re done because they use too much water, but I just figure that cleans up any spots that they miss.

The baby wakes up while we’re cleaning, so she plays in her Bumbo while we finish up.  She’s just starting to be able to scoot and move around, so I’m taking advantage of the fact that she still likes to sit and play while I can!

I sit down to nurse the baby again and read to the kids. Bren’s not really into reading much lately, he can’t sit still for long. So he’s off playing and we’re having some girl time.

Then we have lunch, but I didn’t take any pictures of it. Too busy I guess! After lunch the baby and the dog do some sun bathing while the kids and I do some cleaning up.

A while later and the baby is ready for her afternoon nap. I wear her in the Baby Hawk so I can get some stuff done while putting her to sleep. She loves the carrier, and if she’s tired she’ll fall asleep almost as soon as I put her in it!

Once I get the baby down I play a game of Candy Land with the kids, then they have their afternoon quiet time, aka TV time, so I can get some work done.

Their video is over, the baby is still sleeping, so I’m still working. They have a dance party in the living room while I finish up. Why yes, my son is only wearing underwear, on one of the coldest days of the year. Can’t keep clothes on that kid, crazy boy! Oh, and the laundry is still piled on the table. Oops!

The dance party quickly turns into this – they pull all their blankets and pillows out from their room and are jumping off the coffee table onto them. This is the kind of thing we do to burn off energy when it’s too cold to go outside and play. Notice how the dog is watching in the window for Jer to get home. She does this every day. She knows when it’s time for him to come home!

The UPS man brings us a package: our new juicer! After watching the documentaries Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead and Hungry for Change my hubs has decided that he wants to do a 10 day juice fast. He’s planning to start tomorrow. (Last Wednesday, he’s on day 10 now!) He gets home from work a little later today because he went to the store and picked up all the fruits and veggies for his juicing!

We eat a later dinner, chili, one of my hubs favorite meals as his last meal before his juice fast. I didn’t take pictures of that either. I guess I’m too busy, and distracted by hungry kiddos, in the kitchen at meal time to stop and take pictures! The chili was in the crockpot, which made dinner so easy! Blair hangs out in her exersaucer while we eat. She’s such a content and happy baby!

After dinner we enjoy chocolate cake that Jer bought to celebrate before starting his juice fast! We don’t usually have dessert, so the kids are excited!

Then, the kids help daddy set up and try out the new juicer. They make apple and orange juice and it is yummy! Then it’s jammies, brushing teeth, reading books, prayers and bedtime. I think the kids went to bed a little late this night, around 9.

And then I didn’t take any more pictures between the kids bedtime and mine. I think the baby was having trouble settling down and going to sleep, she’s been cutting teeth. So I finally fell, exhausted, into bed at 11:00. Have to get up and do it all again tomorrow!

 

A few notes about our day:

*This is not really a typical day. My daughter usually goes to school every morning, so I do more work in the morning, and less stuff like baking and cleaning, and do less work in the afternoon. I found out it was a snow day after I decided to take pictures. And then once I knew she’d be staying home I just decided to roll with it.

*Just in case you think there is a perfectly clean house behind all those smiling faces, don’t be fooled. I think one reason I didn’t take many pictures of our meals and food is because the kitchen was a mess and the table was obviously half covered with folded laundry, which doesn’t make for very pretty pictures.

*And my kids are not perfectly behaved either. I can’t remember if there were any tantrums this day, but we rarely make it through the day without at least one, from one of the older kids, and usually several. I guess I try not to remember those, so I don’t take pictures of them. But that definitely doesn’t mean they don’t happen!

Head over to Simply Rebekah to check out everyone’s Day in the Life…

What does a day in your life look like? Similar to mine?

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