I love seeing Day in the Life posts from others! It’s been a long, long time since I’ve done one on my blog, so yesterday I decided to actually document what all I do in a day. Fair warning: it was a busier than normal day and it may make you feel exhausted just from reading about it. My days are typically not quite that busy, although I do tend to go without stopping from the time I wake up until bedtime. I also found that when I know I am documenting the day for a blog post, I end up doing more. Normally I would have an afternoon slump, but I pushed through that because I knew I would be posting on the blog about it. I keep that in mind when I am reading other bloggers day in the life posts, too. It doesn’t mean that they idealize their day or leave out difficult parts, but it often does mean that there is a mindset shift to “perform” to the best of one’s ability on that day. So keep that in mind when you come along with me for the day!
6:20 AM- alarm goes off. Theo has already left for work. I stay in bed and do my devotions until a little person joins me around 6:40. I keep reading and journaling until I head all the kids wake up by 7:15.
Once the kiddos are up, they are pretty HANGRY and breakfast needs to become a top priority. I usually try to get my devotions done and write a blog post before the kids get up, but that did not happen this morning, so I take the laptop out to the kitchen and start doing 14 things at once- make breakfast, clean off the countertops, unload the dishwasher, upload photos to my blog, and chit-chat with the kids.
Once breakfast is over, we move into the dining room and work on getting some “school” done. Mostly this is just maintenance work that I am making Tera work on over the summer- handwriting and math addition facts. Kiah works on his preschool workbook alongside us, and Ezra is usually getting into some sort of minor trouble. I’m still working on a blog post and eating my own breakfast.
Once we finish up school, it’s around 9am and I get us ready to head out of the house to run some errands. I get myself dressed and get some clothes for the kids as well as fill up water bottles and grab all the stuff that we need to return. We hustle out the door only to realize that Ezra had no shoes, so I return to grab those.
First stop: right across the street to clean the Airbnb and throw a load of laundry into the wash. But it turns out my BIL and SIL (who stayed last) already washed AND dried the laundry! HALLELUJAH- that just saved me about two hours of my day!
Next stop: the library to drop off some of our books and pick up the ones that I have on hold!
Then we drive to return a chair that we accidentally kept from our party. We borrowed 10 chairs and accidentally only returned 9, so I need to return the one rogue chair.
Since we were in the area, we decided to hit up some of the parks still on our list from the 51 Parks Challenge!
We went to three parks- we probably spend about 10 minutes at each one- and two of my kids peed their pants and one kid had to emergency poop in the woods. So that was fun.
While we were driving, we spotted this sunflower field and I whipped the van around to go back. This Mama cannot resist a sunflower field. They are probably one of my favorite things IN THE WORLD. This one did not disappoint! We picked a few and made our own bouquet and also bought some local wild honey.
While the extra detour made lunch a little bit late, it was worth it! We got home and got some lunch around 1.
Once I got Ezra down for his nap (spoiler alert: he didn’t actually nap), I read aloud to Tera and Kiah. We have been seriously enjoying reading The Little House series! The kids are at the perfect age to be able to understand and follow along and this might just be my favorite part of the day!
Once I got the kids settled for rest time, I ran over to the Airbnb again to finish making the beds and cleaning the home for the guests that were arriving later. I usually listen to an Audiobook while I clean- this is my current read.
Once I finish that, I finally grab myself some lunch and sit down to look at a magazine and read my book while I eat. Notice its almost 2:30 by the time I got lunch. Oops.
I spend the rest of the afternoon cleaning the house, doing chores, organizing the library books, planting one of my plants in a new pot, folding a few loads of laundry, getting the kids a snack, collecting some books and toys to give to the family staying in the Airbnb, etc. Nothing exciting whatsoever. I also find it hard to convey here how much I am interacting with my kids during these hours. They are with me 24/7. Sometimes this is very welcome, and sometimes it’s just plain hard! A task like sweeping the floor takes at least 25 minutes because in between I’m also taking someone to the bathroom, working through a disagreement, opening 3 popsicles, and finding a missing lego piece. So much of motherhood can’t be captured in a picture!
Theo gets home shortly before 5 (he works 10 hour shifts and is usually gone for 11+ hours on his workdays…but the flip side of this is that he always has a 3 day weekend!). I immediately put him to work rescuing my cookbook that fell behind the fridge and he works with Kiah to rescue it.
Before I start on dinner, I go for a quick run. Many people say that they don’t understand how I could run on a 90 degree day that has already been so full, but the thing is that going for a run actually energizes me- it’s such a mood booster and helps me to process the day (and have a little time that is JUST me). Theo stays home with the kids and also works out in the garage.
When I get back from my run, I start making dinner and have my Kiah helper with me! Since we have been doing a screen free summer, the kids are always wanting to help in the kitchen at dinner time. Usually they are ALL in there, but Tera was listening to an audiobook and Kiah helped me while Ezra ran around the kitchen, living room and backyard.
We ate dinner around 6:30 (I took a photo but 3/5 members of the family are shirtless and requested that picture not be online). We make a big effort to eat dinner together at the table each night. Of course, there are plenty of nights that are busy, and we always have one movie night a week where we eat dinner in front of the TV.
Theo takes off for Bible Study and the kids and I do the rest of the days chores- Tera loads the dishwasher, Kiah does a load of laundry and I hand wash the pots and pans. Ezra’s chore is to set the table.
Once the chores are done, I tell the kids they can play outside until bedtime (usually around 8pm). They play their hearts out on this swing while I finish reading my book.
At 8ish, I corral everyone inside for bedtime. The kids go potty, brush teeth and pick two books each for me to read to them. We snuggle up in bed and read and then the kids go gently to sleep with their sweet cheeks leaned up against me. HA! JUST KIDDING! They are supposed to go to the bathroom and brush their teeth, but after a lot of playing around, they had several of the read aloud books taken away and one child blocked up the sink, causing it to overflow and practically flood the bathroom (thankfully I saw it before too long, but it still took three full towels to sop up the mess). Oh, and one child walked smack into the top frame of the bunk bed and required an ice pack. I finally got the kids into bed and just then the people staying in our Airbnb arrive and need to be let in. I run across the street to welcome them, then come back home and take a shower. Theo arrives home as soon as I finish my shower and we get in bed and read for about 30 minutes before going to bed around 9:30/10.
And that is a wrap on a day in the summer life!
Like mother. Like son. š Ezra’s shoes