I realized I haven’t written one of these since last winter! I did write what I thought our schedule for Fall 2013 would look like, but now we’ve settled into the real thing so I want to capture it in a Day in the Life post.

This “Day in the Life” post is different from others I’ve written in the past. Before, I have always just written what a “typical at-home day” is like for us. This time, I randomly chose a day {Sept 25th} and I took 12 pictures – one picture every hour for 12 hours - to tell the story of our day!

8:30am. This was not a 7:30am wake up day for this Mama due to cramps. Ugh, I truly dislike having a period every month. So pointless. Anyway- I got the girls up around 8:15am, got Sweet Pea dressed and Little Bug did her morning chores. We made our way to the kitchen for breakfast. When I go in Sweet Pea’s room at 8am she is still rolling around in her crib with her blankie sucking her thumb and usually doesn’t want to get up right away! This morning she was up and ready to get out of bed and, in her words, “Eat breakfast.”

We ate breakfast, I emptied the dishwasher, we brushed teeth and then we went to the couch for Bible time. We read the story of Abraham from Little Bug’s big girl Bible and then we listened to a song about God keeping His promises. The girls danced to the song. Afterwards, we read a few books together.

9:30am – Room time for the girls. I started a load of laundry, cleaned my bathroom and got dinner in the crock pot. Then I published my blog for the day and checked email. And I let Room Time go over about 10 minutes because of the cramps. Sweet Pea had pulled out ALL her pjs from the drawer and spread them all over her room, which she normally does not do. It is interesting how they go “crazy” if room time extends over the normal time.

10:30am – It was actually more like 11am when we headed outside because of the delay in moving on from Room Time, but we had a nice walk outside. The weather was beautiful – not hot!! We enjoy walking in our neighborhood. The girls stop and pick up bugs, leaves, sticks and whatever else they come across. When we got back from our walk I got the tricycle and scooter out for them to ride on the driveway. This picture is precious. Little Bug was helping her baby sister get on the tricycle and being incredibly sweet about it. I love when I can capture these sweet sister moments on the camera because there are many not-so-sweet moments between them as well. For the most part, they really do play well together and love each other so much.

11:30am – We came inside and Little Bug chose to watch Word World. I started prepping lunch and then Sweet Pea and I picked 5 books to read together and went to the playroom to read. After we read the books Sweet Pea started playing with the grocery cart and play food and I went to finish prepping lunch.

12:30pm – We sit down to eat around noon. It was around 12:15 when we sat down this day. We had left over veggie soup my mom had made. Once we were finished eating, the girls got down to play together for a few minutes while I got everything cleaned up. Then at 12:45 Sweet Pea and I went to her bedroom to read books and she was in her bed at 1pm for nap.

1:30pm – As soon as Sweet Pea is down for her nap, it’s Learning Time with Little Bug! This week our book for Ready-Made Preschool was How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World. We read the story together and I brought out the blow up globe I bought to show Little Bug the world. Little Bug was working on her Map Activity by coloring the land green and the water blue. Little Bug did her letter hunt where she found two objects in the house that start with the Letter Aa. We worked on forming the Letter Aa with the magnet strips. At 1:45pm we read a few books together (usually on my bed) before Little Bug lays down for her nap at 2pm.

2:30pm – After both girls were down for their naps, I folded one very small load of laundry, put the carrots and potatoes in the crock pot with the roast, took Pup outside, vacuumed my bathroom floors with the Swiffer, laid out my clothes for church and then crashed on my bed to write some blogs (including this one!) and read until naptime was over.

3:30pm – I was teaching Bible study that night so I made sure I had all my ducks in a row for that!

4:30pm – Wednesday nights the girls get an early bath before we go to church because we get back late and Little Bug needs to head right to bed once we get home. Grandma and Grandpa (Dave’s parents) keep Sweet Pea to have some special time with her and so she can get to bed on time. Next year she will start Awanas like Big Sis.

You want to know my secret to cleaning the girls/guest/Unk’s bathroom?!? I clean it while the girls take a bath on Wednesdays after nap!! This makes cleaning seriously so easy! The girls are entertained and contained and I can clean away while they play. Takes me 10ish minutes to wipe down the counters, sinks, mirror and toilet! I’ve given up cleaning the floors in our bathrooms. Who in the world lays WHITE floors in a bathroom?! I’ve despised these floors since we first looked at this house because I knew they would be a bear to clean. So we have dirty bathroom floors. (I do clean them, however, they are always dirty and I truly don’t care.)

5:30pm – We eat an early dinner on Wednesday nights because of church. This night I made the Pepsi Roast in the crock pot and we ate before leaving for church.

6:30pm – Little Bug is loving AWANAs!

7:30pm – I was teaching Bible study at church. I did not whip my camera out to take a picture this hour because that would have been strange.

8:30pm – Wednesday nights are late. Once Little Bug was in bed and after Dave got home from youth group, we talked for a little bit before Dave went back to work at home. He’s been very busy lately with work, which is both a blessing and hard. God has gifted Dave with some amazing talents. After I snapped this picture, I had my Quiet Time and then stayed up way too late reading a book on my Kindle.

And that was our day! There are always positives and negatives of each age and stage of raising children, I have learned. The positives really do outweigh the negatives, most days. Right now, I am loving that the girls are playing more and more together by using their imaginations and having fun with pretend play. I am absolutely loving homeschooling. I was rather tired of the monotonous tasks of stay-at-home-mom which included wiping booties and cleaning up after everyone, but homeschooling has given me a new zest for life! It is truly my calling in this stage of my life and I know some of my best years as stay-at-home-mom are just ahead. Don’t get me wrong; I loved the baby stage. I was recently looking back at old pictures of Little Bug when she was less than 6 months old and I nearly cried remembering her at that stage. So much has changed in just 4 short years… Life truly goes by in the blink of an eye. I’ve always desired to enjoy and find contentment in where I am in life right now. It is not always easy, but God has us where He has us for a purpose and should be our desire to serve Him where He has placed us. That is my desire.

- Elaine