It has been almost 3 years since my last "day in the life". Since life has changed drastically from covid and a 6 month old, I thought we would do another check in.
For the obvious disclaimer. No day is "typical" and 99.9% of the time, things don't go according to plan. But this will represent that ideal/what is supposed to happen. And to be honest, most days, most things are hit. Because my goal each day is to have a successful day - NOT to take pictures for a blog post, I often forgot to take a picture of an "event" and didn't realize it until it was too late (like taking Madison to school) so then I would just try to remember to take that picture the next day, or the next day. So this post REPRESENTS what we do everyday, but the pictures might come from a different day. So a few outfits might be different, that is how you know it is a different day. Sorry.
5:30 am - My day starts around 5:30. I wish it were 5. My alarm goes off at 5. I get out around 5:30. If I "sleep in", I don't get out until 6. But that is rare. Jason teaches seminary every other week. So one weeks where he doesn't teach I take the boys to seminary.
I will spend the next 2 hours alternating between me, my kids, and my husband. I operate in about 10 minute increments including: waking up, talking with, and driving my 4 teenagers to school, with my scripture study, emails, online to do list, and talking/cuddling with Jason. I would really love to put a work out in there this spring - but I barley get the things done I need to get done as is.
All the kids have morning jobs to do. As you can see they love doing them! Haha, just kidding, this is a bad picture. They all get their jobs done with out me even having to ask or remind. It is kind of like magic! They are my little elves.
6:50 am - Megan leaves on her bike for school. Only EXTREME weather conditions will keep her from riding her bike. I love that she loves it, but I really love driving them to school, I have sweet memories driving the others. But I would rather her enjoy her daily bike rides and I love that she is so independent. She doesn't LOVE riding her bike to school, but she does love riding it home. So I am even grateful she has learned about the rewards of sacrifice.
7:05 am - I take maddie to school. I often wish she would just walk or ride her bike, because at this point I realize I only have about 20 more minutes left to accomplish anything and I still have so much to do! But then I remember the sweet memories of taking Brock and Noah and I put my own agenda aside and say a prayer of gratitude that I have an opportunity to pause and have some one on one time with Mads.
and out they come. They usually run into our room, but sometimes they start playing a game in the hall or down stairs. Today they ran downstairs. Breakfast has to start quick because Dane get for real Hangry. If he doesn't have something in his stomach by 7:45 he is going to loose his mind and I will not be able to get him to eat without a drop-down, all-out battle.
We try to eat together for a bit. I will read the Book or Mormon to them and then also a bit of a read aloud (Henry Huggins that day) and/or a friend magazine article.
After their high 5 I try and get ready before we take Dane and they play around the house/me. One of my personal goals this year has been to "get ready" everyday. That constitutes: make-up, hair, intentional outfit, and jewelry (notice what is not on my list: shower - ha). I WANT to be ready before we drop Dane off, that happens 90% of the time. But not always.
Dane gets to pick a song on the way to preschool that helps him feel the spirit and feel "peace", it always works to calm both of them down. Today he picked "Broken".
Here he is at his Preschool Thanksgiving Day celebration.
Then on the way home from preschool it is just me and Eve and she is now a delight. We talk about our "plans" and she tells me our steps for the rest of the day. They usually include: show, games, art, lunch, and naps.
9:20 am - we get home and she watches a show while I finish getting ready, clean the house up, and finish up any of my "to-do" list stuff. There are things I like to do every day and try to dedicate 10 minutes to each thing (work on blog, blog book, vacation panning, family history, stretching, organizing, social media) so I try to do that while she/they are watching shows.
I snapped a selfie and sent it to my sister in law. We are trying to keep each other accountable getting ready every day. We both had babies during Covid and the combination of having babies and also teenagers in our late 30's and Covid put both of us in a "only get ready on Sundays" kind of place we didn't like. So we decided to encourage getting ready each day and snap selfies to send to each other as proof.
12:30 pm - We took Marshall home, Eve ate lunch in the car, while we picked Noah up from school and took him to get some allergy testing done.
1:30 pm - We get home and I put Eve down for a nap and make some lunch.
2:15 pm - Dane is home from preschool and he has "alone time" while get a few things done (clean up the house, work on dinner, work on my to do list, mindlessly scroll social media, or take a nap) Today I organized our crawl space: halloween wasn't quite put away and that needed to happed before I took Christmas out.
2:45 pm - At this time an alarm goes on my phone that says "Dane". I am supposed to stop what I am doing and go spend some time with Dane. During this time we read some books and usually play a board game. To be honest out of the 5 days of the week I usually only do this 2 or 3. On those other days I turn off the alarm and think "I will go do that in a bit" and then I never do. sigh. To be fair though he is happily playing legos our outside by him self. For all the other kids at Dane's age they just had screen (computer) time during nap time - so at least I have upgraded in my parenting a bit.
3:10 pm - Big kids start arriving home. While we don't have "screen time" on weekdays - phones have become a gray area. Megan and Madison don't have a phone, they share a "home phone/Gabb phone" so as soon as they get home they are on it the rest of the evening either texting or listening to music. Noah usually doesn't come home from school as he usually has Tech, but if he does he heads to the basement and works on his crafts while listening to music on the TV (pretending he isn't just playing video games), and Brock is 50/50. Sometimes he comes home, sometimes he doesn't. When he does come home he will do home work or pay on his bed. Both of the boys work after school, so about 2 or 3 days a week I run one of them to school.
3:00-6:00 pm - I am mad that over 3 days I never took pictures of what is really going on between 3 and 6. That is probably becasue it is such a grab bag and stressful time. I am trying to do and be every thing to everyone. I am trying to talk to the teens when they come home, find out about their day, their homework , their activities, their plans, thought, emotions, trials, happiness, joys, 5 year plans, hopes and dreams for the future... you know, they normal stuff moms are always asking about :) While also trying to get them to maybe do a few chores for me. But you know... also wanting them to unwind after 7 hours of school.... so I don't want to over whelm them or seem overly interested in them. I want home to feel like peace and safety. At the same time Dane and Eve struggle during these witching hours. They have had just me all day, so you would think they would be like, "hey, mom has done everything for us and with us that is humanly possible, so we should play by ourselves so she can take care of our older brothers and sisters." But they don't think that at all! ha. They are annoyed that anyone other than them are talking to me. I am being a bit facetious. Somedays they run into the back yard or get engrossed in an activity for a few hours. But you can never tell, never plan on it, or ever create it. Also, in the midst of that, I am making dinner and running kids around. It is crazy and tiresome and every day feels like I didn't do it right. But to be honest. It might be my favorite 3 hours of the day.
5:00 ish - At some point Jason comes home from work or is done with work. Sometimes he will come down and read books with Dane and Eve, wrestle with them, dry and put away dishes, help with homework, run a kid somewhere, talk to me about my day, talk to a kid about their day, or work on one of his house projects.
5:30 - 6:30 - Dinner. Weird I didn't take a picture of dinner. But we always sit down with everyone that is home and eat dinner together. Every night. It is pretty great.
6:30 pm - We usually have some sort of activity each night. Tonight the Elders came over for a lesson. And we ate some oreo pie I made with Dane and Eve after dinner.
The biggest drama of our house hold every night is the big question: When will Megan get to shower. From the very last moment she eats her last bite of dinner she starts asking "when can I take a shower". She is pretty obsessive about it and it drives Jason crazy. But her desires to shower has caught on like wild fire and now everyone wants to shower at night and that drives Jason even more crazy. Usually everyone who wants to shower gets to shower, but if not... we usually let Megan, since it was her idea first.
At 7:00 it is time for Dane and Eve to go to bed. They go potty, get jammies on, pray and get a song sung to them.
Then from 7:00 - 9:00 it is a grab bag. Usually kids are coming home from various activities, eating various stages of first dinner, second dinner, bowls of cereal, snacks, ice cream, etc. Kids are always showering, doing homework, listening to music, or talking to Jason. Jason "puts the house to bed" and makes sure everyone get their dinner jobs done and their evening jobs done. Sometimes all the stars align and everyone is home and everyone's homework is done and no one is in the shower and we spend some time together. We usually read a chapter book out loud, play a family game, or watch a movie. But if now, around 8:30 we all gather into our room and read scriptures
and pray.
We still put our older kids "to bed", even Brock, who is 17 next week. After prayer they are supposed to go get jammies on and brush their teeth and then Jason or I will come sing to them. We tickle their arm or back and sing a song they choose. Songs include: Come Thou Fount, Nearer My God to Thee, Spider Web, Tell Me The Reason, Poor Wayfaring Stranger, A - you're Adorable.
Then I usually lay down and watch the news and fall asleep, or scroll. Jason usually heads downstairs and plays nintendo. We do have a weekly date night where we watch something together and go to bed together.
