A Day In The Life

This is going to be quick because I’m a little short on time right now, but feel free to ask any specific questions in the comments. General framework:

• Wake up (7 – 7:30) – potty, change clothes, make bed, brush hair, dress/change baby, set table for breakfast
• BREAKFAST
• Breakfast cleanup; also, any leftover living room clean up (like if they’re playing hard right until bedtime and I let them save cleanup for the morning)
• Start a load of laundry/start dishwasher/hand wash dishes if baby’s happy or on my back/chicken chores (feed, water, let them out to range)
• Quiet time: girls read Bible and a devotional book and pray; Asher listens to a Bible story or just plays if I’m busy
• SCHOOL – the girl that’s not being taught or working on something is playing with one or both boys; some school is done together (geography, maps, science, Bible, music, art, home skills) and some is individual (math, grammar/phonics, writing, handwriting). I also try to spend some time reading to Asher every day as his “school.”
• Throughout school, we are interrupted by putting baby down for nap, switching a load of laundry, solving sibling disputes, helping toddler go potty, scare a hawk away from the chickens, etc. We rarely, if ever, do school straight through.
• LUNCH
• Lunch cleanup
• Rest time – Asher is in his crib for an hour, whether he sleeps or not (he sleeps perhaps three days out of seven); Maya and Ellery read independently for an hour or listen to an audiobook for an hour; Callan has been taking one nap (already!) from right before lunch through part of rest time.
• More school is completed during rest time if we were not able to finish in the morning, esp. if Cal was particularly feisty today. This is happening more lately, as Cal is now mobile, and he gets into everything, so we have to cram as much school as possible into his nap times.
• During rest time, I might blog, read, knit, do dishes/laundry, prep dinner, etc. I usually don’t have much time, because as soon as one kid is down, another’s up. Or I’m doing school during rest time, as per the last bullet point.
• Afternoons: free play, outside time, gardening in season, get the mail, check on the chickens/get eggs, rake leaves, prep dinner, etc.
• Two afternoons a week, we have dance lessons, so dinner has to be slow cooker, prepped in the morning (Mondays) or a slow-cooking oven casserole (Tuesdays; Maya makes this every week). Other days, I prep in the afternoon.
• DINNER
• Dinner cleanup
• Family time – playing, reading, family game, etc.
• Living room cleanup
• BEDTIME for children (around 7:30 – 8:30 depending on the day)
• In the evenings, Jason studies for his seminary class, helps do evening chicken chores, talks with me about his day, watches something on Hulu with me, etc. I do much the same, minus studying, plus knitting or other crafting. I also sometimes blog, check email, surf the ‘net, etc. at night.
• Bedtime for grownups (10 – 12, depending)

I’m sure I’m forgetting something, but that’s a general framework for how things go around here. Again, ask questions if you want to know something I’ve forgotten or omitted. Because our days are so jam-packed, I have a difficult time doing things like grocery shopping (or any shopping at all). In summer, this was no problem, as we eat from the garden and pantry/freezer. For now, we still eat pantry/freezer, and I might go to the grocery store once every two weeks for extra produce and dairy needs. We pick up milk and cheese straight from the farmer on Mondays on the way home from ballet, so I never need to run to the store for a last minute run for milk or anything.