Day in the Life- October 2011

NavigatingtheMothership is hosting the fall edition of "Day in the Life"! Here is my contribution:

DAY IN THE OCTOBER LIFE:

Noah-Husband

Julie-Me

Deacon-7

Roman-6

Lincoln-4

Berean-18months

Name TBD- Christmas Day

0723: I roll out of bed. My goal is to get up at 0700, but considering that we were up late (past midnight) last night, I gave myself an extra 23 minutes. Surprisingly, my morning shadow, Lincoln, was still asleep. That didn't last long.

0725: Check blogs, facebook, email. Then I run down to the laundry room to get some laundry going- I try to get all the laundry done on Mondays, but I had an extra load to do that had gotten missed. I note on the way down that the bizarro atomic clock is still reading bizarro times and cannot be trusted.

My laundry room is very fancy. See the blue laundry basket in front of the dryer? That basket is 11 1/2 years old. Noah believes that it is time to toss it out, but I just haven't done it yet. The more laundry baskets, the better- I always say.

0735: I start some water for hot chocolate. My microwave has been on the fritz for nearly a month now, and it is truly aggravating. Apparently not aggravating enough though to get me to go to the store and buy a new one. I sit down to read my Bible and pray. I look up to see this cute little face yawning at me. One of the boys or Noah must have released her from her pack n' play.

0755: Noah is around, getting ready for work. The boys are playing. I take a quick shower. And then head for the kitchen to start breakfast for the crew.

0805: Breakfast prep in full swing, my goal is to have breakfast going at 0800, before that time, if the boys are up they are on their own. Toast for me (with butter, peanut butter and jelly) and the boys and Berean with various combinations of toast, cereal, bananas and milk.

0820: Mother-in-law arrives a little early and so I rush to get Lincoln dressed and cleaned up for his speech therapy. She takes him out the door for therapy and the older boys and I get the kitchen cleaned up and ready for schoolwork. Somewhere in there I get Berean changed, cleaned up and dressed. School starts around 0830.
School goes on from around 0830 until 1030. Lincoln gets home somewhere around 1000 and joins in the fun. I spend some time wrangling markers away from Berean and trying to keep her off the table. I get the swimming bags packed while the boys do their worksheets. It is amazing what we can get done in couple of hours- all subjects and pages that are supposed to be done, get done. I release the boys and quickly cut up the rest of my apples for applesauce. I have made applesauce out of around 4 bushels of apples- some from friends and some from an apple orchard. We will be able to have applesauce for a snack at least twice a week for the next 6 months. I also start lunch.
1115: I enter the once completely clean living room (I didn't include the picture from earlier of it's clean state). Hmmm...what have we here? Camera is having flash problems, and there are lots of movements, but as you can see, great fun was had by all.

1120: I informed the boys that they would be cleaning up the living room before playing with any friends that afternoon. Everyone sat down to eat their pancake lunch. Applesauce still cooking down.
During lunch I ran upstairs to get my running shoes on and to make sure that I had everything necessary for the afternoon's activities.

1140: grab the swimming bags. Yes, the swimming bags were sitting outside the door in the garage. This precaution is necessary to prevent a certain someone from distributing their contents all over the house.
1141: Berean and I head outside to get in the van (our garage is holding several large tools that my husband is supposed to be finding a place for). I look over our yard. No sign of the boys. I call and they eventually come running from all corners of the yard and pile in the van.
Oh! Here is Berean chillin' in her chair while I hunt for the boys.

1145: We are finally on our way to homeschool gym and swimming lessons at the YMCA.

1200: I get the older boys to their class, drop the two younger ones off at childcare and head up to the treadmills. Normally I walk/run and talk to the other moms. This time I half listen to the conversation while trying to keep my attention on the "Prereading" (which is 16 chapters of non-light reading) that I need to have done for a Critical Care class I am taking next week. I walk 3 miles.

1300: pick up the boys from their class and get them changed for swimming lessons. Roman has his lesson first, and I swim a 1/2 mile during his lesson. Deacon has passed his pinkwristband test and is allowed to be in the leisure pool alone.

1350: pick little ones up from childcare and get their swimming suits on. Roman, Lincoln, Berean and I all swim during Deacon's lesson. Roman passes his pink wrist band test and he is very happy.

1445: out of the pool and headed for the dreaded locker room. Showering and redressing all those little wet bodies in a locker room is no easy task.

1505: walking out of the Y. Think getting out this fast must be a record.

1520: arrive home. Berean has fallen asleep and gets put in her crib. The boys clean up the living room (very nicely!) and get all of their AWANA (church stuff) together by the door. I strain my cooked down apples through my applesauce maker. While I am doing that, our friends arrive from down the street and we head outside.

I stop to take some pictures of my flowers- the monarchs love them!
Deacon climbs his favorite tree. I visit with my neighbor.

The kids all want their pictures taken. I didn't ask permission to post the pictures of the (several) children in our yard, but here are some of the boys.

1630: head back inside. The boys turn on the tv and I finish up my applesauce project.

1655: Grandma Pam arrives to take Deacon to church choir. She brings him a new shirt from Feed My Starving Children, since he had gone with to help pack food the night before. I took some pictures of my mom, but I am pretty sure she would not want them posted :)
1700: I wash and bundle up my new favorite purchase, my applesauce maker, to take to church for my friend Renae. I clean up the kitchen and get myself ready for church.

1740: I load the 3 younger kids up in the van and we set off for church. Spaghetti pie for supper! The kids eat the meat, I eat it all. We meet Deacon at church, but he eats supper with his friends.

1830: Everyone is dropped off at their appropriate classes, and I head over to the K-2nd grade group (with R and D) to work with my kindergartners. The format is changed up a little tonight, and it gives me a little downtime to relax.

2000: AWANA is over. I regather everyone and we head for home. Usually we see Noah (who works with the youthgroup) but he doesn't appear to be around. He is cellphoneless, so I can't call him. I expect to see him at some point tonight.

2020: We arrive home and Noah arrives soon after. He had gotten hung up at church. Lincoln asked for the camera and took some shots.

2030: After being jammified, the kids settled in with their icecream. After that it was toothbrushing time.
Lincoln asked Noah to cut his nails, so they did that while Berean redestroyed the living room.

2100: All kids in their proper rooms for bed.
2100: I spend a little time on the computer, talk to Noah, Clean up the kitchen and the main floor (again!) and then settle on the couch to read some more of my text book. Noah did his Insanity workout DVD. Sometime after 2200 I fell asleep on the couch. Sometime around 2300, he woke me up and we went to bed.

And that, my friends, was our day.