A Day in the Life of....

Another link up with Lisa at Life of a Happy Mom This time we're doing a fun, "A Day in the Life of..." Of course, this day is all my home and what went on in a day! Hop on over to her page and find out what she did on the day she journaled! Initially, when we planned to do this post, I had some great ideas of a grand and wonderful day to map out and blog about. But, life happens. Suddenly, it was this week! THE week for the journaling and I hadn't done it yet! Boy, I had some good days a few weeks ago that would have been lovely subject matter, but here we are-in real life. This is what it's all about. I don't get everything done that I want to every day. I have bad days. Less than ideal days. So, this is about being real, right? Here goes! I journaled Wednesday in all it's glory. ;) Time's are not always specific or nailed right on the head. I didn't include all of the sibling squabble restitutions, nor all the running back and forth between room to room to room to meet everyone's need's! You all know about that already! :)

6:45-up and at 'em. I honestly didn't feel like even getting out of bed this morning. I have been desperately making an attempt to get up earlier and be more productive in the early hours before the kids are awake-you know, shower, devotions, computer, exercise-stuff like that. I've done fairly well all week up til today. I got up a bit later than I have been and I barely got anything done before the kids were awake.
7:15, Kids up. I got Nathan first, changed his diaper and dressed him for the day. Straightened his room up real fast and pulled up the window shades. Hannah next-had her pick out clothes and get dressed while I made her bed and picked up a few things. Then I combed and braided her hair (it's her new style. I am sick of "rat's nest's" in her long, thick locks. Now, we do braids every day!!!)
Next up-breakfast! I had leftover spaghetti and I don't think the sauce set too well with my empty stomach-didn't feel too great. Hannah had plain noodles cut up with Nutritional Yeast flakes on them. Nathan had some oatmeal. It's like pulling teeth around here to get everyone to eat a decent breakfast!
Breakfast finished, I emptied the dishwasher and re-loaded it. Had the kids bring me their laundry and I started a load. Then I did a quick clean-up all over the house, picked up things that were out of place, etc...
Next the kids and I made up an Incentive Chart :

The hope of this project is that by recieving stickers each time a good deed is done (such as hugging sister instead of hitting her, picking up toys cheerfully, coming right away when called, smiling instead of frowning-overall good actions versus bad ones) I am hoping that this will spur on the good actions and replace some of these naughty ones we've been dealing with lately. I am so tired of settling sibling disputes! The kids and I got online and found some really fun charts and stickers at an online Teacher's store. This will make the charts look more fun. The plan is that we will pick out small prizes and when they fill X amount of boxes (or the whole chart) they will get a reward (prize) from the box. I hope this works!

Next I filled up the water bottles for the morning. Pictured here are the children's bottles.

At 9:45 we left for story time at the local library. It's for just a few weeks during the summer. We've never been to our library here in Tennessee for their story time so we decided to check it out. The kids heard a story being read-partially by a younger child. Then the local water company man got up and gave a little slide show and talk on the water cycle. It was nicely done I thought. The kids made little bead chains with different colored beads showing the water cycle. Afterwards, their was a fun project for the kids to do-they got to decorate their own canvass book bags! They both had a lot of fun with that. Then we picked out a few books, checked them out and drove on home.

12:00 I began making lunch. Ended up making some delicious Apple-Oat Pancakes and some scrambled eggs. Just didn't feel like anything on the Menu plan for the week and neither did the kids. In between trying to fix lunch I was setteling disputes as Nathan tried to mark Hannah up with markers (I had gotten them out for her to color some more on her book bag.) He's not the best sport with markers. I keep them well out of reach the majority of the time!

Ate lunch, cleaned up, switched around the load of laundry.

Then, went out to the garage and got out the bin of baby girl clothes sized Newborn-3-6 months! YES! We are having a girl!! :-) I thought I'd get a bit of a jumpstart on washing what I had on hand and seeing what we needed yet. Since Hannah was born the beginning of November and this little one will be in August, we will definitely need a few more short sleeve type items. All in all, after we sorted through and washed what we had, I found I had 6 outfits and 6 sleepers that will be usable right away. (There are a few other sleepers, but they are extremely hot and fleecy, so they are out!) Lots of blankets all washed and ready and I did a load of bleach items-like burp clothes! In between washing, we went outside into the blazin' heat for a while. I went out to the garden and this is what I found!!!

Have mercy! They grew FAST! I was just out there the other day picking a few things, those zuchinni were tiny babes! Now they're all big! And some of those yellow squash were as big as baseball bats! 2 Japanese eggplant and some pickling cukes. Yum! Summer's bounty! Greenbeans are coming on fast as well-probably next week I'll be up to my eyeballs in them. Picked three ripe blueberries-more coming.

2:00 naptime. Took a while to get the kids ready for their naps. Read a bunch of books to them and finally got them settled down and asleep.

Free time for me! Got on the computer for a little bit-found out what to do with all squashes to preserve them. Think I'll try blanching and freezing. Then I attempted a nap-I'm not much good at them.

Mike came home around 4:00 and the kids woke up. I made some "Chicken" noodle soup for supper. Mike left to go look at a Bobcat for sale and so didn't eat supper with us but rather was gone til it was time to put the kids to bed. Meanwhile, the kids and I ate supper and then went outside for them to ride their bikes around for a bit. We enjoyed a fruit juice popcicle. Came in and played a bit and then Mike got home and gave them all showers. I layed down again for a minute-I am so exhausted. Gotta keep pluggin' along. Barely could lift my eyes open. Got Hannah dressed and sat down on the couch to read to them "Jabel the Shepherd" for their bedtime worship. Then they decided they were starving-since they hadn't eaten hardly a bite or two at suppertime. (keep in mind, that it's 8:00pm by now!!) Mike gave them something-I don't remember what! And finally we got them both in their beds.

Goodnight moon, goodnight clocks, goodnight socks. Goodnight noises everywhere... ZZzzzzzzz...

I drank a nice glass of Sleepy Time tea and drifted off into oblivion at about 10:00.