A typical week in our home
Sunday-
A typical week for us always begins with worship on Sunday. It can be a bit of a fiasco trying to get all four kids dressed-up and out the door, so naturally, Sunday mornings begin on Saturday night. I get everything laid out head-to-toe for each person before I go to bed on Saturday. Ironing and shoes included! If I don't do this, we are guaranteed to be thirty minutes late to church. We usually come home and rest all afternoon, unless I have a meeting for Becoming on something else church-related. Occasionally I will hit up the grocery store during that time, but that's usually only if I have put if off that long. Sunday nights, depending on the kids, we will either stay home or go back to church for an evening bible study. Then home to prepare for Monday!
Monday-
Co-Op day! We all attend our weekly homeschool academic-based Co-Op from 9-12 every Monday morning. Every other week I take Callie with us, the other weeks she goes to Pre-K. We will stay for lunch so I have to make sure lunches are made and bags are packed and go over the kids presentation topics with them all the night before. Sometimes we go to Chick-fil-A with friends afterward if we don't stay to eat on campus. After co-Op I make a mad dash to get home and get those kids in the bed! We're all pretty tired when we get home, so nap time is a must, and I try to never schedule anything for the rest of the day on Monday (except for Becoming days). While the little's are napping, I will work on math, grammar, and reading with Cam. We eat dinner at home, although if I don't make dinner ahead of time or in the crock pot, this is usually the night I
Tuesday- Wednesday- Thursday: I start every morning by getting Preston up at 7 to feed and change him, drink my coffee, chat with Kyle or do a devotional while nursing. I try to go to the gym at least on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, at 6. If I don't go before everyone is up, then I just don't get to go! When I get home, usually Kyle has already woken the crew up and they are eating breakfast around the table. I help Callie get ready, then take her to Pre-K from 8:30-12:30. During that time I teach Camryn and I get all school work, laundry, bills, phone calls, and lunch done before it's time to get Callie.
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| hot chocolate makes math and busy bags a lot more exciting! |
The house in general is just more quiet then, so I try to keep the focus on all things-that-require-less-noise tasks so we can get them done and knock 'em out fast. I LOVE taking time to sit with Charleigh and read to her alone while Cam does her independent work. It has become more and more important to me over the last year or two to get to have alone time with each child. Reading is by far the best way to utilize that time! In the afternoons, after quiet time from 1-3 for the younger girls, if the weather is nice enough they play outside, if not they play inside. We aren't in sports this season just yet (starting son though) so we rarely have somewhere to be during the week. We also have play dates several times per week a lot at this time of day, and I just try to let them burn out as much energy as possible before dinner. I try to read aloud to them around 4 or 5ish. That's not set in stone each day but we all love reading a chapter book together, if we don't get to in the afternoon I try to make time for it before bed. I have recently fallen IN LOVE with reading aloud to my kids, now that Callie is more interested in it. I enjoy having conversations about our book and hearing the girls' perspective of it and their favorite parts. If we get to read in the afternoon, the story is definitely a topic of conversation around our dinner table. Afternoons are also free-play for all 3 of them, so they are filled with lots of exciting dress-up shows and tea party's. :)
In the evenings, we usually end up eating dinner around 7:00. I would prefer it to be more like 6:30, but it is such a gamble depending on how things are with Preston's schedule. Kyle gets to join us a few nights per week, if he can get home before 8. If things are looking like we are going to eat dinner after 7, then I have everyone bathed/showered before dinner. If we get to eat before 7, then we do baths/showers after dinner and I try to have the younger girls in bed before 8. Cam gets to stay up later until 9-9:30. I like to give her special privileges, since she is the oldest, in order to compensate for some of the extra work she pulls compared to her sisters. This includes "Duggar Tuesdays" when the show is airing a new season, we will watch the newest episode of 19 Kids and Counting together. It's off-season right now, so we've been watching Fixer Upper together. I really enjoy having a show or something to watch with just her, and she looks forward to that time to have snuggles with mama :)
Fridays: Fridays are FREE days, most of the time! I let the kids sleep in (which the younger girls usually never do), and if we don't have a play date set up then we all go in our pj's to chick-fil-a for breakfast in the drive thru. We come home and I let them watch endless amounts of tv (just kidding- usually) and we work on fun stuff like art projects, home projects (or deep cleaning like last friday!), and I make lists and plans for our weekend ahead. This is usually when I meal plan so I have my list ready to go for whenever I get around to buying groceries on the weekend. We usually eat at home or at least never make plans for Friday nights since Kyle's work schedule is so up in the air for when he'll get home. If he gets home early enough and I'm up for an adventure, and we don't have plans with friends or to go on a date on Saturday night, then we'll go out for dinner. We've found that going out with our kids is not fun unless we meet friends for dinner. Then it's more worth it ;)
Weeknights: I aim for us to eat dinner at home every week night, but occasionally we will go out for dinner on Wednesday night before bible study (if we are able to make it), or on a night that I just don't have the desire to cook, and Kyle can get home early enough. But most of the time, especially since having Preston, it is just so much easier to stay home, save money, and be done with it! We do have a few week night traditions, that we rarely miss, such as "Taco Tuesday" -we eat mexican themed food that night, and "Brinner Thursday"- breakfast for dinner!
Weekends: Weekends are filled with fun! If we have a few social events on the calendar ahead of time, I try to schedule us one weekend per month where we just stay home and work at the house. Sometimes its fun projects like painting or a special project, and sometimes its not-so-fun things like taking down your Christmas decor on February the 1st. Yep. I said it. Real life here. Every weekend on Friday or Saturday night or both of them, I spend hanging out in our bedroom doing laundry while I watch the Middle or HGTV. Definitely relaxing, although I don't know why that is since I have to make myself do laundry during the week. ha!
The biggest change: So far, since Preston entered our family, the biggest change is definitely the house work. With stopping to nurse every 2-3 hours, homeschooling in the mornings (and sometimes during afternoon nap time), meal prep and feeding our family in general, running errands and social activities, there really are just so many hours in a day and only so much time I actually have to GIVE to my poor ole' house and the labor of love that goes into it all. I spent two straight days recently just focusing strictly on getting the house work caught up, and it was the best gift I could ever give myself. I have so much clarity and am in general more productive when I'm not constantly distracted by being behind on everything.
The laundry is still taking a while to get caught up, but I have found that doing a minimum of three loads per day, start to finish, and being sure the clothes that each person wore that day is included into one of those loads does help me to get all caught up on it much faster than trying to wait for a magical nonexistent day in the future that I could ever possibly get it all caught up at once.
I am grateful for a helping husband who does his best to help when he can, and is especially helpful on the weekends in general. But even our weekends, which used to be filled with fun activities and/or a special house project, have really had to slow down quite a bit and be more focused on quality time as a family and just doing what we can. We've managed to have several date nights out since having Preston, and for that I am grateful! Dates keep us connected, and really just allow me to stop and take a deep breath, and help me to re-evaluate everything and what/if changes need to be made to help make things run more smooth. We also try to have date nights IN a few times a week, usually on our tv nights (Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays). After the kids go to bed we will watch some of our favorite shows together. During off-seasons we will start a show on Netflix and watch it together on those nights, or we read before bed.
The biggest challenge: A week ago I would've said the house work or the laundry. But if I'm being honest with myself, the amount itself of those two things has not really changed much yet. It's more that my time to give to it has changed, since I exclusively breastfeed and homeschool. But throwing in tiny baby clothes does not add much to a laundry pile when you are already washing enough clothes for 5 people daily, plus towels and sheets. The amount of food I buy has stayed the same, but again, I have to make sure I make the time to devote to carefully meal plan and try to be sure I always have allergy-free food available for Charleigh. Eight weeks ago I may have said the biggest challenge was getting all the kids ready to go somewhere, and going somewhere on its own. But honest to goodness, the Lord equips what He calls those to do. I find myself overwhelmed at how natural it comes to me now to do these things that would have concerned or stressed me out a bit before. I believe God has called me to raise up a bunch of little souls, and through Him, and ONLY Him, I'm somehow capable of doing it without freaking out all the time. Through His Grace, and a little bit of chocolate, I manage to get through each day generally pretty happy. That is, chocolate, Grace, and a lot of kisses! ;)
Errands: If I have any errands to run, and can go when Kyle is home either on a week night or weekend, I try to take one child with me. Kyle does the same if he is going alone. This helps give each child some alone time with each parent. I will often take Callie with me to the bank or a quick-run to the grocery store, and she LOVES to be a helper. She is GREAT at bringing in the groceries when we get home. :)
