We are in such a fun stage right now with Ryan, Natalie, and Emily. They are growing up so much, becoming more and more independent, and the best part is, they are playing so well together! It is so sweet to watch them interact with each other and enjoy playing without me intervening or encouraging different ways for them to play. They’re just doing it on their own, and I feel like a little fly on the wall watching their bond grow more every day.
On Monday, I decided to document our day from start to finish. I like doing this every once in a while to capture what this season looks like for us. I know these seemingly normal days will be the ones that we miss when our babies are older!
I woke up at 4:30, took a quick shower, and came downstairs for my coffee.
While the coffee was brewing, I changed our Verse of the Week sign.
Then I shared our Meal Plan for the week on our Instagram stories, and remembered to share it on our Facebook Page too this time. 😉
I usually pack lunches on Sundays, but our Sunday was a full day after church with an impromptu trip to a trampoline place called XtremeHopp, so with a little coffee in me, I prepped Ryan and Natalie’s lunches for the week. I LOVE having this done in advance and just grabbing their containers each morning before school.
I got in a quick quiet time and a little bit of work done on the computer, but not much because our kids were up early this morning! And Matt had his small group meeting, so we were all in the kitchen by 6:00.
Natalie and Emily love helping Matt make milkshakes (what we call protein smoothies) 😉 in the morning.
While Matt and the girls worked on that, I grilled more Apple Chicken Sausage on our panini press and made eggs.
I love watching Ryan and Natalie play together. It’s so cute to see them look forward to seeing each other in the mornings.
Emily and I ate our breakfast together while Ryan and Natalie ate at their little table.
Then I took the girls up to get dressed for the day and we grabbed Ryan’s clothes while we were upstairs. Then we all played for about a hour. Right now, they love going down to the bounce house in the basement for a little bit in the mornings and then either playing with the toys in their rooms together or in the playroom.
At around 8:30, they all get to watch one show. Natalie and Emily watch a Daniel Tiger together while Ryan watches one of his favorite shows on the iPad.
During this 25-minute block of time, I run upstairs to make the bed, quickly get myself dressed, and then go back downstairs to clean up the kitchen and get book bags in the car.
Jeans that don’t button or zip, bella band, white tee, and slip-on shoes. Done!
And we’re off to school for Ryan and music class for Natalie and Emily!
Heading in to music class 🙂
Emily got picked to be the train conductor- sweet love. Except I’m cringing on the inside because all three of our kiddos got lice back in November and Emily- the only one not in school- was the one who got it first. So I’m pretty certain she got it from putting the scarves on her head during music class! So this moment took all of me to keep from saying “She’ll pass” on the train conductor job. hah!
Sweet Emily passed out on the way home from music class and we could not wake her up for lunch when we got home (we tried!), so Natalie and I started our lunch together and then Matt walked through the door and surprised us! He came home to join us for lunch!
Natalie always says when Matt walks in the door, “I wanna do hip-hip-hooray!” where Matt throws her up in the air. 🙂
Sweet lunch with just our big girl!
After lunch we picked up Ryan, who showed Natalie a little thing of bubbles he got from the mystery reader that day, and her excitement was over the top. hah! Look at her face in those top 3 pics! She is a funny girl. We all headed up to Ryan’s room to play for a bit, and then I did something I’ve never tried before. I did a quick workout with all 3 kids awake. I usually do my workout during the nap window, but with Emily falling asleep early, there was no longer a nap window, so I figured I’d just give it a try.
And it worked! I mean I did a 15-minute ride and wasn’t super focused for the workout, haha, but I got to sweat and get a second wind for the afternoon, so still a win. 😉
Matt worked from home for a bit and got in a workout before heading back into the office, so we got a second surprise when he came up to see us again before heading back into work!
The kids were doing so well playing together upstairs, so while they kicked a blow-up soccer ball in the hallway, I tried to tackle some of the never-ending laundry.
Natalie went down for a short afternoon nap (this is new as of this week… not sure if she’s starting to drop her nap, but she usually needs a little rest for about an hour to make it through to bedtime. So while she rested, Emily and I did some puzzles and Ryan finished his show from the morning.
And then the three of us did one of our favorite Nemo puzzles together.
Then we headed up to wake up Natalie around the one-hour mark. Sweet pea was still so sleepy, but I knew if she slept any later she wouldn’t be able to fall asleep at night!
So we got in some extra snuggles before we played. 🙂
First, we went to the basement and bounced in the bounce house! We got this bounce house for the kids for Christmas and they LOVE it! We play in it every day, usually twice a day! (And FYI, we bought it without the blower and then purchased this higher powered blower separately after reading reviews.)
After bouncing, we came upstairs to the playroom so that I could make dinner. The kids have been doing SO well playing without me during this stretch lately. They of course come in plenty of times to show me what they’re doing or to ask for help with dress-up clothes, but them being content to play without me actually in the room is a fairly new occurrence, and it’s such a game changer for dinner preparation! I no longer prep dinner during the nap window… which is also good since that nap window is pretty hit or miss these days- hah! It’s funny how seasons of parenthood have a way of working themselves out.
Right around 5:30, Matt walked in the door. This is easily our favorite part of the day!
It was a breakfast-for-dinner night, so we ate brunch eggs, cheese grits, and fruit for dinner.
This is Matt’s grandma’s recipe. It is so easy and so good! It’s great for a crowd too!
Sometimes that 5-10 minute stretch of getting food plated and put on the table goes south quickly, and tonight was one of those nights, but I try to remind myself that getting food on the table is the goal and block out as best as possible the chaos and tears happening at the same time. I don’t like to post pictures from these moments though because I wouldn’t want Matt taking pictures of me in my low moments and sharing them publicly! But it’s a typical part of this season of raising kids. It happens. And then we recover. 🙂 (Also, Matt doesn’t usually eat shirtless- hah! He was in the middle of changing out of work clothes when it was clear that we needed to sit and pray ASAP.) 😉
After dinner, everyone wanted more grapes, so we all enjoyed some extra grapes before cleaning up and heading up to bath.
After dinner, we started the bedtime routine of bath, teeth and stories. Matt, Emily, and Ryan usually read a story in Emily’s old room while I read one to Natalie in her room, but tonight, everyone wanted to read in Emily’s room first. These moments of all three focused on one story aren’t common for us right now, so I loved that I got to capture this sweet moment.
After brushing teeth, we read one more story in Natalie and Emily’s room. We picked this really cute book called Nighty-Night Cooper where a mama kangaroo sings a handful of songs to her baby to the tune of songs we know like “Twinkle Twinkle” and “Jingle Bells,” but for whatever reason, Matt and I were both singing and could not for the life of us get on the same key, and it was hilarious. Emily started laughing first, which I think made it even funnier that our one year old could pick up on how horrible we sounded together. So then we all just kept laughing every time we tried to sing.
I’m thankful for bedtime moments like this that make us pause for a second and take it the season we’re in. Bedtime is nutty so many nights, so nights like this one are extra sweet.
We all sang to the girls, which is something that just kind of happened when they started sharing a room last week. Ryan wanted to be in there with us singing and it worked okay the first night, so we just keep doing it. They like when we sing “Jesus Loves Me” and “Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star.” Natalie requests them as, “Je-a wuv me” and “Kinka, Kinka” 🙂 and Emily chimes in and sings words here and there throughout the songs. And hearing Ryan’s voice come in too… the whole thing is really pretty sweet- even if I am so tired by this time of day. 😉
After we leave the girls’ room, we read 2 stories out of Ryan’s Spider-Man book (his current pick), and then lay with him for a minute before he falls asleep.
We try to be out of everyone’s rooms by 7:30. Some nights it’s earlier, some nights it’s later, but that’s the general goal.
Once the kids are down, Matt and I usually come down to the kitchen table and talk for a bit before we read or watch a show before bed. Some nights we both get a little work done instead of reading or watching a show. This night, we were both pretty tired, so we talked for a bit, read, and passed out early. Mondays have a way of coming in strong, don’t they?!
So that’s our Monday! You can check out our last Day in the Life post here.
