Day in the Life

Link-ups around the blogosphere give me the motivation I need to get a post up! Today it's a "Day in the Life," a special edition of A Blonde Ambition's weekly "Confessional Friday" link-up, to which I have never contributed!

I'm glad for the motivation not just to blog but to document a typical day in the life of our family right now. I haven't done one for the blog or scrapbook in a couple years, so it's about time!

We've got a pretty laid-back morning schedule these days, given that my husband and I both have flexible jobs (I work from home and he's a pastor) and the kids aren't in "real" school yet. Even if they were, it's summer, so there. Unless somebody has an early meeting or doctor appointment, we wake when the kids start invading our bed, generally around 7 am, give or take a half hour.  (That will all be over in a few weeks! Kindergarten will mean we're out the door by 7:30. Yikes!)

Cereal and yogurt for breakfast, and since the girls got dressed quickly and early, they got to watch some Netflix (some Tinkerbell movie, or as Claire calls her, "Teen-ter-bell")

Our foster baby, (blog nicknamed) BGC, is a late sleeper, so we wake and dress her just before it's time to go. I haven't talked much about her lately, so to update: she's been with us almost eleven months now—more than half of her life (21 months today). Parents are still working their plan, it's just taking longer than expected. She does four therapies a week (hoping she'll be able to pull up and stand soon!) and is starting the process to get cochlear implants.

Once Matt and the kids are out the door for church and day care, I refresh my coffee and maybe try to tidy up a little bit. I laughed at myself this morning, pouring coffee with one hand while I had a laundry basket of random things-that-don't-belong-downstairs under my other arm. Unfortunately, I didn't have a third hand to capture that photo, but here's the scene on my kitchen counter. (Sink full of dirty dishes barely visible behind the laundry basket.)

Then it's upstairs to my office, where I'll settle in for the next 7-8 hours (if BGC doesn't have any therapies or other appointments I need to take her to—Matt and I divide and conquer the weekly appointments—none for me today!)

A plumber came to install a new toilet in the girls' bathroom. Such a nice perk of working from home—just let the guy in and go back to work in the next room!

Lunch: toss leftover couscous, pork, and cabbage into a frying pan with some teriyaki sauce. It was edible. I would have rather had a panini and soup from Panera, but alas.

I had a very productive day editing a manuscript that I need to get back to the author next week—a forthcoming book called Permission Granted: Take the Bible into Your Own Hands, by Jennifer Grace Bird. (Not available for preorder yet, but you can check it out on the author's site here!)

Dinner: another night of random let's-use-up-what-we-have-before-shopping-again. So, the rest of that cabbage became cole slaw, alongside some barbecue chicken and mac & cheese. Nothing fancy, but we did all fight over who got thirds of the mac & cheese. Mmmmmmmmmmmm.

Everybody got home when dinner was almost ready. Claire was in borrowed day care clothes, a sure sign of a potty accident. Oh well. She's making good progress. She then spilled a bowl of dry cereal Kate had abandoned on the counter at breakfast, so I made her (try to) sweep it up. Note Anna and Elsa strewn on the floor in the background.

After dinner, Matt headed back to church for a meeting, and the big girls and I got to work painting pots! Kate and I were preparing gifts for her teachers, since next week will be her last week at day care/preschool. (Two weeks off, then kindergarten starts!) I've got begonias to plant in each pot and we'll stick a card in there saying "Thank you for helping me bloom!"

To keep Claire occupied, I found a bigger pot in the garage and let her paint that "for Mommy" so she wouldn't try to mess with Kate's painting for her teachers. (See the red ribbon at Claire's neck? That's from the red riding hood cape she's wearing underneath her smock. She had a tutu on as well.)

 After putting on jammies and getting BGC to bed, the big girls and I watched "Prince of Egypt" (in a tutu and witch's hat, of course!)

 I painted my fingernails and toenails while we watched, which meant Claire wanted to, too.

When she wanted me to paint other body parts, including her lips, I suggested she find her sparkly princess lip glosses. So she did, and after Daddy came home, she painted his nails with Belle lip gloss. ("It not Teen-ter-bell!" she said, and I had to clarify, "No, it's Beauty and the Beast Belle!")

Superdaddy also put together Kate's new highback booster seat, which arrived today. I was going to wait until the first week of kindergarten, but we're doing respite for another foster family next week and this way, we won't have to move any car seats from the SUV into the minivan to accommodate our new, short-term guest!

After "Prince of Egypt," we put the girls to bed in their own rooms. No surprise, though, they ended up on the floor together in Kate's room, side by side along with several stuffed animals also covered with blankets. And Claire is still wearing the tutu.

That's a day in our life. How about yours?