We had a very full summer with a 2-week trip to the mountains, friends in town one week and family in town for 3 weeks! On the rare days we were just home this summer, this is pretty much what our days looked like. We are in our Fall schedule full-swing now and I will write about that soon!

7:30am- My alarm goes off at 7:30 and by 7:40 I roll out of bed to make a bottle for Sarge. Little Bug is awake too, but still in her room. Her wake up clock comes on at 7:45 and that is when she may leave her bedroom. She always comes to greet her baby brother in the morning. Sarge loves to see her. After a diaper change and getting him dressed for the day, Sarge has his bottle. After his bottle I get Sweet Pea up and then it is time for breakfast for all.

8am – We turn on our Classical Conversations CD to listen to the Timeline Song during breakfast. Usually by 8:15am breakfast is on the table and everyone, including Sarge, is eating. He has just decided he is done with pureed food and prefers table foods. While they eat, I get started on my Morning Chores: empty dishwasher, start laundry, clean up breakfast. I should take the time to eat, but often times I don’t eat until they have finished eating or I don’t eat at all. This is not good and I am trying to make meals for myself priority too. It’s hard though when you have 3 little mouths to feed. I am trying to figure out a good morning routine for myself so I don’t feel like I’ve run a marathon by the time breakfast is served and dishes are washed. This probably needs to include me getting up half an hour before any kids.

Once the girls are finished with breakfast, they have to clear their plates from the table and do their Morning Routine which includes getting dressed, putting pjs up, brushing teeth and putting on their essential oils. I want this to all be automatic. We are still working on that, but once we are consistently home and doing our Morning Routine daily, I hope it will become an automatic thing the girls do each morning without me “nagging” them. That is what I am trying to avoid. I don’t want our homeschool days to begin with me telling them 100x’s to go brush their teeth. I want it to be automatic and a daily habit that is well established! We will get there eventually! Once their Morning Routine is complete, they are free to have Sister Playtime. For years now, they have both woken up ready to play with their sister, so even on school days, I make sure they get this time together. This day they built a fort in Sweet Pea’s bedroom and played for over an hour. I took advantage of this and got some homeschool planning done for the coming school year! Oh- and there is one more child to account for here! Little Sarge goes to Independent Playtime in the pack n play in the homeschool room as soon as he finishes breakfast. He plays there for 15-20ish minutes before it is time for his nap at 9am.

Around 10am I gathered everyone in the homeschool room to read the Bible story for the day and to play a math game. I am printing a bunch of supplemental math games and resources to use with the girls this year. We have been testing out some of the games this summer. We played The Measured Mom’s Telling Time Game. We also read some books.

Around 11am, the girls go play outside so I can get Sarge up and feed him and make lunch for the girls and myself. On laundry days I also move the laundry during this time.

Sarge gets up at 11:15 and plays until I give him his bottle at 11:45.

Around noon the girls come inside and eat their lunch in the living room while watching a show.

After lunch the 3 kids play together while I clean up the kitchen from lunch. They dressed up Sarge! He was having a ball with his sisters.

To calm everyone down before naps/rest time, we read some books together on the couch. Sarge jumps in his jumperoo while to the girls.

After I read a few books to the girls, we read some board books to Sarge. Then, around 1:15pm I took Sarge to his room for naptime. The girls sat in Little Bug’s room looking at a High Five magazine.

We read two more books on our bed before Sweet Pea went down for her nap and Little Bug went to her room for Rest Time.

Little Bug listens to stories for 30 minutes on her bed and then she is free to play in her room.

While all are sleeping/resting, I take time to rest too. I need this time in my day to recharge. On this day I was working on my Classical Conversations Memory Work wall!

Around 3:30pm Little Bug and I do xtramath together. This is FREE resource I just learned about. I love it because it a great way for Little Bug to learn her basic math facts.

At 4pm nap/rest time is over and the girls either play together inside or go outside again while waiting for Sarge to get up.

Sarge gets up at 4:30pm. We found him on his knees for the first time!

After Sarge has a bottle at 4:30pm, we usually head outside to the front yard. The girls love to play in the front yard and Sarge loves to watch them. Uncle got home early from work and we went on a short walk.

Dave got home from work and started making dinner while we were all playing outside. We eat around 5:30pm. After dinner, I cleaned everything up before we all went on a family walk. On our way back we stopped in our backyard because the girls had seen a dead raccoon in the backyard and they wanted to show us. Well, when we all got closer to it, we realized it was not a raccoon but a cat! So sad. It makes me sad to think someone’s pet may be missing.

After the family walk, we came in for bath time. Dave got the girls bathed and I gave Sarge his bath. While Dave got the girls ready for bed, I got Sarge ready for bed and fed him his bottle. After I put him in his bed I remembered he had started to pull up in his crib at naptime and we needed to lower his crib! I ran and got Dave and then we went back in Sarge’s room to lower the crib. He is so easy going and just watched what we were doing and then I put him to bed a second time and he was off to sleep.

After Sarge was in bed we read the Bible and stories with the girls. Sweet Pea always wants me to put her to bed and Dave puts Little Bug to bed. Then I come tell Little Bug goodnight after I tuck Sweet Pea in. Little Bug asked me to “chit chat” with her before going to bed. I laid in bed with her and we talked. This is a sweet time even though at this point of the day I am so ready to have all children in bed! I can’t miss the opportunity to connect with my girl though. As she gets older, I pray she will still want to chit chat before going to bed. If I invest in her now and make these connections she will hopefully still want to share her heart with me as a teenager.

After everyone was in bed, Dave and I ate ice cream together and talked. We don’t eat ice cream every night, but we do enjoy having it some during the summer! The rest of the evening was spent relaxing!! I did my Quiet Time before going to bed. I am almost at the point where I could try and establish a morning Quiet Time again. I do prefer that, but when I have an infant, night time works best for me!

- Elaine