Not Back to School Blog Hop - Day in the Life Week!

It's the last week of the NOT Back-to-School Blog Hop and this week is "Day-in-the-Life Week".  I'm not sure any 2 days are ever the same for us, and today was our first day home after being gone for a long weekend, but here's what our day was like today:

Sometimes the big girls get up before Little Bit and me (she nurses so much in the mornings, it's pointless for me to try to get up before she does), but this morning we all got up about the same time. After individual Bible reading and prayer times, A1 & A2 got busy unloading the dishwasher and feeding the cats while I pulled together what we'd need for school today, and started today's load of laundry. Since we just got home, I was feeling lazy, so we just had cereal for breakfast instead of cooking anything. While we were all busy with these things, Little Bit watched Signing Times with whichever of us had time to be in there with her.

After breakfast, one of the big girls ran down to do the next step of the laundry (we were washing diapers, so when I put laundry in, I set it to a rinse cycle to "soak" (my washer doesn't have a soak cycle, boo-hoo, that was SO convenient at our old house) the diapers, so then I sent one of the girls down to turn the actual wash cycle on.

Next was school time.  We had Bible time (learning about church history. I forgot to take a picture today, but here's a picture from a couple weeks ago.  I read today's story while the big girls moved the felts around as required.  Little Bit can be a challenge during this, but she did better about not touching today, fingers crossed that the trend will continue LOL.

We also practiced the girls' memory verses, and spanish vocab, while we were in the family room. While we were doing all of this, Little Bit was busy playing with her "school time toys", a set of foam puzzles that she's still abit young for, but likes to take apart and carry the pieces around and such.

Next we moved to the dining room table so the big girls could do their handwriting and copywork. Little Bit thinks she needs to be in the middle of the dining room table during this time, so we just go with it. And yes, she's naked. She's decided that anytime we're home, she needs to be naked.  She fusses until I help her take her clothes off (if she's wearing something she can't take off herself, if it just pulls over her head, she can take it off herself) and then takes her own diaper off, so we're just going with it. She HAS been going in the potty at least some of the time, so fingers crossed that this will all pull together to equal early potty training.  While she's on the dining room table she likes to write on whatever papers she can get her hands on with whatever pen or pencil she can find, generally dry erase markers, they wipe off easily when she misses the paper and hits the table (I desperately need to get a "oilcloth" table cloth back on the table, but keep forgetting).  She also uses the markers to draw all over her tummy and legs, hee hee.
When she gets bored with that (or I get tired of her doing that and want to distract her) we pull out the "jar of toys". When we were gone last month, our wonderful neighbor came over every day to watch the cats. Long story short, one day one cat got in the house (if both had been inside it would have been fine, but they go INSANE if they're separated) and destroyed the house. Our wonderful neighbor went WAY beyond the call of duty (considering how cluttered the house was when we left) and cleaned everything up. But there were alot of little toys and stuff that she wasn't sure where they went, so she found an empty half gallon mason jar in the kitchen and threw them all in it, I LOVED how it looks, so hadn't bothered to go through it and put things away, then one day when Little Bit was on the table, she pointed at it, so I got it down off the shelf and dumped it on the table. She had a BLAST putting everything back in the jar, so now that's one of our ways of keeping her occupied during school.

During all of this, the big girls are busily doing their handwriting and Bible copywork. And I'm generally busy putting things away, doing dishes, whatever needs doing and is close enough for me to keep an eye on Little Bit on the table. Today, when A2 finished her copywork, and Little Bit was still happily playing on the table, I asked A2 to watch her while I ran up and grabbed a 30 second shower.

Then we were done with school. Because I knew we'd be gone this afternoon running errands, I asked them to do their "afternoon chores" right after school. Today's chores were cleaning the toilet and dusting for A2, and cleaning the dishwasher door and watering the plants for A1.

After they finished those chores, the big girls went and got the laundry from the washer so I could hang it on the line.

While I was hanging the clothes, all three kids get outdoor time. The big girls keep an eye on Little Bit (yes, she's still sans clothes). Sometimes they play on the swing, sometimes they let Little Bit ride her "bike" on the patio, or push her push toys around. Other times they just go for a walk around the house. Earlier this summer when there were wild raspberries on the edge of the woods, they'd take her over there for a yummy snack.

Once we got the laundry hung (with a fun break to visit with some friends from church who stopped by because they were in the area, they were highly amused at Little Bit's attire, or lack thereof, hee hee). It was time to get ready to run errands. Little Bit DID have to get dressed for that. And then we were on our way. I realized as we were leaving that it was almost lunch time and I hadn't brought anything to eat, so we made a quick drive-thru stop for lunch (healthy, I know, but oh well . . .) after our quick library stop to pick up the Felicity books on CD (since we're going to Williamsburg in a few weeks, I thought it would be fun to re-read (er, hear) the Felicity books that are set in Williamsburg) and a book that A2 picked out to read.
Then we headed to get milk. We drive about 1/2 hour, once a week, to get raw milk. Little Bit took her nap while we drove (and since we get our milk from a lovely farm family and it takes me about 30 seconds to run in and get it, she kept sleeping while I did that.  Since we get milk in an area with lots of Amish and Mennonites, I was hoping to get a picture of either a horse and buggy or a farmer using horses out in the field to harvest crops, but no such luck. We DID follow a horse & buggy for a little while on our way there, but there were several cars between us and the buggy so I couldn't get a picture. I DID snap a picture of the big girls enjoying ice cream sandwiches while we drove. We ran other errands once Little Bit woke up and finally made it home mid-afternoon.

When we got home the big girls played outside for awhile,then came inside to help straighten up the house and help with supper.  After supper they headed back outside to play until bedtime (weather is SO nice, gotta enjoy that outdoor time as much as they can).
And that was our day, at least today, tomorrow will be different, of course, but the basic format of chores, breakfast, school, lunch, chores, play, supper, bed is pretty standard for us. Hope you enjoyed a peak into our days.