Week In The Life: Monday

Welcome to Week In The Life 2011 as inspired by Ali Edwards.  You can read entries from 2008, 2009 (on my own, not part of a larger project) and 2010 by clicking those links.  This year, she is also providing free pdf handouts to help people keep track through the day.  If you'd like to join in you can find them here and join us at anytime.  

For the prior years, the Week In The Life project happened to fall at times when we had guests or lots of "happenings."  This week, we literally began with no plans.  I've managed to make some over the course of today, but it is actually going to be a rather different experience than the prior years--- assuming I don't come up with TOO many things to do in the interim. 

Today, by the numbers:

5:30 am - B runs into our room in search of a nightlight (unusual, but Brent assists him)

6:30-7 am - alarm goes of and Brent hits the snooze a few times.

7-7:30 am - Brent has his cereal while I get dressed in gym gear, packs his lunch and heads to work while the kids are still sleeping on a somewhat overcast morning.  I have some watermelon and water while I chat with him.

7:30-8:15 am - I work on my calendar page scrapbook project while waiting to hear the kids. (I was very surprised M didn't wake up early as it was her first no-paci night!)

8:15 - 9:05 am - kids are up and playing . I discover B reading in his room in the dark mumbling words to himself out of his 100 Days of School Library book.  I call Jessie about meeting up later while I get everyone fed (Apple Jacks and Watermelon), dressed and ready to head to the gym packed for the morning with backpacks, sippy cups and blankets.

9-10 am - Gym time at the Trails Y - I walk/jog and stretch while the kids play at child watch, change and head out to our next activity.

10-11:45 - Bouncin Craze with Jessie, Nate and Allie.  I, crazily, discover that I forgot my wallet at home so Jessie gets us in.  I also failed to notice that the kids needed to bring socks.  B wears an extra pair of mine (that fit surprisingly well) and M wears the Buzz Lightyear socks B had been wearing-- we make do.  The place is CRAZY full of kids and M is strangely tentative about jumping in to things.  The enormous Bat Man bounce feature seems to scare her.  We do a lot of holding and sitting on the exercise ball while chatting with Jess and trying to keep up with the bigger kids.  Eventually she warms to it a bit.  B is busy playing with Allie at first and then wanders on to his own adventures.  By an hour in B is sweating from all the wild activity, but very happy.  Luckily, he and Nate are able to start frequenting the water fountain to replenish all that sweat.  Interestingly, my kids end up playing together in the little kids area where M was more at home.  When the time is up, we say farewell with tentative plans for Wednesday adventures before heading to Ms. Kim's to drop Maggie off.

12-1pm - Drop Maggie off with notice to Ms. Kim that there will be no paci today.  She is all for it.  M heads to her lunch while B go home to make ours.  B has mini-corndogs, frozen blueberries and carrots.  I have a wheat tortilla with refried beans, salsa and cheese along with some incredible strawberries.  I start work at
12:30 while B watches Netflix.

1-2pm - B is still hungry so he as Reese's pieces yogurt (sorry) and plays games/watches dragon tales while I have my meeting.

2-5pm - B struggles into PJs for naptime (his choice). I even manage to get pictures of him napping which felt serendipitous as he doesn't nap much anymore and I've rarely taken pictures of it.  I pick up M and head home to make dinner with the kids.

5-6:30pm I cook with my helpers and we have a good time. M sneaks in some coloring time, which is one of her favorite things right now.  Our dinner consists of Spinach & Chicken Frittata with Raspberry scones.  Both were very popular with everyone but M who was fairly uninterested. 

6:30-7:15pm - I help B make his two scrapbook pages for the day (day three of this trend) while M and Daddy play and have bath time.  I also put the Tequila Peach Pie in the fridge to chill and cook later so we can enjoy for breakfast in the morning.

7:15-8:17pm- bed time prep.  I play with M while B gets his bath and he and Brent fold all the kids laundry.  I felt like with all the cooking and chaos of the day that M needed a little one-on-one attention so we played with Tad and her babies in her room and even had book time in her room tonight.  Tonight's books were - Goodnight Moon, Fancy Nancy, and selections from the Fairy poems book.

8:17-10:30 pm - A little more kitchen cleaning before heading to the office.  Chatted a little online with Chrissie about the upcoming Creating Keepsakes Convention in Tulsa and sorted through today's pictures while (deleted 1/2 of them!) while Brent played League of Legends with some of our guy friends.  Now pictures are uploading and if any time remains I'll try to scrapbook a bit as I feel like I should at least keep up with our 4.5 year old and it has been going really well of late.

I feel like the "big" stories today were:

• No Paci - Sweet Success!
• Fun at Bouncin' Craze with friends
• Cooking together with delicious results
• Scrapbooking with B - new trend that he and I really enjoy

Here is a quick slideshow of our timeline in images.  I notice that the gym, Kim's house, and bedtime rituals didn't get photos today so I'll try to make sure to catch them in coming days.

 Note: Not everyday will be this detailed or have this much of a timeline, but I wanted to have a baseline to start.  All of our pictures from today will be available in Brent's Picasa Album - but for some reason Picasa won't let me do the upload just now. I will update the link here when it is live.  I will continue to add to that album through the week and likely include pictures on some of the blog posts as we go.