Last year I did my first “a day in the life” type post and I think it’s really a neat way to look back at a phase of life. Sure, I blog about our lives on a regular basis but who takes the time to cover every aspect of any given day? You can look back at my post from last year here!
I’m going to try to keep my “day in the life” posts each year around the same time of year: March. This year I did it on March 3rd!
I bought a Fitbit at the beginning of the month as Robyn has been LOVING hers! I really, really love how it tracks sleep. I’m a “must have 7 hours” type person and tracking my sleep has helped me to make SURE I get what I need (and it also lets me know when I need a nap haha!).
Once I had my third child my morning routine took a BIG shift. I’ve found that getting up and getting FULLY ready for the day prior to the kids waking up helps my entire day flow better. I feel better about myself and have an overall more pleasant outlook on life when I’m fully ready (meaning make up on, hair fixed, decently put together outfit on). I’ve found if I put off getting ready until later in the day that it’s a struggle to ever really get back into my bathroom and have the time to do it!
I’ve become pretty hardcore about my makeup routine in recent years. I never wore any makeup (other than like a loose powder) until college. I’ve always been a big believer in not overdoing it and I just slowly learn more and add more products to my routine. Here’s the new stuff I’ve been loving: NYX orange concealer (helps with under eye circles!), NYX liquid illuminator (I add a dab to my foundation to give an extra glow), Almay Smart Shade (supposedly this helps to even skin tone), Revlon Photoready (powder to help with under eye bags) and a makeup sponge (why did it take me so long to get one?!?!)!
I’m able to get fully ready from start to finish as long as I get up 20-25 minutes before Kye gets up in the morning (he gets up at 6:45). The biggest reason I can be ready so quickly (other than the fact that I shower at night) is that I quit straitening my hair about a year ago! Wearing it with it’s natural waves makes my morning routine WAY faster. It used to take me 20-25 min just to straiten my hair…and now that’s how long it takes me to get completely ready! My favorite hair products are: Organic Oil, Not Your Mother’s Beach Babe Spray, and Organix Hairspray (since this day I’ve actually added in It’s a 10 Leave in Conditioner as well as Frizz Ease and both have been hair GAME CHANGERS!). I am really always on the look out for new hair products to try and would love suggestions for the beachy/wave style 🙂
When Zach is able he’s super helpful in the morning routine process by helping prepare breakfast. I make Kye’s lunch each morning so usually we divide and conquer. We let Kye eat school lunch once a month and typically once a month also will pack a Lunchable but all of the other days I pack his lunch. I’m not one of those moms who will only feed my kid organic stuff or untying like that but I do my best to feed our kids a healthy variety of options…or at least I try to pick healthier options. Let’s be real: are there truly HEALTHY options anymore?!?!
On Kye’s last day of being 6 he got some fruit snacks, a yogurt smoothie, a wrap (with ham and cheese), sweet potato chips, grapes, and a homemade pumpkin muffin. Both of our older kids also get an Advocare Citizinc vitamin at lunch! I also pack a note each day. Usually I use a note that goes along with his Bible Study at night (you can read more about the study we use here!) but since it was his last day being 6 I did a handwritten note 🙂
Morning breakfast routine: banana, prunes, Cheerios, milk, Advocare V100 vitamin, and often a bowl of “dinosaur” oatmeal!
I’ve been in a routine of putting a couple lemon slices in my yeti along with my water each morning!
Can you tell I love me some Advocare?!?!
Our morning wake up routine is that Kye’s lamp turns on in his room (letting him know it’s time to get up and get dressed) at 6:45. We get breakfast ready (and Kye’s lunch packed) and somewhere between 6:45 – 7:00 wake up Britt. Tess is always the first one awake for the day (she usually wakes up at 6:15ish but plays happily in her bed) but is the last one we actually get out of bed haha. It’s WAY easier to get breakfast FULLY ready before getting her up!
Kye is the quickest eater and will get his hair fixed and brush his teeth along with a few other chores (checking pool basket and giving dogs water) while the girls finish eating and get ready to leave!
I pick out all of the kids outfits the night prior. I get Tess dressed and fix her hair for the day while she’s sitting on the potty. Britt gets herself dressed after finishing her breakfast!
On this particular morning I got myself “ready” but not dressed before fixing breakfast. So I ran back to the bedroom to throw on clothes while the girls were finishing up breakfast.
I have had my dog, Sadie, since I was 16. She is OLD. And losing it. And Levi, our chihuahua, hasn’t transitioned well with all the kids. When we moved to our home in 2010 he kinda started acting out and has just gone downhill in his behavior since adding the girls to our home. Both dogs now stay in the back yard all day and then are locked in their crates in the garage (with a fan) to sleep at night. Sadie is so old she can’t control her bowls anymore so the crate helps her and Levi makes poor choices due to his bitterness about the kids that we can’t let him run around the house either. Each morning we let them back outside to spend the day!
Ugh. It’s so annoying that he looks this amazing everyday! I envy the women who work at the businesses where he sells Aflac…they get to look at him all day long while I’m chilling with kids all day!
Tess eating is like the best thing ever because she’s pretty neat about it AND she takes awhile which allows us to get everything else ready to go for the day!
On most mornings Zach is able to take Kye to school to drop him off so they leave between 7:30-7:40. It’s a HUGE blessing as loading the girls up to take him to school is a big hassle! On mornings when Zach can take him the girls and I don’t have to leave for Britt’s school until 8:10 so I have time to usually put some dinner together. For this night we were having crock pot roast!
Not even 8 am yet and dinner is already handled!
We. Live. On. The. Potty.
I try try try to get in a routine of making the bed. I really do. But UGH it’s HARD to remember. IF I remember this is usually as good as it gets haha!
Finally dressed!
I use Mary Kay blush and feel like I need to find something better. If I put it on when I get ready at 6:30, it’s already gone by the time I leave the house. I used to use Mac but got cheap and tried the Mary Kay. Maybe I need to go back to that? Any other suggestions for a longer lasting blush?
When we have a few minutes before we have to leave the girls LOVE to PLAY! Beatbo is a HIT in our house!
I typically make my breakfast shake before walking out the door (we’ve been SUPER happy with the Ninja!)
Tess’s #1 issue with the potty training is THE CAR. Which I mean I have no choice in. She HAS to go places!!! Whenever we are in the car is when she will have an accident. Maybe it’s the sitting in the car seat??? I have no idea how to get her to quit doing it. I take her potty before we leave the house and again right when we get to our destination. Even though Britt’s school is only 12 minutes away she will STILL GO. UGGGGH.
And we’re off! #vanlife
Britt has a weekly Bible verse to learn that we work on in the car!
And, duh, we love to jam out. Adele is Britt’s FAV
On mornings when we do drop off I will let Britt come sit in the front seat with me. Often I walk Britt into school so I can take Tess potty, it all depends on the timing! On this particular morning she got to sit up front and she’s been really into American Girl catalogs 😉
Home…and BACK on the potty!
Tess is still rocking OUT to some independent playtime. She loves it in the pack and play so I’m not rushing room time for her yet. I have a timer I set for 30 minutes (I could do it for longer but I stick to 30 min b/c of potty training for now) and she plays happily the entire time!
While she played I posted a pic up on Instagram. Does anyone ever actually used Instagram to post things instantly? I know I rarely do! It was dress up days for reading week or something like that for Kye and on that day he got to pick a character from a book to dress up like. Duh, he chose something Disney related 🙂 It was a win that we already had all the Goofy stuff!
Typically Tess does best in independent playtime if I am SUPER QUIET. It’s a good time to sneak off to my “office” to get a little blogging done! Y’all. I need MAJOR organization help with my “office.” It’s just a (cheap Ikea) desk in the corner of our bedroom. The shelving (again, Ikea) above the desk is too high to even be useful for me (I’m short!) so it’s just one huge clutter of a mess. As a mama I wear SO MANY HATS and that makes it tough to stay super organized. You’ve got kid stuff, bills stuff, blog stuff, LIFE STUFF. Right?!?! I’d love to say that this post inspired me and that since that day I’ve come up with some great storage/organization solutions…but here I sit in mid-May and my desk looks exactly the same. Sigh.
Blogging is NOT as easy as it probably seems. It’s very, very time consuming. Especially when you have internet that is zero percent reliable (I hate Mediacom). And even more so time consuming when you take a billion gazillion pictures all the time and have to weed through them all to pick the “best ones” to use.
On this particular day I was also working on Kye’s birthday slideshow. I go through ALL the pictures of the ENTIRE YEAR and pick out all the ones of Kye that I want to include in the slideshow (I also at the same time pick through all the ones of just Zach and Kye and just myself and Kye so I can use them for our birthday letter posts rather than having to find them all again!). The birthday slideshows are something I know the kids zero percent fully appreciate right now but I truly think they will love having them someday. Especially in the digital age where people just don’t take many home movies anymore. These slideshows give them a “movie” of their lives!
After independent playtime Tess gets to watch a little bit of a movie (typically Veggie Tales) while I make lunch!
I try to get a good bit of their lunch made before having to pick Britt up from school because the time between school and nap time is always CRAZY! During this time we had SWIM which made mornings even crazier. I was making lunch before 10 am haha!
Time for swim!
Tess swam at 10:50 four mornings a week so I’d make lunch, take her to her lesson, kill some time then pick up Britt from school. I found that it was easiest to get Tess dressed in her swim suit after we arrived for the lesson! One last potty break before hitting the pool!
Big girl killing it with the starfish skills!
Swimming!
The survival swim lessons (you can read about Britt’s here and Kye’s here…Tess’s post is to come!) are only 10 min each day! It’s quick but it’s effective and wears them out!
Heading out with sucker in hand 😉
Britt has to be picked up at noon so it doesn’t make sense to go home after Tess’s lesson…hello Target 😉
Zach has been working SO HARD to build an outdoor kitchen and I’ve been looking for ways to make our boring back porch more of a fun space!
A true shopper…the shoes must come off 😉
On the way to pick up Britt I talked to Mrs. Charlotte…she’s learned my car times are the best times for catching up!
Once at school I took Tess potty again and not surprised to see wet panties. Swim lessons made the potty training TOUGH because she swallowed so much water!
Over being in the car 😉
We walk in the door at 12:30 and naps are at 1! Mad dash for lunch!
Lunch of champions: meal replacement shake, spinach, banana, blueberries, pb2, steel cut oats!
Britt struggles with eating her food. We’ve tried many tactics. The issue isn’t so much her lack of eating, but her attitude surrounding it. I set a timer to let her know how long until nap time. She will legit have like 2 bites left of the (very small) portion I’ve told her she has to eat and she just won’t eat it as a way to challenge us. Not. Fun.
While Britt had the timer set, I went ahead and put Tess down for nap!
She loves her bunny friend!
She’s so cute it’s hard to leave her!
An AWESOME parenting book is Don’t Make Me Count to Three. I plan to eventually blog more about it but it’s been a game changer for me. I use the author’s “Wise Words for Moms” booklet in my discipline. It has a chart with bible verses that correspond to the discipline issues. It’s been SO helpful! Britt and I will go through the verses together and have a talk prior to s p a n k i n g (yes, I did all the spacing on purpose…you wouldn’t believe the horrible things I’ve heard b/c we s p a n k so I’d rather not make the word easy to find when people search my blog…).
Discipline isn’t fun but it’s necessary. My kids are ALWAYS aware of what choices will lead to disciplinary actions being taken. They know the standards they are held to and they know THEY are the ones who decide whether to obey or disobey instruction. When disobedience occurs they are given space and time to reflect and calm down. Then we go over the chart and talk and read God’s word. Then disciplinary action is taken while I hold them and immediately comfort them. We pray together, asking forgiveness, and talk about how better choices will be made in the future. Lots of hugs, kisses, and “I love yous” as well as “I’m proud of you” and “you are such a great girl/boy” etc. I love my children too much to let them live in sin!
Once Britt is down for nap it’s ME TIME. Which means using the bathroom in peace and quite, scrolling social media, then blogging 🙂 I’m pretty predictable! Ha!
One of my goals has been to put God FIRST in my day and I’ve found the best way to do that is to devote the first portion of nap time to studying his Word. I am working through a devo book (it’s ammmmazing…One in a Million) and also have a prayer journal that I write down verses I come across along with a list of prayers. It’s AMAZING the difference in my day when I put God first vs when I don’t!
I typically stay 1-2 months behind “real time” in my blogging. This is for many reasons, but the main reason is safety. I feel like it’s safer for my family to not be posting things that we’re currently doing. However, I would like to get to a point of blogging closer to real time! It’s just a struggle!
The girls nap from 1-4 and Kye gets off the bus at 3:25. I always head to the front porch at 3:20 and wait for him. It’s one of my favorite moments of the day. He ALWAYS RACES to me and gives me the best hug and kiss!
And this kid immediately takes off his clothes all the way down to his underwear as soon as he walks in the door #boylife
We started chores at the beginning of this year and Kye is ALL ABOUT IT. We also started making him wear “house shorts” around the house rather than just living in boxer briefs all the time 😉 You can read more about our chore charts here!
It worked out great for us because the girls were sleeping and we could make Kye’s special birthday cake!
Zach got home early from work and went straight to the back porch to work on the outdoor kitchen. Yes, he’s rocking a back brace…
At about 5:00 Britt woke up. Child LOVES her SLEEP!
Zach typically does kid duty for me around 5ish so I can get dinner ready! We love “butter beans” and the best way to cook ’em is in a pressure cooker!
Finally getting my Spark/Rehydrate Mix!
Love seeing the kids having FUN outside!
In December Britt turned 4 which means she started taking the Advocare chews that Kye takes. They are AWESOME but expensive. To cut costs I’ve been trying to find different DHA vitamins for the big kids to take rather than giving them the ones Advocare makes. They HATED these haha
Dinner prep!
Waiting on my peas to get ready…I placed my monthly Advocare order!
Potty before dinner
Tess’s dinner! (before the pot roast was added in) At the time she was having some issues with constipation so I was loading her up with prunes 🙂
Lunch issues. Dinner issues. Meal time is ROUGH with a 4 year old.
Daddy does bath duty for the girls while Kye showers and I clean up the kitchen!
The girls LOVE bath time so it gave Kye and I a chance to finish our birthday cake masterpiece 🙂
6:45ish we begin bedtime routine which includes the whole family gathering in Tess’s room for story time and prayers.
Once we tuck in Tess, the big kids brush teeth (We brush Tess’s teeth while getting her out of bath and we also always make sure to help/check the big kids’ teeth when they brush)
Family game time!
Zach tucks Britt in first then heads upstairs with Kye to do his nightly Bible study time. Britt and I pick out her clothes for the next day before I tuck her in.
When I get upstairs to Kye he’s usually wrapping up the Bible study. I pick out his clothes for the next day then enjoy cuddle time! I have a special song I sing to each of my babies every single night 🙂
USUALLY after the kids are in bed Zach and I spend time together. I keep blogging time to the day time hours and at night I devote time to my man…however on this night I was have super big issues with the dang birthday slideshow. As in the ENTIRE slideshow messed up and I had to start over from scratch. With Kye’s birthday the next day I had no choice but to work on it and get it done. I mean I know he probably wouldn’t have cared but I wanted him to have his slideshow ready for his birthday!
UGH so annoying
I also went ahead and wrapped all of Kye’s birthday gifts and did a little decorating so he’d wake up to some birthday surprises!
Now that I’m 30 I feel like having some sort of wrinkle prevention night time routine is essential, right? I saw on Pinterest something about mixing together coconut oil and Frankincense oil (I use Young Living) to make a night cream. I have NO CLUE if it’s legit or not but I’ve been using it every night for several months now and still don’t have any real wrinkles so I guess it works? haha!
When I know I have a busy day the next day I try to pick out my clothes the night prior. A friend suggested for me to start using a wrinkle releaser and it’s AMAZING. I spray the clothes down, shake ’em out and let ’em hang until morning and they are basically wrinkle free. I’m super anti ironing so it’s a win for me!
My goal is to be in bed at 10:30 but it’s usually closer to 11:00.
Overall I feel like I have a good routine down for each day. Of course it changes as things come up (when we don’t have swim lessons we have more time in the mornings to do other things) but for the most part this is what our day-to-day life looks like at this stage of life! Other mamas of three…are our days similar?
This is only my second year doing this type of post but it’s already neat to see how things have changed over the course of a year (and I’m glad to say my face is a lot thinner now ha!)! I’m sure even more changes will take place before I do another one next March!
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