Wednesday, August 24, 2016

What do we do all day?!



Its summer (some day in June).  School is over.  Regularly scheduled after school activities are done.  So what do we do all day?  Well, here’s a glance at our day today…

Evelyn wakes at 6 am to nurse, then we both go back to sleep.  The older kids get up sometime after that, but I don’t know exactly when.  Chris’ alarm goes  off at 8 am so that we would be sure we are up and dressed for some gardening experts that are visiting Galena to stop by at 9 am and offer any help and answer gardening questions.  The boys play legos first thing, while Cara listens to an audio book.  Chris gets up to read and enjoy his coffee.  ME? I sleep in til the gardening experts are pulling into the driveway at 9:15.   Sugar is barking.  Big kids are bounding down the stairs, and now I am fully awake!  Chris goes out to show off our gardening space, while the kids stay in and realize, ‘hey, no one offered breakfast yet, and we’ve been so busy playing we didn’t realize its past normal breakfast eating time’ so they holler out the upstairs window at Chris, “Daddy! Can we eat breakfast now?!” I guess they didn’t want to ask me because they thought it might ‘wake’ me, hah.  Cereal is consumed, except Clint decides he’ll hold out til Chris is finished outside because he really wants to eat eggs.  I stumble out of the bedroom in search of coffee with the baby.  I sip coffee while Evelyn nurses.  It is cool, cloudy, and windy.  I don’t even attempt to join Chris outside.  Preston informs me he created a contraption to turn off his light while lying in his bed.  I guess he didn’t just play Legos this morning.  After Chris comes in he cooks some eggs for himself, me, and Clint.  We realize Clint is not around.  Upon searching, he is taking a nap under Preston’s bed.  Yes, its 10:00 am, is that too early for a nap? I guess you gotta catch one when you can during summer.  Clint and I enjoy our eggs, and Chris fills me in on the gardening experts’ visit, but then has a scheduled phone call.  He enjoys his eggs afterwards.  Evelyn is tired, so I put her to bed.  Chris does another step in the beaver tanning process that he started working on a week ago and heads outside to jack up the corner of the rent house that has shifted.   I try to push the kids into getting ready for the day, but everyone scatters to do something else.  Realizing I need to be more proactive, I head downstairs to round everyone up and re-instruct.  It’s kind of like herding cats.  Finally everyone is heading in the right direction, so I get myself ready for the day.  After the kids finally dress and get ready for the day they take all their sheets off to wash.  Cara heads outside to play.  The boys pick up from breakfast, clean up the table, and start summer school.  We are continuing reading and math facts throughout the summer, and Preston is doing violin and typing also.   Cara comes in with a purple flower we aren’t sure of the exact name, so we search in the wildflower book til we can identify it and make sure it’s not poisonous.  It’s not.  She wasn’t going to eat it anyways.  I start laundry and then work on organizing my new bookshelves Chris built me.  It’s been an ongoing project this week.  Cara comes in and plays with Evelyn.  Evelyn nurses, and then it’s time for lunch.  One of the things Clint wanted to learn this summer is how to cook spaghetti, with the goal being he learns to prepare it completely by himself.  We had decided today’s lunch would be a good time for him to cook so he and I cook spaghetti with me instructing and being as hands off as possible.  Lunch was delicious! We ate at 1:30. Clint did an excellent job. Chris says he made a lot of progress cleaning and organizing the shop and was able to get the house jacked properly.  The boys head out to do chicken chores.  We have 50 chickens right now; 26 meat birds, 16 layer hens, and 8 layer chicks.  Preston brings in 6 eggs.  Clint checks all the food and water, and delivers scraps.  I catch up on a sink full of dirty dishes.  Cara reminds me I said I’d take her driving around in search of wild flowers.  Clint comes back inside with 4 more eggs.  After Evelyn nurses again at 2:30, the 3 of us head out in search of as many different kinds of wildflowers as we can find.  The boys are free for the day, and head out to play with friends.  Chris starts work milling logs on the saw mill.  Cara and I find lots of different wildflowers and return to the house to arrange them in vases.  We also got out the wildflower book to find all the names of the flowers and read about them.   The boys have been granted 30 minutes of Wii downstairs while Cara finishes up a snack and heads down to join them.  Evelyn took a short nap on the flower picking adventure and is ready to finish her nap.  She goes to bed.  The boys time is up and they are back outside playing with friends and Cara asks to watch a movie.  I decided that it is quiet and no children need me, so I will update the blog.  But the internet is in and out due to the windy day, so I scratch that idea and begin to realize my head is pounding.  Oh yeah, that would be caused by those wonderful flowers we picked that I am allergic to.  I tell Cara she has to move her beautiful arrangements outside.  Chris milled up two sill logs to put under the new chicken coop and also a bunch of 2x12s for a new porch on the rent house and then hauled the mill over to one of the other mill owners.  He also watered the meat birds.  6 pm sneaks right up on us.  Evelyn is awake and nurses again.  Cara and I have a snack and pretty soon all the guys wander inside.  Chris brings in 3 more eggs.  I get ready for walking with a friend at 7pm while Chris takes over and feeds everyone leftovers.  They eat, get pajamas on, and read Prince Caspian together, our current chapter book.  Next everyone goes down to get their clean sheets on and crawl into bed.  It’s a little earlier than a normal summer day, but the kids are all pretty tired tonight.  We have prayer and lights out. Preston’s new contraption works perfectly. Evelyn nurses and goes to bed for the night.  Chris and I enjoy our evening. 

What a day!  We love summer!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Sounds like a very busy day for all of you. Nonna