My alarm goes off at 7:45am and I usually roll out of bed 1.5 minutes before 8am so I can get the girls out of bed at 8am! I am so not a morning person.

I get Sweet Pea’s milk warming (girl still has to have her milk warmed at 18 months old almost – can we say spoiled?!) and then I go to Sweet Pea’s room where I get her out of bed. She usually brings one of her blankets with her and wants to lay on my shoulder for a minute with her blankie. Such a sweet way to start the day for both of us. Then her head pops up, she tosses her blankie back in her bed and we head to the changing table to change her diaper and get her dressed for the day.

Then I set her on the floor and say, “Where is Sister?!”. She runs to Little Bug’s room and we open the door to usually a disgruntled 3 year old. She is getting enough sleep, so her grumpiness just comes along with being three, I guess. I let Little Bug pick out her clothes (if it is not a school day) and then get her dressed. Then we all head to the living room for milk time and breakfast together!

Then after breakfast the girls get down and play together in the living room. On this day (January 9th), Uncle and his friend were on their way back to Seminary and stopped in to say goodbye, so the girls were playing with them.

During this time of play in the living room, I clean up the kitchen, get a load of laundry started and then we all play together.

At 9:30am I go read books with Sweet Pea in her bedroom and lay her down for her morning nap at 9:45am.

Usually by the end of our reading time, she has gone to her crib and snagged her blankie!

From 9:30-10:30am Little Bug does her Independent Playtime in her bedroom. While Sweet Pea naps and Little Bug is doing her IP, I get myself dressed and ready for the day, check email/fb, post to the blog, and get Learning Time ready for that day.

10:30am Learning Time begins. Little Bug comes flying out of her room saying, “What are we going to do for Learning Time today, Mommy?!”.

At 10:45am I get Sweet Pea up from her nap and then she has Independent Playtime in her bedroom while I do Learning Time with Little Bug.

After 30ish minutes of Learning Time, we go clean up both bedrooms from IP. Then, Little Bug has her 30 minutes of TV time.

I try to get Sweet Pea engaged in something in the kitchen so she doesn’t watch the TV. I don’t want her watching until age two. She pretty much stays with me in the kitchen playing with puzzles and Tupperware! She will sometimes go into the living room (where LB is watching TV) but at this point, she doesn’t pay attention to the TV much at all.

While Little Bug watches her show and Sweet Pea toddles around playing, I fix lunch for everyone and fold laundry.

Around noon we sit down to eat lunch and then whenever we are finished with that, we head outside for some physical activity! We love to go for walks (where everyone now walks!), to the park, sometimes Little Bug wants to ride her scooter and sometimes we just play in our backyard.

Sweet Pea sat herself down on the slide so she could study the object in her hand. I think it was a bubble container! You can see her concentration.

We are outside for a little less than an hour before it is time to come in and get settled for naps.

I go read to Sweet Pea in her bedroom while Little Bug is usually picking what book she wants me to read to her (and getting herself into trouble!!! I am about ready to make her sit in the pack n play again and read while I put SP down for naps!!! That girl….). Sweet Pea goes to bed at 1:45pm and then it is time to read to Little Bug and tuck her in at 2pm.

Once the girls are both in their beds I do a quick “clean up” of the house from the morning, and spend about 15-30 minutes doing any chore I need to do for that day. And then…I RELAX.

Relax for me usually means blogging, reading, planning for Learning Time or working on some type of project (such as organizing something in my house – yes that is relaxing to me!).

Both girls get up between 4 and 4:30pm.

I’m not as structured with the time after naptime to bedtime, but we fill the time until dinner by: reading, going outside again, playing games inside or playing together in one of the girls’ bedrooms.

We eat dinner around 6pm and while I clean up the kitchen Dave takes the girls and plays with them in the living room. They often share a smoothie made by Daddy during this time. If there is time before baths, we love to go on a “family walk” as Little Bug calls it.

At 7pm Dave gets the girls in the bathtub and by 7:30ish they are out and all clean and in their pjs. I put Sweet Pea to bed by 7:45pm while Dave and Little Bug read together. Then we pray with Little Bug, read a Bible story together and then Little Bug goes to bed around 8:15ish.

I do another quick “clean up” of the house once the girls are in bed, talk to Dave uninterrupted by my little competitions for Daddy’s attention, and then go have my Bible study time. It is also not uncommon for me to do some more housework/chores once the girls are in bed since it is just so much easier to do that when I know I have 30 minutes without interruptions to get it done!

And once again, I try to have lights out at 11pm, but I am so bad about this. I love staying up late, and usually read in bed before finding myself nodding off around 11:30ish. I am reading Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers. Excellent read!

And that is a day in my life, right now. Of course, everyday is not like that because every day we do not stay home. Twice a week Little Bug attends preschool in the mornings. And I didn’t include all the “interesting things” that happen with a 3 year old and 1 year old on a daily basis! Like the effort it takes to get them out the door to simply go for a walk in the neighborhood!

I am very scheduled and structured with my girls. Very! I have found it to be easier to find a schedule/routine that works for us and run with it until it is time to switch things up a bit. My girls thrive on the predictability of our days and so do I because I have a specific time planned for every activity I want to accomplish in my day: from spending time with my girls to reading to them to getting my household chores done. There is a time for everything and my house runs smoothly (most days, ha!).

This is my second post on this “A Day in the Life” series. These are long and mainly just for me to remember one day what life was like “back then”…

I started getting the girls up at the same time this summer. I’d get Sweet Pea’s milk warming (turkey has to have her whole milk warmed!) and then I’d go get her up, change her diaper and get her dressed. Then we’d go get Little Bug up together. Same thing for her. Get her out of her diaper and get her dressed. And then, we all three would head to the big chair in the living room for milk time!

Little Bug usually finished her milk first and then she would get down and go to our bedroom to “wake up Daddy”. She would hang out with him in there while he was getting ready for work (he told me recently he loves waking up to Little Bug and then chatting with her before heading off to work) and then I would call her to come eat when breakfast was ready. While eating breakfast we would see Daddy off to work.

After breakfast, and while I cleaned up, Sweet Pea and Little Bug played together in the living room. They loved this time together and I loved it too because it allowed me to easily get the kitchen cleaned up from breakfast and on laundry days, I usually got the laundry started while they played.

At 9:15 we would clean up toys and then it was Sweet Pea’s book time before her nap. Little Bug would read too but more often than not, all she did was distract little sister from her books! By 9:30am Sweet Pea was down for her nap and Little Bug was in her room for room time.

I would then go to my bedroom and get myself dressed and ready for the day. I would also use this time to check email/fb, blog and get our learning time activities ready for that day! I’d also move laundry from the washer to the dryer and start another load if needed.

After an hour of room time, Little Bug would clean up her room (or I should say, I would clean up her room….we are currently working on this!) and then it was time for Learning Time – our most favorite time of day!! Oh, but first, she would have another milk time. That girl does love her milk – still!

We would spend anywhere from 30-60 minutes doing our learning time, depending on what we were doing that day.

Once Sweet Pea was awake we were usually finished with Learning Time and then we would all play together. Sometimes during this time in the summer, I would put the pool out in the backyard and let the girls play in the pool and with the water table before lunch!

Around 11:30, it was time for Little Bug to watch her show and Sweet Pea would do her Independent Playtime in the pack n play. This 30-minute block of time allowed me to have time to prepare lunch in peace! If there was time, I would also fold the laundry that I had put to wash and dry in the morning.

At noon, we’d all sit down to eat lunch together and after lunch we would either play inside some more (most of July & August we just stayed inside at this time because it was just too HOT!) or go outside to play either in the front or back yard or at the park.

I would try to have us back inside by 1ish so we could cool down before naptime or take a quick spit bath if needed from getting dirty outside. At 1:15pm, it was time to read books to Sweet Pea again before her afternoon nap. Sweet Pea was in her bed for a nap by 1:30.

Then, I’d read to Little Bug and do her little naptime routine which consisted of: reading books, singing songs, going potty and putting a diaper on. She would be in bed for nap by 2pm.

And then…all would be quiet for the next 2-2.5 hours! I would use the first half hour or so to do a household chore or whatever I needed to just “get done” that day. Then, I would relax and enjoy some down time before it was 4/4:30 and everyone was waking up!

We’d have another milk time together in the big chair if they woke at the same time. After that it was time for more play and possibly a trip to the park if I was brave enough to brave the heat.

We’d have dinner together as a family around 6pm. Then it was family time until bathtime around 7pm. I’d give Sweet Pea a bath around 7 while Little Bug had some Daddy time. Then I’d get Sweet Pea to bed while Dave bathed Little Bug. We would have a Bible story, milk time and sing songs with Little Bug and then usually everyone was in bed by 8 or 8:15pm (8:30pm at the very latest).

Then it was time for a quick pick-up sweep across the entire house so that the next day we start with an organized house. And then it was Quiet Time, Dave time, relax time for me until I’d go to bed. And yes, I still struggle with “getting to bed on time”. I am a night-owl by nature and it is hard for me to turn the lights out by 11pm unless I have a baby less than 6 months old that is not sleeping through the night yet!!

And that was what our “at home” days looked like during the summer. Of course, that is not what every single day looked like because I didn’t write about when I do errands and when we go places, etc. because I don’t want to post those details of our schedule/routine on the internet!

This was a pretty “easy” season of life for us. The girls were both on a very predictable schedule and life was just enjoyed and lived everyday! And now here we are already in Fall!

I can hardly believe Little Bug is almost three years old and Sweet Pea will be turning one in a little over three months.

I’ve been wanting to write a post like this one for a while now because I know these days are fleeting and a huge part of the reason I blog is to have a journal of life with my family. I used to scrapbook all the time (pre-kids, imagine that!) so while my blog is out there as encouragement for those of you on the infertility journey, my blog also serves as my scrapbook.

This post is long. You may just want to skip it as I am writing this for myself to one day be able to read and remember what life was like when my girls were so little and my days revolved around meeting their every need.

I want to record what a “day in the life” is generally like most days around here. Of course, every day is different than the day before, but this is the general flow of our days right now.

I wish I had started doing this a looooong time ago. But, oh well. I can always start now. I’ll do another one in July, I think.

My alarm goes off anytime between 7:15-7:45 depending on what we are doing that day. I go warm Sweet Pea’s bottle and get her Zantac ready. Then at 8am I go to Sweet Pea’s bedroom and she is usually awake waiting for me. When she sees me she gives me a big smile. I get her up, change her diaper and get her dressed for the day. Then we go to the living room for her to drink her bottle. I love the way she opens her mouth getting ready for that bottle as I move it to her mouth. It is so adorable. She is like a little baby bird eagerly awaiting food.

When she finishes her bottle I sit and hold her for a few minutes. Little Bug is usually awake during this time or is waking up by now. After I hold and rock Sweet Pea for a little bit, I put Sweet Pea in the bouncy seat and go get Big Sister up.

Little Bug’s chatter begins the moment I open the door. Recently she told me, “Mommy, after I went to bed my stroller was coming to get me!” I guess she had been dreaming about her doll stroller! We start chit chatting about whatever is on Little Bug’s mind at the time while I undress her while she is still in her crib (a clever idea I just recently discovered to avoid having to ask her to come here a million times while I am trying to get her dressed). She always wants me to warm the wipe I use on her once taking the pull up off. Once she is dressed we go to the living room where Little Bug has her “milk time”.

Then we all move to the kitchen where breakfast begins. I put both girls in their seats while I prepare breakfast. Little Bug chatters away and the girls look at each other and make each other laugh. What a great way to start the morning!

After I feed Sweet Pea her solids, she has Independent Playtime while I finish up breakfast with Little Bug. Dave usually is about to leave for work around this time. We tell him goodbye, I finish cleaning up the kitchen from breakfast and then I let Little Bug out of her seat. We get Sweet Pea and then go to the living room to read books to Sweet Pea for about 15-20 minutes. I like to use this time to teach the girls to share by letting Little Bug pick a book and then letting Sweet Pea pick a book to read. After we read, I lay Sweet Pea down for her morning nap and Little Bug goes to her room to pick toys for room time.

Once Little Bug is in her room, I finish up any cleaning I need to do in the kitchen, start a load of laundry, get dressed for the day, check email and facebook, post a blog, write posts and plan the day’s learning activity. That hour is so invaluable to me in the mornings!

Around 10:30am Little Bug’s room time is over and we clean up her room and then head to the living room where she has another “milk time” and then we read books for about half an hour or more. This is another favorite part of my day. I love reading to my girls!

After that we do a learning activity for the next half hour or so. Then, while Little Bug watches Word World, I start fixing our lunch and get Sweet Pea’s bottle warming. When Sweet Pea wakes up during this time, I give her her bottle. After Little Bug is finished with Word World, it is lunch time and everyone goes back to the table for lunch! After Sweet Pea eats her solids, I put her in the jumperoo to play while Little Bug and I finish our lunch.

After lunch we usually head outside for about an hour. The goal here is to wear Little Bug out for naptime! She loves to play with sidewalk chalk, ride her tricycle, go for walks and play with the soccer ball. She usually asks to go to the park, but that time of day it is just too hot.

Around 1:30pm we come in and start settling down for naptime. I get Sweet Pea in bed first. Then, Little Bug goes potty, she puts on a pull up and we go to the living room to read “naptime books”. We have naptime books because if I didn’t have “naptime books” Little Bug would pick the longest books ever to read before going to bed. These books are short and I read her three books before we sing songs and then head to her bed. Both girls are in their beds for naptime by 2pm.

After both girls are in bed for naptime, I finish cleaning up the kitchen from lunch, change out laundry and then usually go to my bedroom for some quiet time of my own while the house is quiet. That is my time of the day with no interruptions (usually!). After some time to myself I will go do whatever household chore needs to be done before the girls start waking up.

Everyone is up from nap around 4 – 4:30ish. Once Sweet Pea has her bottle, if we are having an at-home day, we might head up to the park or play inside with toys and games until Dave gets home around 6pm.

Once Dave is home, he fixes dinner. (Yes, he is awesome like that.) We eat as a family and then, depending on what time it is when we finish dinner, we may go for a family walk or go out to the front yard and play before it is time for baths and bed.

I give Sweet Pea a bath around 7:15pm while Little Bug has her Daddy all to herself. They read books, play, share smoothies and make Daddy coffee while I am busy with Sweet Pea. Sweet Pea has a bottle on our bed and then she is in bed by 7:45pm-8pm. Little Bug gets in the bath at 8pm. Her Daddy gives her a bath. When she is finished with her bath time, we go to the living room and she has “milk time” while I read her a Bible story. Then we pray with her, brush teeth and dry hair if it was a hair wash night, and then sing songs before heading to her bedroom. She is in bed by 8:30 or 8:45 every night.

Once she is in bed I do a quick pick up of the house so that we start with a tidy house in the morning. Dave and I also make a point to talk to each other about the day during this time so that we stay connected. Certain nights are “at home date nights” where we do not get on technology and spend time together. Other nights that are not date nights I spend time relaxing before bed. Every night we read the Chronological Bible together and then go have our own separate quiet times with the Lord. And then I try to be in bed by 11pm. I usually fail miserably at this, though, because I am a night owl. Midnight is my limit. I know if the clock strikes midnight, I’ll turn into a pumpkin (i.e. not get enough sleep) and that is not good!

Lately, I have found it is easier for me to take one night every other week or so and, after the kids have gone to bed I will go on a cleaning frenzy and clean the entire house (minus the girls’ bedrooms) in about 1.5 hours. AMAZING what you can get accomplished in so little time without interruptions or children under your feet! For now, in this phase of my life, this system is working well for me and that is all that matters.

So, that is my typical “at home” day with my girls. That of course doesn’t include days we do go somewhere, which is usually 2-3 times a week. I’m not one to be on the go all the time, but Little Bug can’t stay home every day for days in a row or she goes stir-crazy!

It also doesn’t include “crazy circumstances” such as the day Little Bug peed in the pack n play (which was totally my fault because she told me she needed to go like she usually does when I put her in there. BUT, I just assumed, like I usually do, that it was her ploy to get out, so I told her I’d be right there. Well, she peed in there and I had to clean it up —- after having just changed number who-knows-what dirty diaper, which was why she was in the pack n play in the first place because she cannot be left unsupervised!!) and then, moments later, peed in her crib as well. It also doesn’t include the other “unexpected, unplanned” things that are bound to happen when taking care of small children. Those things, we just roll with and adjust our schedule accordingly!

Overall though I love these days. I cherish these days. Things really do run smoothly around here for the most part. Little Bug is certainly my challenge most every day as I try to stay one step ahead of her at all times. But I know having both girls on a schedule makes our days flow so well. Having our days structured and organized cuts out a whole lot of unnecessary crazy! It makes me be intentional about everything I want to get done in the day because every thing has a time and place. I still have “those days” – we all do!! – but overall, life is enjoyable and I know I am going to blink and these days of taking care of two small children every single day will one day, all too soon, be a distant memory.

On hard days I remind myself that Little Bug and Sweet Pea are not always going to be 2 years old and 8 months old! One day, sooner than I think, they are going to be 5 and 7 and then 12 and 14, 20 and 22 and I will wish for just one more day with my 2 year old and baby.

Infertility and motherhood have certainly taught me lessons in enjoying life for what it is today because soon, it will all be changing…again.

I will be so glad I took the time to type this up so I can remember small details about these todays.