Thursday, June 22, 2006

What a beautiful, rhythmic day!

The weather is Perfect.

We had a great day - I was determined to find a rhythm today and we did and the day just flowed so well. Rhythm is my on-going project, but we really made some progress today - it just all came together. So I am going to be boring for awhile and post our daily routines.

7:30 am woke up
"Woke up" our bedrooms. Say good morning to the bedrooms, make the beds, pick up clothes, straighten books and open shades. Start a load of laundry.

8 am. Breakfast
Smoothies!
Sing our "Blessings" song and our "candle" song.

8:30 ish
Clean up kitchen, free play (usually something to do with their cars and the kitchen sink!).

9 am.
Movement
We gathered up the soccer/volleyballs and played dodge ball in the backyard.

9:30 am
Craft/This will eventually turn into the Main Lesson time.
We made play doh. The boys went nuts over it and this occupied them for quite awhile. The kitchen got trashed. Flour and me make messes - always.

10:30 am
Snack
Blessings and candle songs.
I am going to ALWAYS sit with the boys from now on for their snack time. This will be my time to drink my tea... day 3 no coffee in the house....again.

10:45 am
We set up the train tracks in the play room. The boys played while I worked in the kitchen, cleaning up.

Noon
Lunch
Blessings and candle songs

12:30 Shower for me.
I take my shower down in the basement shower and the boys play with Daddy's race track. What would we do without toy cars?

1 pm
Story Time.
Read a story to Will, nurse Jack until he falls asleep. Cross my fingers that Will sleeps too, but alas, not today. Will and I went downstairs to the basement so he could play more with the race track. I did laundry and attempted to keep Will quiet.

2:30
Jack woke up. Boys played outside for awhile.
I'm getting hazy now about how the rest of the afternoon went... ????
I made 5 quiches. The boys played more with the play doh.

3 pm ish
Snack

I can't remember what we did in the afternoon!

Later...

5 pm
Boys played outside.
I turned on my "Cleaning Days" CD, which is very slow and nearly a capella. We have outdoor speakers so the kids could hear it outside too. It calms them.
I am making a point of picking up the house before Mark comes home. I think this is very important. Its funny, it took me 5 minutes to clear the toys in the living room and Mark comes home and says, "Wow! The house looks great!" If I hadn't cleared those toys, the perfectly clean kitchen would not have been noticed at all.

6 pm
Dinner with Daddy.
Blessings and Candle.

6:45
Clean up and headed out for a family bike ride.
the bike ride went too long, we met new neighbors and chatted.

9:30
Boys in bed. Snooze.

When I type this out it all sounds so boring and typical but for some reason I am just really happy about how the day went.

I believe the greatest reasons for success included:

1. Sticking to a schedule, anticipating what came next.

2. Incorporating Movement first thing in the morning.

3. My attitude.

So now after all that, Daddy will be home for the morning tomorrow and our rhythm will be whacked. lol. But we can still wake up our rooms, have breakfast, and then Daddy and the kids can do some kind of Movement activity. I think I will give Daddy a craft project to do with the kids - take a large jar, fill it with sand and then water. Color the water blue (I have kool-aid and think that will work). Then go on a treasure hunt for cool rocks, clam shells down by the lake and whatever else they can find to make a beach/ocean in the jar. So actually, we can keep our rhythm. I'll just have to continue to move it along.

Well, I'm beat. Off to bed soon.

3 comments:

Sarah said...

I don't think it sounds boring at all. It sounds like a wonderful day to me!

Shawn said...

Wow Julie! That sounds like a perfect schedule to me! We also like to give the house a good picking up before Daddy gets home. We have a "special basket" that we put all the loose toys, shoes etc in and after dinner Bethany knows we put those items away where they should go. It is amazing how Corey appreciates having the house picked up. Sometimes we even run a vaccum over, and light a few candles to make it smell yummy! :)Glad you had an awesome dayI think I'll borrow a few of your ideas!

Kara said...

Looking forward to your rhythmic posting Monday!