A Day in the Life

I was thinking about what to post this week and realized that most of my posts are about specific activities and outings but don't really do much to describe our day-to-day happenings. So I decided to just talk about what the days are like around here. I apologize in advance if this post gets a little boring, but it's mostly for me anyway to remember what life is really like!! There's some cute videos at the end if you want to just skip ahead :)

Wake-up is usually around 6:30 am. There was a stint in July where both girls were sleeping past 7 am but not lately! It's usually Madison first. She bounds into our room to my side of the bed and tells me "It's good morning time!" Sunday she ran in at 6:17 and declared excitedly that the sky was "pink and white and blue and golden" ... so we went out back and watched our first sunrise together. I guess I've come a long way from my single days when I had a very strict don't call me before 10 am policy :) Madison usually immediately asks for the iPad as she knows she only has limited time before Daddy takes it to school. So she usually watches a show (Daniel Tiger) while eating breakfast - always cereal and chocolate milk. Her current favorites are Captain cereal (Captain Crunch) or Marshmallow cereal (Lucky Charms). Yep, we're all about eating healthy around here ;)

When McKinley wakes up, she likes to eat IMMEDIATELY! She doesn't usually wake up crying but we hear her talking to herself in her bed. She's usually still laying down with her bink in her mouth while doing so, silly girl! She's gotten very good at the binks are for bed rule but still likes to tease us with it a little before throwing it in! She also likes to pull the cord to open her blinds in the morning and see the sun. When we walk out of her room, she starts throwing around "Hi" to everything she sees - Dad usually gets a "Hi Daddy!" If she does happen to wake up before Madison, it's insanely hard to keep her out of Madison's room! As soon as you set her down, she bolts for Madison's room and runs straight to the bed saying "Hi" over and over! She pats Madison and says "hi" until Madison wakes up. Thankfully, Madison loves this and doesn't mind getting woken up! Like I said, we try to stop McKinley but it's also so cute that we don't try too hard :) McKinley gets a banana, milk and some sort of something for breakfast - leftover chocolate chip pancakes, toddler muffins or cinnamon raisin bagel. When she first started eating table foods, she showed zero interest in cereal but after seeing her sister basically live on it, she's recently decided to give it another shot. I'm resisting this a little bit because it means I have to sit with her and help with the cereal instead of using the 7 minutes of breakfast time to check my email, blog and facebook to start the day - first-world problems, I know!

Jordan leaves at 6:45 or 7:15 depending on the day, and from then on, it's just us girls! After breakfast, we play with toys in the living room and watch a little PBS until McKinley's morning nap around 9 am. Bath days are MWF and we always do baths in the morning (we tried evening but there's just too much going on ... except Saturday night; we always do baths Saturday night because, you know, Saturday is a special day ...). McKinley gets her bath before naptime and Madison gets hers while McKinley is down. I try to do some sort of activity with Madison everyday during McKinley's naps. Sometimes these are her choice (usually doing puzzles in her room, coloring or playing Candyland), but most of the time they're learning activities. Pinterest has been a great help with that! Madison knows almost all her letter sounds and can write a lot of her letters as well! We've also done science projects together, usually involving baking soda, vinegar and food coloring, and sometimes we make things in the kitchen like letter cookies. This is also when I usually get ready for the day (although I try to shower before Jordan leaves so I don't take too much time away from Madison).

Then the fun really begins! McKinley is usually up between 10:30 and 11. Depending on the day, we have various outings we do on a regular basis between naps. Mondays, Tuesdays and sometimes Fridays are Jordan's long days when he doesn't get home until 6 at the earliest so those days are especially important for me to have something to do! I kind of go a little crazy just sitting at home for 11 hours :) Mondays are usually reserved for running errands around town, including grocery shopping. The girls love the car shopping cart at the grocery store, and they love going to "the Big Store" i.e. Sam's Club. For some reason, they will eat anything and everything there (well, McKinley will eat anything and everything everywhere. But I'm pretty sure the only meat Madison has ever ingested in her life has been at Sam's Club!) Sometimes we get a slice of pizza and a blueberry muffin there for lunch :) On Tuesdays, we usually do something with Kelsie and Dax since Kelsie's husband Cade also has long clinic days on Tuesday. We try to do things that involve water, usually the Botanical Gardens or the fountains at the zoo, and pack picnic lunches! Our outings usually last 2-3 hours, and my girls almost always fall asleep on the way home ... it's the only way I can get Madison to take naps anymore :) Wednesdays are story time at the library, which means new books! We have over 100 books at home, but for some reason it's always more fun to read new books from the library! Madison usually chooses about 30 to take home so it's my job to whittle her pile down to seven or eight :) She always chooses one book from the board book section for McKinley too. Now that McKinley is walking around, she likes to grab her own stack of books along with unpacking the diaper bag and carrying everything in it around the room ... yeah, library time is fun! Lately, library day has been replaced with pool day! Our home teacher has a pool in his backyard, and he and his wife take care of their three-year-old grandson during the day so they've invited the whole mom's group over to swim on Wednesdays!! Last time we had eight moms and 17 kids there!! It's a blast! Thursdays are usually playgroup just at someone's house, although Madison starts Thursday School again in a couple weeks, and is of course very excited! She keeps talking about her teacher from last year so we're trying to help her understand she will have a new teacher this year who will be just as wonderful as Ms. Judy (we hope!!). And finally we get to Friday! Friday clinic assignments are supposed to rotate, but Jordan has had clinic on most Fridays this semester. Thankfully, there have been several that overlap with Cade so once again, Kelsie and I band together to make it through! Whatever we didn't do Tuesday, we do Friday :) It's nice that we can meet in the middle for most of our activities since we live a half hour from each other. Our monthly gas allowance has kind of skyrocketed since the guys started working in the clinic, but I'm grateful that Jordan understands my need to get out of the house and spend time with friends. And I know the girls love it too - Madison asks me every night what we're going to do the next day and always gets excited about our adventures!

So after our midday activity, whatever that may be, we head home for some rest! McKinley naps from about 2:30-4, and if Madison isn't already asleep from the car ride home, I have her do an hour of quiet times. She's very good about playing in her room and usually comes up with some pretty imaginative pretend scenarios. She almost always comes out at the end of quiet times with some sort of costume on! I, of course, try to be as productive as possible during quiet times, whether it's planning Family Home Evening, working on Relief Society stuff, prepping as much as possible for dinner, crafting or just cleaning something!! It's kind of a precious hour :) I've also begun doing my scripture study during quiet times ... I'm always too tired to do it in the evening or to get up even earlier in the morning so this has been working out nicely. And then, before I know it, my time is up and the girls are back at it!!

Jordan is usually home by 4 on Wednesday and Thursday, so we try to do an early dinner and then take a walk or go swimming on those days. The other days are LONG as I mentioned before. At first I tried holding out for dinner until he came home, but McKinley especially just can't make it that long so now the girls eat around 5:30 after more playtime; I eat with them some days but wait for Jordan others just depending on how things are going. Dad usually calls on his way home so we go out front and wait for him. If not, as soon as the girls see him in the window or hear his keys in the door, they immediately start squealing! McKinley bolts for the door and says "Daddy" over and over until he picks her up! Everyone is always happy when Daddy comes home!

Bedtime is between 7 and 7:30 depending on how we're all feeling. Some nights even making it until 7 is a chore, but other nights we have lots of playing to do so even 7:30 comes and goes. But in general, 7:30 is it! Bedtime takes a little while around here so we made up a song that tells us what we do so the girls know what to expect - PJs, story, scripture, song, family prayer, potty, teeth, prayer and sleep. McKinley still isn't great about sitting with us for story and scripture reading, but she likes folding her arms for our family prayer ... unfortunately, we kneel in a circle and hold hands for family prayer so we still have a bit of work to do there ;) Our story is a usually one of our library books that Madison chooses. We've tried a few things for scripture study. We finished the Book of Mormon reader a few weeks ago and have started using the gospel art kit more - Madison chooses a picture and then we tell her the story associated with the picture. It's been a good way to talk about scripture stories and also introduce other gospel concepts like tithing and baptism. We try to rotate through various primary songs for our song, but Madison usually lobbies hard for I Am A Child of God, which is her favorite song! After family prayer comes potty and teeth and then we kiss McKinley goodnight and lay her down. She has never liked being rocked or sung to when she goes down for naps or at night - as soon as you give her the bink and her blanket, she pushes away from you to get in her bed! Jordan and I then go into Madison's room to snuggle a bit and have her say her personal prayers. She always hunkers down in her blankets and acts like she's going to sleep and then is up playing as soon as we leave, sometimes even before we're actually out of the room! We're okay with this - she always puts herself to bed when she's ready to go to sleep :)

And that's pretty much it! Jordan and I usually spend our evenings doing random stuff on our respective to-do lists or watching our latest Netflix obsession (right now it's 24). One of us ends up at Sonic to pick up half price shakes about once a week - don't judge :) We do try to do "date night" at home on Friday nights and enjoy inviting friends over for dessert and games on Saturdays or Sundays. We're REALLY going to miss all of our awesome friends when we leave next August.

So there you have it, a day in the life of the Rothlisbergers! Although even as I type this, McKinley is starting to drop one of her naps and Jordan's semester is ending so he'll have a new schedule in a couple weeks and it will all change! Never a dull moment :)

Sometimes when we get bored during the day, we bust out the video camera! Here's a few recent gems...

A new primary song! Sometimes she adds a "Bum bum" at the end of each line, which is totally cute :)

This little girl loves to dance! She busts a move whenever she hears music, usually twirling in circles or swinging her arms

McKinley got ahold of the video camera one day and took lots of videos of herself ... and the carpet, walls and ceiling :)

Cade and Kelsie invited us to swim at their friend's house one day, and we finally convinced Madison to go down the slide! She liked it and went down several more times :)