Building Dams, Art, Haircut

What yesterday looked like...A day in the life of us....Hubbie had an extra few days off this week, Sunday and Monday leading into his normal Tuesday, Wednesday off. He had testing for a new job position he is going for that will provide better benefits, better pay and a better future for all of us. So he left super early. Plans to wake up when he did and get an early start on my work did not pan out, tired from staying up late with him made me not want to rise...instead I slept in till 7am. Two of our pups who sleep with me didn't complain a bit. I never set an alarm. The kids don't have to be up at a certain time. If we happen to get a late start, everything else begins late..chores, school. We go with the flow. But the flow seems to go 'around' the same time every day none the less.

Some coffee after feeding the pups I take 15 minutes for myself to catch up on a few favorite blogs, check my personal emails and finish a full cup before diving into work. I'm a stay at home mom, a work at home mom and a home schooling mom. I work full time, work I get paid for I mean. So this means really trying to manage my time well to make sure everything in the home gets done and our kids get taken care of amongst getting all my 'paid' hours in. Most days the to-do list doesn't get done and that's okay. Lately the kids have switched places, usually it used to be our son who rose early and our daughter who slept in, now its the other way around. 7:15 our daughter comes out and grabs a blanket and curls up on the couch with a good book or a tv show. By 8am our son gets out of bed. Our daughter makes herself breakfast and I help our son with his. They eat, play, relax while I go and do a short work out and grab a shower. They then get dressed while I work on dishes or if I didn't get much work done I'll take a few extra minutes to finish up on that before the day begins.

Chores are next...a quick room cleaning, beds are made, laundry is picked up, the bathroom is cleaned...then off to do animals. Some days I help or if there are too many dishes calling my name I head off to the kitchen. If I wasn't outside I go out to take a quick check to see if there is anything else that needs to be done with my help- cleaning the ducks pools.

After chores its our morning structured learning time. Some days we go on field trips, some days the morning is already pre planned from the day before, other times there is no plan and we sit down to make the plan then do it. From learning about the Flood of 1913 last week, today we looked into Dams. We watched a video on you tube below: and then made a river and our own dam in our yard, the kids attempting to let water through slowly but not flood or knock the dam over - PBS Kids Build a Dam 

Building Dams

After our adventure outdoors, we came inside to read some of the Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol then had independent study time. Our son worked on some math then did a dino worksheet to match up bones, working as a 'paleontologist'. Our daughter researched voice actors and how to become a voice actor and did some reading. While they did independent study I finished up a few work projects online. During the day I update two different company websites doing data entry and research, and in the evenings and weekends I'm on-call for a home care company.

A break for lunch and the afternoon brought our daughter working on her art, she's been into colored pencils, also researching online art instructional video's. She shared this one with us she thought was neat:

A few of her recent drawings...

While she spent time on her art our son and I ventured outdoors in the backyard for some play time- bringing his swords, we ran around chasing each other, hiding behind tree's, sword fighting, laughing a lot in the sun. Sister came out for about a whole 2 minutes, ran a few laps then went back inside deeming it too windy for outdoor play! It was windy, but it was also sunny and decently warm!

I finished up some computer work after our play while he watched his new favorite show 'River Monsters' and our daughter continued on her art work. Every few minutes he'd pause the show to come tell me about what river they were on, what fish they were after...I'd ask him where the river was and he with the help of his sister would locate it on our wall map.

Finishing work, several days of requesting a 'shorter cut' I finally assisted my daughter with a hair cutting..

Hubbie came home right before dinner, dinner was made, a few friends stopped by to say hello and pick up their new guinea pig baby then we watched a family Christmas movie, 'Snow' and off to bed for the kids...Hubbie and I stayed up a bit longer to catch another episode of 'Alaska the Last Frontier' then we headed to bed too, tired from the day.

A normal day in the life of us...extraordinary moments spent together, cherishing every one of them.