Wednesday was a (very) quiet day at home. Elliana had been up most of the night and well into the morning. It was nearly 10 am before she finally fell back asleep. Unfortunately, I fell asleep while nursing her, and Josiah took the advantage and pulled out all of the books off the bottom shelf of the bookshelf. We had our usual for lunch: peanut butter and jelly, crackers, and peaches. I caught a picture of David and Josiah during nap time, and one of a sneaky Lorelei who wasn’t sleeping. We’ve been without air conditioning for three weeks now, during one of the hottest heat waves on record of course. In the hottest of the afternoon hours you’ll find us stationed in front of the fans, in various stages of lethargy and melting; I’ve tried to remind the kids to drink as much water as they need each day.

Breakfast. I found a recipe for steel cut oats in the crockpot a few months back; it has now become a staple of our mornings. Toss it in the night before, and it’s yummy and ready as they wake up. Now we won’t eat oatmeal any other way. Just be careful not to burn your tongue. For the first few seconds out of the pot, the steam is pretty hot! This morning, I didn’t feel like the oatmeal, so I opted for an english muffin, yogurt, and coffee instead.

On the road again. There are days that I end up spending most of the days on the road. This was definitely one of those days! We had to run a few errands for my job, which included the post office. We ended up meeting Daddy for lunch at Burger King- a very, very rare occurrence- but necessary, because we had run out of groceries. Once we met James, we went grocery shopping, and since I am already stared at enough on my own with six kids, I did not want to introduce a camera into that circus! <grins>

Dinner time. There are days that are just crazy. They usually coincide with car days. But then Daddy gets home, and the balance shifts. Evening falls. 

Joining with Ali Edwards for A Week in the Life for the next few days. I’m not sure what I will do scrap-wise,  so for right now, pictures + words here on the blog until I decide.

Breakfast. Elliana actually slept through the night, which meant that James and I slept through all 3(!) alarm clocks. (Nah, we’re not sleep-deprived, not at all). He made it to work, barely, and I was able to have a nice quiet start to the day. No one was up before 7am- a truly rare occurrence in this house!

Midmorning. Mondays are usually pretty email heavy for me, as I catch up on everything that has happened at work over the weekend. Today, I had about an hour’s worth of work that had to be completed before noon (often, some of my tasks are time-sensitive). The bigs play downstairs, and the littles often bring toys into the kitchen/dining area to play while I work. My desk (a hold over from the previous owner, and a big honkin’ ugly oak thing) sits in the far corner of the room. I often chat with James throughout the day on Google chat. If it weren’t for that wonderful ability, we wouldn’t get to communicate much at all. It is a small grace I am very thankful for! Mondays thru Thursdays, James works from 7:30am to 6pm.

Lunch. I encourage my (little) children to have their rooms (and anywhere else they have played) cleaned up before lunch. Sometimes, this is quite the ordeal, but the privilege for those who finish quickly is getting to read at the table. I don’t know how it happened originally, but this became a serendipitous thing- getting to read at the table is a Big Deal. They consider it a treat for some reason, which works wonderfully for me- it means that I (usually) can get lunch together without having hungry children underfoot.

Naptime. I used to try to force the days as pertained to homeschooling- and I got super-frustrated, super-fast, with the littles and their many needs during the morning hours. While we may often read together or do art projects and the like while the littles are awake, Isaiah especially benefits from holding off on the ‘quiet’ subjects like math and language instruction while the littles are snoozing. Right now, we continue to finish up the very last of our school year, and should be done by Aug. 1, in time to take a break for around 3 weeks. (We took a month and a half off when Elliana was born in February.)

Elliana-time. I won’t lie. Today was one of Those Days with Ella-bella. She was fussy all day long, and downright miserable; she would take neither breast, bottle, or pacifier. With the last three kids, this has been a ‘normal’ that I’ve had to learn to accept. So we sit and rock and rock and rock while I (attempt) to keep the rest of the family on track.

Make ‘em laugh, make em’ laugh, make ‘em LAUGH. Elliana finally napped, but needed constant attention when she awoke, and Josiah, who had been grumpy the whole day long, woke up even grumpier. Thus, it was declared: Tickle Belly time. We read a few stories, too, sprawled out on mama’s bed, and wouldn’t you know? Some smiles snuck out.