A Week in the Life- Saturday, January 26, 2013

When Lily was three months old, I participated in a project called A Week in the Life that was inspired by the talented Ali Edwards.  If you have been around here for awhile, you may remember it.  (You can see it here: Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday). I loved this project.  I loved that it made me slow down and notice our days, see what we were doing and really pay attention to how we spent our time together.  I can remember with crystal clarity what our lives were like in each of those stages of Lily's first year because of this project and I LOVE that.  

What you may not know is that I also did the same project again when she was six months, nine months and one year old.  The reason you might not be aware that I did this is because I did not post those weeks here on the blog, but not because I didn't want to.  The posts are a ton of work to put together when blogging is not your full time job, but that is not the reason.  I had fully intended to share them here, but when it came down to uploading the photos and organizing the posts, it was taking me 6-7 hours to do one post and that is just not realistic to be spending that kind of time on a blog post when you have a new baby to be snuggling and loving!  

I want to be clear that it was not taking me that long because my posts were awesome, it was more because our internet was very slow and using my fancy camera, my photo sizes were very large, so it was taking FOREVER to upload them and then my computer would freeze up or shut off automatically  after working for hours and I would have to start over and over and I finally just gave up.  BUT- now that we are in our new house, we have upgraded our internet speed and life is so much better. I also have a phone with a camera which helps tremendously too (but does not really help my learning of my camera- but I digress!) However, I also now have a toddler who is very busy and requires a lot of supervision, so my computer time has dramatically diminished.  I guess there will always be something, but all to say, things are much better in the uploading speed department! (Thanks, Babe!) So blogging is technically easier for me.

Anyways, with Lily's birthday rapidly approaching, I have been feeling badly that I have not been doing a very good job of capturing our days in this stage of life, so I had the idea of doing another Week In the Life series.  We have had a lot going on around here these days, so in effort to not set myself up for failure, I decided to focus in on one day a week and document our lives over the course of seven weeks.  It was a lot of fun because I had no idea when I started this project, what each of the days would hold because they were so far in advance.  So it was a lot of fun to watch our lives unfold on this timeline.  I was glad to be documenting some days while others proved more challenging.  By doing this project one day of the week at a time, I would in theory have seven weeks to get everything ready and really, how could I not get it done?  I shock myself sometimes.  So, lets just say, some weeks I did better than others, but I'm finally ready to post them!  I'm so glad I did this project again and without further delay....  

Here is our Saturday, January 26, 2013.

7:45- 8:20AM: Our day started out as a fun one.  Lily woke up around her normal time (7:15ish) and read books in her room while Joe and I got ready.  Today is my mom, AKA Nana's birthday!  So we were meeting Nana and Papa for a fun breakfast out to celebrate.  I spent some time wrapping her birthday present while Joe and Lily worked on her birthday card.

8:40AM:  Right by our new house is a fun breakfast place called The Egg&I.  Lily loves to eat out and is generally well behaved in these public settings.  She usually shares my meal.  Today is was the Patriot Waffle special- a waffle with blueberries and raspberries on top, a scrambled egg and some turkey sausage.  This morning she was especially interested in the elderly gentleman seated at the next table.  He had a walker which she had never seen before.  It was cute to watch them wave to each other throughout the meal.

  

Happy Birthday, Nana!

9:30AM:  With the holidays behind us and being almost unpacked (there is still that dreaded last 10% of stuff to unpack - ugh!) we are finally ready to begin some projects around the house.  At the tip top of our list are: new kitchen sink and faucet, re-do our laundry room, and start working on Lily's room, so we headed across the parking lot from where we ate breakfast to Home Depot to start pricing some things and seeing if our plans will actually fit into our budget! 

Without fail these days, wherever we go, Lily is taking off her shoes and socks.  It is literally minutes after she is buckled into her carseat or stroller...it does not matter....and she does not seem to mind that it is freezing cold outside.  She wants to be barefoot.  I know she is going to do it, so I'm not super phased by it, but I have to admit, I do not like the looks from folks who see me pushing her around in stores without shoes or socks on.  They look at her bare feet, then at me and I feel like I'm a horrible and neglectful parent.  So for the record, sometimes I just let her keep her shoes and socks off in the store or car after she initially removes them until we are getting ready to walk out to the car or into the store.  It's just easier than putting them on six times in 20 minutes while we are in the store.  So there you have it.  Confessions of a mom in the trenches.  In this photo, we had to back track around the store to find where she had tossed her sock in Home Depot.  You can see on the floor up towards the top of the photo.  Fun times. Lily loves it.  Mama, not so much.

10:15AM: We headed to Lowe's to see what they had to offer...  I'm SUPER excited to start these projects!  Today we picked out our faucet, sink and cabinets for the laundry room.  We did not actually get them today, but we know what we want which is half of project!  Well, kind of. Not really. But it is the fun part! 

11AM:  We came back home and played for awhile.  Picnics, music, and cooking galore.  Weekends are the best because we are all together.  It always makes my heart really happy.  Saturday mornings are my favorite for many reasons, but one of the biggest ones is because I love the feeling of having the whole weekend before us.

11:30AM-12:15PM:  Lily ate lunch and went down for her nap around noon.  I didn't document this for whatever reason, but that is what happened.  

12:30PM-2:45PM:  During her nap, Joe and I ate our lunch, watched some basketball, Joe took a nap and I started getting ready for our play group that we were hosting at 3pm.  This involved cleaning the main floor of our house and preparing some appetizers.  I didn't document the cleaning and food prep, but you get the idea....

3PM: Up from her nap and eagerly awaiting the arrival of our pals.  

3:15PM-5:30PM: This play group is made up of four moms and our kiddos. When we first started getting together, I only knew one of the moms, but I have really enjoyed how friendships have grown between all of us. Our kids were all born within 6 months of each other and we have been getting together pretty consistently since the youngest was about 6 months old.  It is so fun to see how all of the kiddos have grown and changed.  It is amazing how fast they have all blossomed from babies into toddlers.  I have tons of pics of the gathering, but I didn't get permission from the other moms to post them here on the blog, so I'm just going to post this one of the other mamas.  But you can imagine the chaos of the house- four busy toddlers = toys were everywhere, there were goldfish crumbs everywhere, lots of practice with sharing, some spills, tears, giggles...it was a great time.  The kids play  well together and the moms enjoy appetizers, and adult conversation over a glass of wine (or two)!  :)

5:45PM:  With everyone gone, it was time to start Lily's dinner and evening routine.  She was pretty exhausted, but hid it well with a big burst of energy at the end of the day.  Here she is with her Daddy giggling in the kitchen after dinner and playing her favorite game of "Peek-a Boo!"  

Where's Lily?????

6:15PM: Next it was up to bath time.  Lily LOVES her baths.  Her favorite thing lately is drinking her bath water.  Gross I know, but despite our best efforts to stop her, she still manages a good swig every now and again.  So funny.  And the cute thing about it is she is very proud of herself for drinking from a cup like a big girl.  I guess the bath is the perfect place to practice this since she is already soaking wet!

6:35PM: She is all squeaky clean and snuggled in her towel.  

She has a little robe that she ADORES.  So we dry her off and then put her into her robe for the 10 foot walk across the hall to get into her jammies.  It is one of my favorite things- seeing her all decked out in her little robe all happy....( of course, I don't have a photo of it from tonight....)

6:45PM: All ready for bed.  What a cutie!  

I'm thankful for my hubbie for taking the camera so I can be in some of the photos too.  That is the hard part about this project is that I am rarely seen.  Not that I want to be seen, but someday, I will look back and want to see photos of my family that include me too!  Plus, I want Lily to have photos of her with her Mama so she can know how much she is adored by me too!  You know what I mean?  (Of course, most of the ones I'm in, I look less than stellar, but hey, that is real life)!

We are into brushing our teeth these days and Lily always enjoys looking at people's teeth....

7:05PM: Bedtime.  

Tonight I had the joy of getting to tuck Lily in.  This is hands down my favorite time of day.  Life is slow here.  Life is super sweet here.  It's all about reading books, drinking milk, looking at pictures and snuggling.  We usually read for about 10-15 minutes while Lily drinks her milk, then we go across the hall and brush her teeth.  

We always look for the moon out her window (which was especially bright tonight), we say our prayers, sing some songs and tuck our sweet girl into bed with her bunnies and woobie.  We turn on her rain (a 15 minute song of rain falling on the roof that we have played for her every night since she was a baby) and whisper good night. 

7:15PM: All is quiet.  Goodnight Lily!

After this, Joe and I got take out from MiRanchito a local mexican restaurant and watched the KU basketball game that we had DVRd from earlier in the day.  It was a great Saturday.