Last week I made it a point to put down my iPhone and pick up my camera to capture our daily lives.  These are  just snapshots of our day that day … and what we did from beginning to end.   These images aren’t portfolio worthy. They aren’t perfect.  They aren’t all framed correctly and they certainly aren’t going to win awards but I love them just the same.   I always feels this pressure to put up perfect images on the blog now that it’s a business and personal blog but I want my kids to remember how much fun we have together at home just doing our normal stuff!

Our days start early … somewhere between six-thirty and seven we are up and moving.  And my kids aren’t slow to wake — they are up, want to eat breakfast and they want to hop-to-it.   I’m still rolling out of bed while Sabrina has gotten out what she wants to eat for breakfast.  She pours her own milk, gets milk for Tyler and sometimes she’ll make breakfast for him, too.  Right now, his favorite breakfast is chocolate go-go (coconut milk yogurt).   Other times they want toast and jam.   Our breakfasts are simple until Saturday and Sunday mornings when we have chocolate chip gluten free pancakes.

On this particular day, they wanted to get outside and work on their masterpiece — which consisted of boxes and styrofoam and colors and glue.  And Sabrina also put a wooden box filled with rose petals on it just to give it some extra beauty.   We were all still in our jammies as we worked.   Sabrina loves to decorate and design with boxes.  I think it’s the main reason she loves to go to Costco.  I let her pick the box that we fill our stuff with at the check-out line and as soon as we get home, she’s doing something with it!

Then we moved on to writing our Summer 2012 Bucket list of all we wanted to do as a family.   Tyler agreed with everything Sabrina wanted to do and then also included that he wanted to ride a train.  This was all done before eight in the morning and then the kids ran to get ready for the day.  Sabrina gets herself dressed in whatever colorful outfit she can find and then makes her bed.  Tyler always runs after her and then helps me pick out his outfit of the day (which as long as I’m dressing him he is perfectly coordinated).

Then we read books, played outside (and I’m impressed with my little Tyler who is already doing the climbing wall), had a snack, played trains and then had lunch.   Each day Tyler naps two to three hours and Sabrina rests about an hour.  And resting means that she plays quietly in her room or reads.  She hasn’t actually napped since she turned five!   After an hour, we do something educational until Tyler wakes up.  It’s my home school experiment.  And so far, I’m really loving it.   More on that later.

On this particular day, we made Sidewalk Paint.   We researched the recipe and got started.  We made it educational … but still fun.  What happened when we mixed yellow and blue?  Well, the look on her face was priceless when she discovered that it made green!   She really wasn’t convinced that the paint we made was going to look anything like chalk — and yet it did!  It was perfect … and not chalky (which I love because I hate the feel of chalk).   If you haven’t done this with your kiddos, it’s an experiment worth doing!  We had our snack outside and then Tyler-boo was awake.

And sweet Tyler — he doesn’t always wake up happy.  Sometimes he’s grumpy because he wants his daddy or wants a donut (it’s always something I can’t provide … so he gives us some lovely faces).  I will walk in and he will say, “no mama.  I wan daddy.”

And then we played in his room.  Tyler likes to dump all the toys before he finds one he wants.   He also plays for about three minutes before he’s on to the next toy.  Oh, and he’s a climber as well.   Meanwhile, Sabrina is copying words from books.  It’s an obsession.  She has her own notebook filled with words which she will gladly show you if you ask!

Before we know it, daddy is home from work and we’re eating dinner, getting ready for bed and reading books.    The kids are generally asleep and in bed by seven.    It seems early, but they’ve been up and on the go for hours and hours!  Don’t worry … if there’s something fun going on late at night, we go and the kids love it … but then they are up the next day no later than seven to do it all again!

It’s not glamorous.  But it’s our life.  And we love it.