An Ordinary Day: A Picture An Hour

Amara caught some snowflakes on a washcloth and photographed them this morning.

 One of my New Year Resolutions this year is that I want to do a blog post periodically where I set a timer for an hour and when the alarm goes off, I take a picture of what is happening in our lives at that very moment, then I set the timer again, and start the process all over.  During the course of the day I will have accumulated a picture every hour.  You see, I've noticed that I generally only blog about the pictures I take, and I often only take pictures at events.  I want to include more everyday stuff now.  When I do genealogy, I often wonder what an ordinary day was like for my ancestors, and I go to great lengths to try to put together a puzzle of their lives.  So I am going to make it easy on my posterity.  Here is my first post in a series that I'm going to call "An Ordinary Day: A Picture An Hour."

Please note: the times are not exact, but general.  And, some hours I had to take more than one picture to show what each of us were doing.

10am

Doing English with Amara snuggled on my bed.  Ah, the comforts of homeschool.  I should state, when we read together, we will often do it on a bed or a couch or overstuffed bean bag.  When we do math or grammar/writing, the kids are usually at their desks in our office.

11am

We just finished our reading, and Lily came in to tell me what she read about.

Amara listened and shared what she read about while she drew a picture.

Noon

Lunchtime!  I think I'm having leftover meatballs.  Leftovers are a lunch staple here.

Leftover taco for lunch!  P.S. Yes, she's still in her pajamas.

1pm

I found Amara reading Harry Potter on her bed after lunch.

I was checking the weather for upcoming travel plans.

2pm

Amara found a snack, and can't put the Harry Potter book down.

Lily is using a free coding-for-kids website called "Scratch" developed by MIT.  She loves it and will often create something there in her freetime.

I remembered I needed to get the rolls out to thaw for dinner.

3pm

I was folding clothes on my bed while watching an online show about mountain men being projected on my wall from our projector.  

The girls were pretending to play quidditch.

4pm

To speed up the rolls rising, I had put the rolls in a gently warm oven (200 degrees or so), covered with plastic wrap sprayed with non-stick spray, and a pan of water beneath it.  Works like a charm.  

Lily was in charge of family night and was going go make this box mix for dessert.

Amara, or should I say "Hermione," is flying on her broomstick and casting spells with her wand.

5pm

Dinnertime!  We had Chicken and Rice soup with warm rolls.  We generally eat around the 5:00 hour because Steve gets home and he is completely famished from not having eaten anything all day long at school.  He insists he doesn't have time to eat there, and he's used to it and not hungry anyway.  I don't know how he does that.  I'd faint on my students if I did that!  And even if I didn't faint, I know I'd be pretty cranky.

6pm

I checked my email and was reading aloud one of the recent emails from my missionary sister, Ashley.

7pm

We had a SKYPE family night with my brother's family.  This was a first for us, and very fun and successful.

8pm

After the kids got ready for bed and we had our dessert, Steve read to us.  We read books as a family each night, and this one was by E. Nesbit called "The Five Children And It."  It was Steve and Lily's second time reading it, and they didn't like it as much the second time through, but I thought it was pretty good, as did Amara.  It was a bit long, though.

And that was our ordinary day.

Lily's Guest Post: Tommy

He's just SOOOOOOOOO CUTE!

Guest Post by Lily: Christmas Eve/Christmas

Christmas Eve:

We were driving home from my Grandpa's Christmas dinner in the thick snow, when my dad asked my mom if we had done donuts before, and she replied with an "I don't think so" and we turned around our car and began driving to the wide, open church parking lot. Then they kept saying that we were going to make donuts at the church. I had never done it before, so when we pulled in I thought we were going to make edible sugary donuts. I shouted out, "We're making donuts at the church at ten thirty while it's snowing on Christmas Eve!" When they began driving in tight circles I realized that we were making the donuts right then. And right then is when I understood. I laughed! Silly me for thinking that we were gonna "Make donuts at the church at ten thirty while it's snowing on Christmas Eve!" Well, we were doing just that, but I thought we were going to eat our donuts. I laughed after that. We drove home in our snow-coated van. Then we each opened our Christmas Eve gifts. Me and Amara both got some sew-your-own-pajamas patterns, and some soft, cute fabric. Then me and Amara went downstairs and climbed into our bed. I closed my eyes with much anticipation and excitement. Then I fell into the land of dreams.


Christmas Day:

I opened my eyes and shook Amara awake. "It's Christmas!" I whispered excitedly. I swung out of bed and we ran into our mom and dad's room hurriedly. We climbed into bed with them and talked to them. Just then my dad grabbed my mom iPad mini and gave it to her. What she saw on the screen was an e-book titled: Lani's Book. She clicked on it and joyfully received my dad's sweet, written words in an e-book he created just for her. That was a happy moment, but it was a little section of the gifts she and us were about to receive. If you don't believe me, take a look at the following pictures:

See? Well, we opened a ton of gifts that day, and it would take FOREVER to record every moment of it, so just take a look here to see what we got. And that ends this post. Bye!