A Day in the Life (Back to School Edition)

I love seeing and learning about other people’s schedules and routines. Now that we’re back in school, here’s a little look into a day in the life here at our house.

 

A day in the life now that my kids are back in school

My kids went back to school last week, and I’m getting into a good routine. Here’s a look into a day in the life here at our house.

6:40am – I wake up, brush my teeth, and get dressed in my workout clothes (I shared my favorite summer exercise clothes here).

6:50am – wake up the two younger boys. Fos is eight and can get ready by himself, but I help Sanny, who is five. After they’re dressed and teeth are brushed, we come downstairs and get their shoes on, hair done, and water bottles in their backpacks.

Right now they get free breakfast through the school due (as far as I know, all schools nationwide get this as part of COVID relief packages) so they sometimes east breakfast at school, sometimes they eat something on the way to school. We don’t pack lunches because they only do school lunches.

7:05am – walk the boys across the street to carpool to school with our neighbor.

7:10am – boys leave and I head straight to my workout if I’m going for a run. Here’s my daily workout schedule. If I’m lifting weights, I come back in and get started around 7:30.

8:00am – Finish my workout, or the first part of it. Kiss B goodbye before he leaves with Philip to go to middle school.  On days that I’m lifting weights, I do a shorter run (2-3 miles) now. Sometimes on the treadmill, sometimes outside. Here’s our home gym.

8:30am – Shower and get ready for the day. While I’m getting ready, I stick one earbud in my ear and listen to my scriptures or other religious podcasts for scripture study. I shared my scripture study favorites here.

9:30-10:00am – Start work. Every day is different with my job — some days I write blog posts, some days I take photos, make videos, some days I have meetings with my team or my assistant or my manager, some days I’m researching or ordering things for upcoming campaigns, etc. This is how I set up my days, and it’s been a game changer.

11:30am – Lunch time! I often eat an early lunch because I don’t usually eat breakfast. I typically get hungry around 11:30. Lately I’ve been eating string cheese, turkey lunch meat, pickles, and mustard, some baby carrots and hummus, and a bag of popchips.

12:00pm – Back to work! I answer emails, finish up blog posts, post or schedule instagram content, and plow through the rest of my to-do list for the day. Some days during this time I’ll run errands or have an appointment. Again, every day is different and some days are a little more mellow, or some days I’m dashing around trying to get everything done while my kids are gone.

2:00pm – Answer messages and emails for a bit before I head out to school pickup.

2:30pm – Leave my house for school pickup. It takes me about 15 minutes to get to the school, so I spend this driving time sending a Marco Polo to friends or my mom.

3:00pm – I pick up the kids from school, and then we have about an hour before we have to pick up B. There’s a park right next to the middle school, so I park on the street so the kids can jump out and play on the playground and I can sit in the air conditioned car just a few feet away from them. I have no business sitting outside at the park in 99 degree heat!

When the kids get too hot, they get back in the car and we read library books and eat snacks.

4:10pm – B gets out of school and we head home. We usually catch up on the boys days for a few minutes on the drive, and then turn on a podcast for them to — their current favorite is Stories Podcast.

4:30pm – We get home around 4:30 and I make a Muffin Pan Snack Tray or the boys grab their own snack and we play a game, or they just relax and hang out for a bit. Sanny is always super anxious to get upstairs to his LEGO collection.

5:00pm – I start making dinner, and the boys typically hang around in our great room doing homework, practicing golf putting or basketball dribbling, or practicing the piano. It’s helpful for me to be right there to help as needed, and I love having them around while I cook.

5:45pm – The boys unload the dishwasher (Philip always starts it at night after dinner so it’s clean for the next day), and set the table for dinner. They each are in charge of one section of the dishwasher, and we divide the table setting duties among them as well.

6:00pm – Dinner time. We usually talk about our day at the dinner table for a bit, but we also love playing dinner games, like 20 questions, or Scattergories.

6:30pm – Several nights a week, the boys have sports practice, or church activities, so several of us are often eating quickly and then rushing out the door. But other nights, we don’t have anything so we’re all around to help clean up dinner. Philip mainly handles dish duty, but we are all in charge of clearing our plates and personal dishes off the table, and then I always tell the boys “go grab two things off the table and put them away.” We’re working on self awareness and good manners always.

After dinner is kind of a free for all. Philip will practice sports stuff with the boys, we’ll finish up things that didn’t get done earlier like piano practice or homework, the boys will go play in the backyard, we’ll sit around and talk, or whatever.

7:45pm – Everyone starts getting ready for bed. As long as everyone is home at this time (sometimes football practice goes a little later), the boys all head up to take showers/baths, and get ready for bed. They’re all pretty independent with this now, so I use that time to get myself ready for bed.

8:00pm – Usually Philip or I will head upstairs and make sure everyone is working on getting ready for bed, or help Sanny take a bath if he’s not taking a shower with his brothers, and the upstairs is getting cleaned up.

8:20pm – We meet in the older boys’ shared room and do family scripture study. I used to be in charge basically every night, but now the boys each take a turn during the week to lead the discussion. After scripture study, or right before, the boys lay out their clothes for the next morning.

8:30pm – The boys say goodnight to Philip, he heads downstairs, and then I read aloud to the boys. We just finished reading The Wishbreaker (the second in a series), and now we’re reading The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle.  I shared some of our other favorite read aloud books in this post.

8:50pm – I finish up reading, tuck the boys in bed (which usually takes a good ten minutes between requests for water, extra kisses, trips to the bathroom, etc, etc.) and then head downstairs.

9:00pm – Philip and I usually watch one episode of a show together, or just hang out before bed.

10:30pm – Time for bed. We usually head in the direction of the bed around 10:30, and I try to be asleep by 11. Philip loves to lay in bed and talk, and I fall asleep almost the second my head hits the pillow!

 

A few notes:

• These are all rough timelines. I don’t live and die by time frames — everything is pretty flexible during the day, and things always take longer than I expect. Always.
• We always do laundry on the weekends. Philip starts doing loads on Friday afternoon, and keeps them moving all through Saturday. The boys bring theirs down and sometimes help put it in and start the machines. They like helping with the buttons and the detergent. After church on Sunday we all gather in the living room and fold them together. The boys hate it, but it’s good life skills!
• We have a housekeeper come twice a month, but on the off weeks, we do cleaning on Saturdays. We keep the house very clean the rest of the week — Philip is a super crazy neat freak, so he vacuums the downstairs basically every night, scrubs the kitchen til it’s spotless after dinner every night, and we do an informal pickup every night. The boy’s rooms and the playroom get the messiest, but we have them clean those every other day or so, so they don’t get crazy.
• I order my groceries every week on Sunday afternoons to have it delivered on Monday morning. So I almost never go to the grocery store, unless I’m going to a speciality store for something, or my order substituted or cancelled an item that I really needed. I wrote all about my grocery shopping routine here — my boys help me every week.

Have any other questions about a regular day in the life?

 

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