Ramblings of a Stay-at-Home Mom

Feeling very tired this morning. Dominique woke me up at 5:40am, asking for breakfast very loudly. As Keith took the day off, I got up, got Dominique her breakfast and grabbed myself a coffee and sat down to work on my morning devotions (or as much as I could with a very talkative 5yr old girl sitting across from me). Getting the other 2 kids up around 7am. Zach was already waking up, but I usually have to kick Violet's butt out of bed in order to get her moving and ready for school. I also got the 2 daycare boys this morning as well and they went straight to watching cartoons with Dominique and Zach while Violet finished getting ready for school. Talking with Keith when he finally dragged his butt out of bed. He has today off because of all the overtime her put in during Tax Season (he's an Junior Accountant), so he took this morning to sleep in a bit instead of constantly being on the go. He went to the gym for his morning workout shortly after.

Real life right now means that I get up around 5/5:30am so that I can do my devotions and journal before my kids get up and the daycare kids get dropped off. It's relaxing to start the morning with some quiet (except the dogs in the background) and a hot cup of coffee to myself for almost an hour. Real life means being able to turn down the temp in the house. 5 kids in the house makes it very warm some days. Real life looks like lots of dishes right now. Again, with a home daycare operation, we go through quite a few dishes every day. Real life means trying to update stuff on my laptop with constant interruptions. Real life right now looks like letting Zachary help with putting away the cutlery that was in the dishwasher. I love that he loves to help and if he finds me doing the dishwasher without him, he'll start yelling at me because he wants to help and takes pride and joy in doing his job. Real life right now always looks like a

5:43am | Woke up early as per usual to do my devotions and journal before the craziness begins (and while Keith is at the gym), which got interrupted a couple minutes later by a little Dominique. She is my early bird around here. 6:47am | Start collecting laundry around the house. Which also meant grabbing all the girls bedding that needed to be washed as well. Keith got home from the gym and started prepping his breakfast and lunch before hopping in the shower. 7:30am | All my daycare kids arrived (2 brothers and a little girl), so it does get a bit crazy around here with 6 kids in the house for a short amount of time. I quickly update Violet's reading list and realize that she's well on her way to reading 30 books/chapters this month. 8:30am | Keith and Violet both leave for the day and I get to washing dishes, cleaning the bathroom, switching/sorting/folding laundry and updating my blog while the kids watch cartoons and p