A day in our life...Monday

Monday morning was a busy one.  

We start each morning with family scripture study and prayer - today we called the kids in around 7:20, because it was Jace's first day of Driver's Ed.  

Aliysa was not too happy that we called for everyone in at that time, because she has been getting up at 7:00 and jogging, actually I can't call it jogging because it is more intense than a "jog".  She warms up for a few minutes, and then runs for 1 minute with the treadmill on its fastest speed, then walks briskly for 1 minute, then repeats.  She does this for 20 minutes.  And she does it every day.  

I told her she should only do interval training 1-3 times a week, but she said she loves it, and pointed out that football players go to practice and play hard every single day, sometimes twice a day.  So, I'm leaving it up to her.  

Anyway, she's been enjoying her nice morning routine, jogging, walking outside, drinking her water, feeding the chickens, stretching out, and making and eating her own breakfast.  So, she was grumpy when Bob called her into our room (right during her jog).  I talked to her and asked what exactly she wanted to accomplish in the morning, and how long it would take.  She agreed to get up even earlier.  

Each morning we read 10 verses in the Book of Mormon.  Right now we're reading about the stripling warriors - one of our favorite stories.  Then we have family prayer and begin our "morning chores".  Here's how the routine goes:

We have 5 minutes to complete each chore.  Some chores take less time, so the kids hurry to start another chore that may take longer.  Bob times them on his watch and whistles when 5 minutes is up.  The kids have 10 seconds to be in our room (he does a short whistle when the 10 seconds is up).  Then he asks them, in order of oldest to youngest, if they completed that chore.  They get 1 point if they were there when the 10 seconds were up, and 1 point for completing the chore (quickly, cheerfully, and thoroughly).  So Bob calls out each child's name, and they answer "Yes, Yes", (or, "No, yes", or "No, no". etc.)  Bob keeps a tally sheet, one mark for each "yes".  When they get 50 points, they get a Yummy Earth Lollipop.

Here are the chores we do: scriptures (they read the Book of Mormon for 5 minutes), prayer (they have to spend the entire 5 minutes on this, not jump ahead to other chores), dressed, hair, make bed, clean bedroom, upstairs zone, trash/hamper/hangers (empty the first two, and gather all extra hangers out of their closet), farm chore, laundry (we sort all the clean laundry, fold it, and put it away.  Since we do this each morning, it really does get done in 5 minutes. Yeay!), downstairs zone.  

So, even at 5 minutes each, this routine takes almost an hour.  It has taken Bob and I a long time to be totally consistent with doing this daily.  It takes some patience, and I've had to learn to not listen to excuses.  Bob pointed out that the worst thing that happens is they might lose one point, so I don't let them say "I was hurrying to get here", etc.  If they report that a chore was finished (like cleaning their room), and it really wasn't done well, then their points go back down to zero.  

This routine has been such a nice thing for our family.  Before breakfast the whole house is cleaned up, everyone is dressed, has their hair done, the animals are fed, and the laundry done.  It is a great foundation for the day.  

Then we eat breakfast, do our kitchen jobs, brush teeth, and lately, we go outside and work in the yard for a bit.  

Anyway... back to Monday.  I was in charge of the chores because we had:

8:00 - Mallory had to be at her activity leader's home to go to day camp

8:30 - Jace had an appointment with the dermatologist for a curious mole on his back

9:00 - Jace had to be at the courthouse to register for Driver's Ed, and then he had to go straight to Driver's ed.  

We harvested our first cherry tomato!

For Family Home Evening, we went to the Lake.  It was beautiful weather and we had such a nice evening.  

 Courtney & Abby

 Mallykins

 Aliysa & Taycie.  Aliysa sat with me on the beach.  She was too sunburned from a YW floating activity to move her arms, so she didn't want to kayak, and it took all the energy I had just to go to the lake and sit.  We had fun chatting and watching our boys show off.

 Taycie loves being outside

 Jace is getting pretty good and kayaking - he was practicing his roll. 

 Abby kept declaring how brave she was to go so far out in the tube. 

 Why the swim goggles?  Best be prepared for anything!

 Bob teaching Spencer how to roll

 Oh how I love that guy.

 Yes, even when he looks like this.  We were laughing about how his hair looked when he came up from rolling.  So he gave us this look.

Andrew is such a sweet boy

Home we go, happy and ready for bed. 

And one more picture from today - Abby caring for her dearest doll - Grace.