“What does your daily routine look like?” Quite possibly the number one question in my inbox and, to be honest, the question I want to ask every mama I meet. I started the series Day in the Life for that very reason-because there is something almost thrilling about getting a peek into the schedule of women who work for themselves. You can catch up on all past guest posts in this series here but for now, this is what my routine looks like on a day-to-day basis. 
No two days are the same for us. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays are homeschool days and Tuesdays and Thursdays the kids both go to preschool. On Wednesdays, Keogena has ballet in the morning so O does homeschool with Oshiolema and in the afternoon I usually get a few hours of work in.

6:00: Unless it’s a Wendesday when O makes breakfast, I’m up at 6 to start my day with the Lord. I’m currently following the Gospel Coalition read the Bible in a year plan so every day starts out with the reading on the schedule. I don’t have much time after that before the kid’s clocks turn green (which means they can leave their rooms) at 7am but I spend time in prayer or journaling and then finally get up. Full disclosure-there have been many mornings this pregnancy have been met with me postponing my alarm until the very last minute if I truly feel I just cannot pull myself to get up yet. The many hours of”night time sleep” are never quite as good as that one hour of  “morning sleep” while pregnant- anyone else? That being said, I always feel better when I’ve started my day off about an hour before I begin actively mothering.

7:00: The babes usually run downstairs to greet us the second their clocks turn green and then we walk right back up to make beds and brush teeth.

7:30/8: If it’s an “away school day” we’re sitting down to breakfast at 7:30. I make them a smoothie pretty much every morning and we’ve had a steady rotation of oatmeal, cereal, eggs, repeat for years now. On oatmeal days I’ll get it started before the kids come down and finish it off as they’re playing and getting morning wiggles out. I’ve shared some of my go-to oatmeal concoctions here but since I don’t eat grains this is strictly for O and the kids. On egg days it’s typically eggs fried hard with toast, sometimes avocado and some sausage or turkey bacon every now and then. Cereal is cereal but we go for organic cereal with no sugar, higher fiber and whole grains. On homeschool days we go a little bit slower and breakfast tends to be closer to 8am.

I used to make the kid’s lunches at night but this whole pregnancy I’ve made them right when the kids sit down to breakfast. When we all sit down together every morning for breakfast it begins Family Bible Time-one of the sweetest times of the day. On homeschool days we read ___ BOOK for Bible time and work on our Bible verse for the week and on away school days we only do our Bible verse and pray. After breakfast, the babes get dressed for the day, homeschool or not.

8:30: If this is a Tuesday or Thursday (away school day) I will have just sent O and the kids off. This time of day is always a bit chaotic making sure everyone is has gone potty, has shoes on, has their water bottles filled, so on and so forth. O drops them off and heads straight to meet our brother-in-law and business partner for a full work day. Once they leave, I clean the kitchen from breakfast because I don’t do well with the pileup of mess throughout the day. If it’s a homeschool day, the kids will play independently while I clean up the breakfast mess and get myself dressed and ready for the day.

9:30: If it’s a homeschool day, this is when we start school. We follow the curriculum which is different every day but it always follows the same structure: reading multiple books aloud, handwriting and phonics, math if I sneak it in, a project or some bookwork and crafts and coloring in between for Keogena. If the kids are away at school this tends to be my workout window which often means me doing something quick in my bedroom and maybe going for a walk or doing the elliptical in the garage.

12:30: on homeschool days, this is the time where the kids go out to the backyard to get fresh air while I pull lunch together. Sometimes lunch is leftovers, sometimes it’s a sandwich but I work to have every meal be balanced which I feel I have more control of at home rather than sending things in a lunchbox. The kids’ school is also 100% nut free but nuts are a huge part of their diet so homeschool days usually feature a nut of some sort either in the form of a nut butter, a baked good or just raw. I also make my own lunch at this time which is seriously helped by Sunday meal prep. Lunch for me is almost always a big kale salad, sometimes with salmon and sometimes just on its own. I also will eat a leftover meat and vegetable I have in the fridge. If the kids are at school, I’m wrapping up work because I need to leave to pick them up at 1:30.

1:30: I leave for school pickup on away school days/the kids nap on homeschool days. Oshiolema is napping much less which is to be expected now that he’s 5 but he still will surprise us and nap every now and then. Regardless, he has to spend one hour in his room “resting” and then is free to do whatever his heart desires in the playroom or outside til Keogena wakes up.

3:00 This time is full creative time. O typically gets home from working between 4-4:45 (despite the next few weeks when he won’t be home til late a few days a week) and I’ve always loved to get dinner and the house ready by that time. It’s how I grew up and is really special to me to just do a quick tidy and get dinner going. The kids are here, there and everywhere playing upstairs, playing a game at my feet, running around in the yard or helping me in the kitchen. We always have fun music going- Michael Jackson, Motown and James Taylor are the current most requested- so dancing is inevitable. Some days we’ve just run to the store and there are groceries to be put away, other days life happens and this time block doesn’t go to plan but the majority of the time, the 3-4 window is one of prepping for our evening as a family.

4-4:45: if O is home, we do a full swap. He enters dad mode to the fullest and this usually starts an epic Ninja training session or a battle of “fighting game” where they pretend to be different heroes and essentially just live out the coolest battle scenarios in their heads. Keogena often finds her way back to me during this point when she’s had her fill of ninja life and will play with her dolls or pretend food next to me while I finish dinner. She is my shadow and I love it so much.

5:30ish: Dinner. Dinner time is so important to us. I started lighting candles for dinner every day in the winter and it really added to the special feeling I want the kids to remember of our togetherness at dinner. Since Oshiolema was a baby we’ve always gone around and said our “best and hardest” part of the day. I love hearing about the day from the kids perspective since so often they completely forget the part of the day that was most difficult for them and are just so excited to share the highlights of their day. It’s also sweet for O and I to check in and see what we can pray for and how we can help them and each other. Once the kids finish their food and asked to be excused, O and I get to catch up a little bit more and linger at the table a bit.

6:40: Ideal time to be getting the kids ready for bed, although it’s been more like 7:30 lately. Our constant goal is to have them in bed no later than 7:30 so one of us (usually O) will take the kids up to brush their teeth, get their jams on and read them a couple books while the other tidies the kitchen post-dinner. We used to do the whole bedtime process together and let me tell you, this way has saved us so much time! The kids shout downstairs when the book is almost finished so we all say a bedtime prayer and sing together. O and I tuck each kid in solo singing one last song to them and praying over them and then swap. Bedtime is swift and sweet.

8:00: The evening work hours begin. Most nights I immediately come and shower, get in my robe or pajamas if I haven’t already and pull out the ol’ laptop for work. On their away school days mean I get home from school drop-off at 9:30 and need to leave to pick them up at 1:30. In that time, I need to fit in cleaning, blog work, social media responses and posts, artwork, editing, exercise of some sort and rest if my body just cant hang which means I still desperately need to work in the evening almost every night. I try to envision a life where I send the kids off every day and have hours upon hours Monday-Friday to accomplish what needs to be done but that just isn’t my life right now. On Tuesdays O and I have Bible Study at church and on Fridays and weekends we obviously aren’t working but other than that we’re either working side by side or working apart in the evening until we come together in bed for wind down time. That used to look like watching a show together most nights but lately it has just been talking or reading and calling it a night.

He falls asleep before me just about every night and I lay next to him working to shut my brain and to-do lists off despite being so tired all day long. Pregnancy can be so bizarre that way- tired when I can’t sleep and wide awake when it’s finally time to do so. I snuggle up to my body pillow on one side and O as close as possible on the other side and rest before doing it all again.

If you have any specific questions about my daily routine that I didn’t cover, leave them in the comments! As I said, no two days are the same and that’s especially true since we split 3 days of homeschool and 2 days of preschool. Our home is very, very lived in. It’s rarely empty and I feel like the kids and I are cleaning up mess about 30 times a day but this is what I’ve always dreamed of and I couldn’t love it more.

I always get questions about the homeschool area- here are some things shown in these photos that we’ve had and loved for years!