Journey of the Ordinary

Some days are full of ordinary moments that build upon one another until getting up in the morning quietly becomes going to bed at night. Summer days are full of these moments of beautiful normalcy and I just love watching my children move from task to task, activity to activity....

Here is a glimpse into how our day began today...

7:00 Benjamin and I wake up and spend some time hanging out together.

8:00 Josiah wakes up and comes to spend time with Benjamin and I.

8:45 Noah and Elizabeth wake up and look for breakfast. We all eat.

9:00 All the kids go out to the garden to harvest strawberries for snacks today.

9:30 I prepare the strawberries while Josiah and EB go to play with Legos and Noah and
Benjamin go out for a run with the dog. They are training for fall soccer.

10:00 We gather together for devotions. I am reading to them from the Jesus Storybook.

10:30 Noah comes up to write his blog post for today. (See "Life at the Lamp Post"below.)
The rest of the kids play Legos again and I can hear them cracking each other up
downstairs.

11:00 Elizabeth asks if she can work on the Leapster for a few minutes and then pops in her
Ni Hao Kai Lan cartridge and starts working on some age appropriate learning games. I
love that this game lets her connect with some part of her Chinese heritage.

11:15 Benjamin comes up from downstairs, scans the family room, finds a book wedged under a
side table and throws himself down to read a while. Noah is blogging, still. What he is
writing, makes me smile. It also, however, reminds me to be careful with what I teach...
they soak it up like sponges.

11:30 Noah is done blogging and I go to check it for editing mistakes. I send all the kids out
front to clean up the yard and porch, both of which need some attention.

11:45 Noah's blog is posted and I go outside to help with the yard. They have a good start but
need some help. Once we finish, we move on to cleaning the camper.

12:00 I think it is lunch time but the kids think differently. They squeal for sprinkler time and I
tell them okay so off they go to run and scream and get wet in the yard. I love that they
want to do this... I love listening to them playing together... I just love the whole of it.

So, soon we will have lunch and then we will do chores. The kids are assigned areas in the house to straighten up. They work in pairs to get the job done and then I check it, just to be sure. Having their help makes a huge difference to me because once they straighten an area, I can clean it and working together like this saves so much time.

After lunch and chores, we will sit down together and I will read to them for a while. The book I picked up from Amazon with Read-Alouds inside has been great for us, so far. Monday, we read The Ugly Duckling. Today, we will read a selection from the Odyssey.

After all that? Who knows? Bikes? Baseball? Books? There is enough to do in our little corner of the world to keep my kids busy today... and hopefully tomorrow, too. Removing the word "bored" from their vocabulary was helpful... not because I don't want to hear it but because it changed how they look at their day. They seek less to be entertained and more to discover. On this absolutely ordinary day, that is a journey I want to take with them.

They are off to build a blanket fort! Gotta love a happy mess!

Blessings on your day!