Time

I don't have time to blog now, and I don't really feel guilty. I began this blog for Ian's family in California and for my family in TN, but Ian's family doesn't read it very often, and we see my family weekly. So it's ok that I don't update for a few months- or a year. I seem to be going from the minute my feet hit the floor in the morning till about 9:00 at night, and then Elizabeth starts fussing. She thinks you have to fuss a good two hours before you can go to bed for the night.
So in case you're wondering what we're doing I'll tell you- on a normal day:
-Elizabeth needs to nurse around 5:00
-every male in the house MUST be up by 6:00 (Only they know why)
-someone wakes Micaela up shortly after and she's a grump
-Ian lets me stay in bed with Elizabeth till 7:30 when he leaves for work
-I put in a load of laundry, eat and make the kids dress and clean their rooms
-the kids play for a while, but by 9:00 Micaela starts school and I sneak a shower!
-hopefully by 11:30 she's done with the dayly stuff
-we eat lunch and then have story (history&Bible&fun) time/nap time/quiet time
-Nathaniel does phonics/primer around 2:00
-The older kids go outside around 3:30 and I start making dinner while Asher cries to go "side door" and Elizabeth makes it as complicated as she can
-Ian comes home around 5:30/6:00 and works outside- because we have a neverending list of garden/yard related chores and I'm tied to the baby monitor
-We eat together and sometimes I clean up right after, other times I'm too exhausted and we sit around playing games with, reading to or ignoring (shameful, but true) the kids
-then it's 'jamma time'- or baths first if they're filthy
-by dark we have worship time. we're pretty much reading straight through a children's bible; although I confess to have skipped the story of Yael and the tent peg and a few other things. We've been in the old testament for a LONG time now, and I think our boys have become a little obsessed with violence. Then we sing. Sometimes they dance. Then we work on our questions (like a catachism).
-then it's bed time for children; although Micaela now wants to stay up to read and you can hear her giggling in her room about stories for an hour or so
-then I do laundry again and again and again and I read and I check email and Ian falls asleep on the couch while Elizabeth cries and nurses and fusses and insists on standing up and does her nightly poopy
-she conks out around 10:30/11:00 to wake up again at five!

Did I mention that I'm reading through the Bible in 90 days? Somewhere in all this I'm reading a lot- I'm in Chronicles. I also take Elizabeth out with me for at least a half hour each day and we've been planting herbs/veggies or pruning shrubs or weeding. I do promise to post a few pictures of Elizabeth growing, of Micaela's ballet, and of Nathaniel and Gabriel driving a back hoe, but I don't know when. I guess I like going back and reading the text as much as seeing the photos, so you'll have to suffer through picless posts!