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| 7:30 am in the Kirks living room. We had a time of worship and prayer together at Adam and Mel's the night before and then just slept over there. In the morning the kids all sleepily made their way to the living room and hung out together until breakfast was ready. |
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| Vienna is all ready for school first thing in the morning (of course - gotta love how much like me she is) and snuggling with Tiger. |
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| Breakfast is ready! Baked oatmeal made by Adam. Yum! And I love the fact that these 9 cousins are closer than most - they are more like siblings than anything! |
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| We all eat a quick breakfast then head next door to our house to finish getting ready for school and I start some laundry. Not bad hanging out laundry with this view! Joel packs the kids lunches and then heads out the door for work around 8. In the morning chaos, I forgot to snap a picture of Joel. |
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| Brooks picks out some clothes and proceeds to dress himself like this. |
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| Time to brush teeth (still wearing his shirt/skirt). |
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| Yohanis and Colson are FINALLY all dressed and ready for school! I only had to remind them about everything 50 times. Haha. Such is life with these two. |
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| Isaiah models the outfit he picked out. |
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| The kids head outside to play in the yard for a bit before they have to leave at 8:45 for school. Melanie is driving the kids today. |
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| More kids are ready for school and come outside to join in on the game! |
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| Once the kids are out the door, Brooks begins playing with blocks. |
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| His finished tower! |
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| 9:15am. Brooks poops on the potty (this is our second attempt at potty training in 6 months - doing better so far!) and his prize is watching a movie. |
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| I hang out some more laundry. I'm washing sheets today, so I'm filling up both lines! |
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| Stopping to admire the flowers! Spring makes me so happy! |
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| I read a bit from a book I pulled off my sister's shelf and text with a good friend. |
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| It's 10:15 and Brooks is hungry. I heat up some lentil soup for him. Because lunch at 10:15? Why not? When there is just one at home, we eat two lunches anyway. Haha. |
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| My lentil soup lover! |
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| Not happy about taking a picture with Mommy. |
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| At 11:00 we go hang out with some good friends for a bit. |
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| We're home by 12:15. Brooks pooped and peed in his underwear so I change him and then he helps me check if the sheets are dry. |
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| They are dry and Brooks wants to use one of them as a cape. |
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| Time for a second cup of coffee to motivate me to empty the dishwasher and put all the sheets back on the beds. |
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| 1:15. Ahh. All the sheets are washed and beds are put back together again! It's the little things like clean sheets and nicely made beds :) |
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| 1:45pm - Brooks gets out the bin of dress up clothes and of all the super hero costumes, this is what he chooses - an Easter dress made for me by my grandma when I was a little girl. Oh this kid! |
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| Joel has the van today, so I get a ride to school with my sister to pick up the elementary school kids. We both go to pick up today since we are heading to the pazar after school. I have kids getting out of school at 3 different times. Isaiah gets out at 1:45. Colson and Vienna get out at 2:30 and Yohanis gets out at 3:20. Thankfully, my niece Joanna is able to have Isaiah sit in with her for one period until the 2:30 pick up and the ones that get out at 3:20 usually come home on the public bus. |
2:30 - We have picked up all the elementary school kids and also have Vienna's teacher and another friend with us and we head to our Tuesday pazar. It's a full van with 4 adults and 6 kids.
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| 3:00 - We are at the pazar. We buy all our fruits, veggies and nuts here for the week. |
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| The kids get distracted by the chicks. "Can we buy a couple mom - they are only 2 lira?" (2 lira is about 55 cents). |
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| And the list is complete! Colson is super helpful by pulling the pazar cart for me since I am pushing Brooks in the stroller. |
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| We strategically cram all 6 kids, 4 adults and our carts full of goodies back into the van and Brooks falls asleep on the way home. We get home around 4:30 after dropping everyone off and making an extra stop to bring a friend a few bags of fruits and veggies since her husband is out of town. |
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| Joel gets home from work shortly before 5 (he has picked up the kids that stayed after school for guitar course and brought them home with him). |
The kids start on today's chores: vacuuming.
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| Joel has to head right into his online class at 5:00. |
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| 5:30 - I start making dinner. Tuesdays we usually do Turkish breakfast for dinner, which includes tomatoes, olives, a couple kinds of cheeses, cucumbers, hard boiled eggs, butter and honey and bread rings with sesame seeds (similar to bagels). |
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| The electricity is out which means Joel can't do his class, so he's joining us for dinner. Yay! The electricity only comes back on at 6:45 -15 minutes after Joel's class is over. |
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| Dinner is cleaned up then it's out to the backyard, where you will usually find us in the evenings. |
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| This evening's game: American football! |
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| Vienna gets her bunnies out to play. |
Joel starts working on the door for his shed.
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| And I am there for moral support. |
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The big kids keep playing outside and I bring Brooks in to get him ready for bed at 7:15
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| Brooks all tucked in! |
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| Isaiah is in bed by 7:45, after reading the same book we read every night: The Bernstein Bears: Safe and Sound and him asking approximately 1,374 questions trying to delay bedtime. I have even let him go to sleep in our bed tonight which I sometimes do if Brooks isn't completely asleep. This kid is our biggest question asker, deepest thinker, sees-the-world-through-different-eyes child. I LOVE this about him and love the way his mind works, but I also breathe a sigh of relief after he's finally asleep at night ;) |
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| Our friend Daniel, who is staying with us for a few days, shows up around 8pm. He hasn't eaten yet so Joel makes him dinner. |
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| Bedtime snack with Daniel! |
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| Vienna's "why are you taking a picture of me, mom?" face. |
The kids are all prayed for and tucked in and have a little time to read in their beds before lights out around 8:30 for Vienna and 9:00 for the big boys.
I am tired after not sleeping great at Adam and Melanie's the night before, so I head to bed after I tuck the kids in. Joel chats downstairs with Daniel for a bit and then comes to bed and I'm pretty sure our lights were out by 10:00 - we're so fun! Haha. And that was our day!
