The day that went on and on and on...

And on, and on, and then on some more.

Duane gets up at 3:45 every morning for work. He is usually wiped out by 7:00 at night and everyone else is still hopping around and not anywhere near ready for bed. The kids and I decided to have a "compassion for Daddy" week. We decided that this week we would all get up at 4:00am with him and see him off to work and understand how tired he gets. Let me tell you, 4:00am came really quick when we didn't climb in bed until 11:00. One word....UGH!

I made Duane promise to wake me up. While he got ready I went and woke Shelbie, Shaylah, Shayden, and Shannen. They stumbled out and we all prayed together for our day before daddy left. (The praying was very nice, but doing it a few hours later would have even been nicer.)

We let Shadd, Poppet, and Lolly sleep until 6:00. Shadd woke up his perky little self, but the girls took about 2 hours to shake the cobwebs off. The were so quiet and Lolly wanted to be held quite a bit. The little girls were more than eager to take naps later in the day!

Breakfast was served by 6:30, kitchen cleaned by 7:00, and school started by 7:30. The day actually went really well. Shaylah enjoyed having school done early so she could work on a quilt she is making and the boys enjoyed being done so they could swim and have the freedom to play some video games. Dinner was served by 4:30 and all the kiddos were in bed by 8 with Duane and I following closely behind.

Everyone really liked getting up and seeing Daddy off to work and they all said they loved starting our day praying with Daddy. We were amazed at how much we were able to get done. All our school was accomplished (a task in itself), chores done, and we even had time for extra stuff. Day 1 was good, but Duane says the real test will be Thursday.

Today is day 2 and it was definitely tougher to get up.(At least for me!) I thought yesterday went on and on, but I'm thinking today will seem even longer until I get to crawl into bed. The kids are still excited and want to make this the "norm". We'll see how fun this is by the end of the week!

Don't they all look rough?

History out on the patio

Poppet listening to her phonics song on the Ipod

Matching her letters with Lolly helping

Did it!

Shaylah working on her quilt

The little girl who never takes a nap was exhausted and asked to lay down. Heehee