A day in the life of Amy Richardson

For the past three years I have had a chance to watch my nieces and nephews while my brother-in-law, Joe and sister-in-law Amy, go to the Caymen Islands. Every year I am humbled at the amazing kids Gabe, Grace, and Lilly are and what great parents Joe and Amy are to their kids. Joe travels a lot for his job, so Amy stays home and takes care of these kids a lot without Joe. I don't know how she does it sometimes. Many days by the time the kids were in bed I just felt wiped out. Taking care of my child and 3 others while being 5 months pregnant was not a simple task. But I'm proud to say that I did it and I now know what it would be like to have 4 kids and one on the way.

This is what my days were like:
7 am: Wake up. Get the kids breakfast, make sure they have everything in the their backpacks, make sure they get ready and get the little ones dressed. Make sure I am ready. Get all our winter gear on.
8:50 am: Head out the door and walk the kids to school. (This part was interesting. Sometimes I felt like a mother duck with all her ducklings in a row. Most times I felt like a cattle herder, mainly trying to keep Xavier on the path and moving, but to also keep the kids focused on walking to school and not playing too much.)
9:20 am: Get back home, run to the grocery store, bank, or other errands. Clean up breakfast. Play with Xavier.
11:30 am: Leave house. Walk back to school to pick up Lilly.
12:00 pm: Fix lunch for Xavier, Lilly, and myself. Read stories to Xavier. Put him down for a nap.
1:00 pm: Clean up lunch, spend time with Lilly, help her with any homework she brought home from school, talk about what she's learning about, etc. Complete household chores, pay bills, make phone calls. Get brownies ready for Gabe's boy scouts or anything else kids had going that needed preparation.
3:50 pm: Leave house. Pick up Gabe and Grace from school. The kids loved having snowball fights on the way home from school. Xavier had a blast doing things the big kids were doing. He even tried to stay at Lilly's pre-school a couple times. I had to carry him out kicking and screaming.
4:30 pm: Get kids a snack. Look at what they have for homework. Let kids have a quick break.
5:00 pm: Get Gabe and Grace started on homework. Gabe could pretty much do his homework on his own. Grace needed one-on-one help with hers. This was one of the trickiest times of day because I was trying to cook dinner, helping Grace with her homework, making sure Xavier was staying out of trouble (which usually he was getting into something he shouldn't have been), making sure Lilly had something to do and wasn't being bullied by Xavier.
6:00 pm: Eat dinner, clean up dinner
7:00 pm: Try to relax and hang out with the kids for a little bit
7:30 pm: Start Xavier on his bath, read him stories, etc. Put him to bed.
8:00 pm: Start girls on bath and getting ready for bed. Read them story. Tuck them in.
8:30 pm: Have Gabe start getting ready for bed, say goodnight.

Phew! All in a days work eh?

Even though during the week it was business as usual for the most part we tried to play as much as we could on the weekend.
Friday night was a pizza and movie night. Gabe and Xavier watched Cloudy with the chance of Meatballs, while Grace and Lilly watched Night at the Museum. Girly time and Guy time.



Xavier loves Gabe so much. He pretty much was Gabe's shadow the entire week and Gabe was such a good sport about it. He's definitely used to being a big brother. Gabe is such a great kid! He's so smart, he's respectful, he's amazing at video games, he loves baseball, and he does what he's told without complaint. He is such a great big brother with a tender heart! I'm so glad Xavier has a kid like that to look up to.



Grace is a social butterfly! She's sassy and witty all in one. She is all girl! She loves to talk. She is silly, cute, funny, and the big sister role suits her. She definitely shows a genuine love and care for her little sister. While Xavier was with them she definitely extended that love and affection to him. Did I mention she's already won a couple cheerleading competitions?

Lilly is the sweet, sensitive, adorable little sister. She loves everything girly just like her sister. She loves to sing, dance, and just be a girl. And she is very health conscious. She was always asking me if what we were eating was healthy, which I thought was so cute.



On Saturday we took the kids miniature golfing, glow-in-the dark style. They had a blast! Afterwards we got milkshakes and went sledding in their front yard. We also tried a burger join in town for dinner. They make everything fresh and it was delicious. Grace even tried one of my sweet potato fries and liked it. Grace definitely has a small repertoire of food that she will eat, mainly peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, pasta, some fruits, and veggies, etc. So I was proud of her for trying something new.



Gabe and Xavier- Buds for life. Gabe had introduced Xavier to the world of Pokemon, Bakugans, and Guitar Hero. Xavier couldn't get enough of these all week.



Family dinner.

At the end of the week Xavier was sad to have to leave such a fun house full of kids. We had a great time getting to know our nieces and nephews a little better and taking care of them while their parents were away.