As I take a mini maternity leave after having my baby boy on September 18th, I have a series of talented friends/guest posters who agreed to fill in here throughout part of this month. I will try to pop in with random posts here and there, but we are just trying to squeeze out every bit of goodness of family time right now. Enjoy!

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There are 24 hours in the day and I'm usually awake for 17 of those hours. I feel like from sunrise (usually before!) to sunset (usually after!) I'm go-go-go all day long. With two kids that keep me on my toes (Fox - age 3, Jane - age 1), a half time job working for Northridge Publishing, the American Crafts blog hostess/design team coordinator, a Garden Girl for twopeasinabucket.com, the occasional client work for Amy Tan herself :), and an etsy shop business on the side, every day I wonder how I'm going to get everything done that's on my plate. I decided to photo document and see where my time goes and exactly how/when I accomplish everything. Let's begin!

5:30am - my morning begins with a daily date with Jillian Michaels. I fell off the exercise/eat healthy bandwagon when we moved to Germany and quickly gained everything back that I had worked so hard to shred, and then some. So I'm back at it with a vengeance!

7:00am - after showering and getting ready for the day the kids wake up and I get them breakfast. Chris is out the door at 7:10am. After breakfast (some concoction of cereal, eggs, pop tarts, anything quick & easy), we play play play! I find that my kids are much happier if I fill their "bucket of needs" in the morning. If I try to get my own things done in the morning, they will whine and cry and have more tantrums. So I try to play with them for a couple of hours in the morning doing various activities like coloring, going on a walk (weather permitting), reading books, playing with toys, etc.

9:00am - Jane takes a nap for about an hour and a half in the morning. During that time I try to get some work done while Fox is still playing. A lot can be accomplished in an hour and a half!

11:00am - lunchtime. Cooking is my least favorite thing to do so don't expect anything fancy shmancy! I can cook any kind of pasta and microwave any kind of frozen food to perfection :)

11:15am - while the kids are still eating lunch I try to get a few things done like house or project repairs, unloading the dishes, vacuuming, mopping, etc.

11:30am - clean the messes my kids make. A place for everything, and everything in it's place :)

12:00am - I pop in a movie for the kids for an hour while I fold laundry and do other household chores.

1:00pm - nap time for both kids! This is Fox's room.

Jane's room.

1:10pm - time to get down to business. I work on various tasks for the day for a few hours while the kids nap. I'm so happy that they sleep at the same time! It wasn't always like this, it took about 9 months to get them on the same sleeping schedule so back then I used to stay up later to get everything done. I edit documents, send out emails, scrapbook my assignments, fulfill etsy shop orders, blog for American Crafts, film my Garden Girl videos, and more.

4:00pm - the kids wake up and we play in the basement where all their toys are.

4:35pm - Chris gets home from work and takes over while I go out and run errands.

4:45pm - first stop is the post office since mail isn't delivered here on the Army base.

5:00pm - grocery shopping at the Commissary.

5:30pm - home!

5:30pm - Chris makes dinner (he's the best!) and I put away the groceries and watch the kiddos.

6:00pm - Chris takes the kids outside while I clean up dinner and get some more work done.

6:30pm - bath time!

7:00pm - for the rest of the night I get everything else done that I didn't get to and then have fun blogging, checking Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, Feedly, 2Peas message boards, and all the other various sorts of social media I'm involved in. It helps that my computer is in the center of where we spend the most time so if I get an urgent email or a few spare seconds I can hop on and hop off in a jiffy. Likewise all my scrapbooking materials are right in the living room so I can work on layouts here-and-there throughout the day.

10:00pm - bedtime at last! If I'm not too tired I'll read a few pages of a book. I'm currently reading Pathfinder by Orson Scott Card. It's a real page turner!