A Day in the Life
Since we've reached the point where we actually feel like we live here and aren't just staying in a hotel, I figured it would be fun to give you an overview of an everyday in the Lofgren household.
School day
Morning
The kids have been sleeping until about 7 so Brett and I are usually up around 6:30/6:45. We make coffee, have breakfast, and wake Finn up-despite the fact that his alarm has already been beeping for several minutes 😂🙄. If Lucy isn't already up, we'll wake her up too. Lucy tends to pop out of bed a bit easier than Finn and recently has asked to get dressed almost immediately. The tricky part is she wants to wear her own clothes that she picks out but unfortunately she has to wear her uniform. Most of the week she wears her PE uniform which isn't very exciting so the other day when she picked out a colourful flowery shirt, she wouldn't let me take it off so our compromise was to put her PE shirt over it. Luckily her school is a bit more relaxed on uniform rules and her teachers are very understanding haha! Finn takes a bit more convincing but the uniforms for him make it easier and he doesn't care as much.
Breakfast
Breakfast (video)
We are so grateful to live closer to Costco and have been going almost every other weekend because: bagels. Cereal is limited here and pretty expensive so fruit and bagels are our typical go to. Sometimes we'll have eggs: scrambled if I'm feeling ambitious, with toast and jam. All the coffee beans sold here are on the darker end but I found some lighter roasts on Gmarket. Quick note on Gmarket-- they have received quite a lot of business from us recently... It's a lot like Amazon. I was really excited to find what I thought was a large bag of Bisquick buttermilk mix, only to have a tiny 200g bag of biscuit mix .. I even read through and translated the description. Rude. Oh well. We made 6 bacon, egg, and cheese biscuits last weekend. Moving on!
Here's a good rundown of the morning events:
After and during breakfast we are all trying to get dressed and pack up backpacks and in the meantime, Lucy is starting to show interest in potty training but calls everything "poop". So like, she'll pee but tell that she pooped and want to use the potty but just sits for like 30 seconds, does nothing, and demands a treat. Gets off the potty, new diaper, has more breakfast then actually poops. Crying, runs to the bathroom, says she needs to use the potty but already missed her opportunity. New diaper, more time spent not getting ready. I have my contacts in, half dressed, Finn's back in bed because he's cold and forgot he was asked to get his socks, Brett's in the shower or getting dressed and we trade off/tag team with getting breakfast and kids ready. Oh crap! I had coffee *sips lukewarm coffee. Ugh my coffee is cold. Leaves coffee on counter to break up a fight involving a stolen breakfast item and helping one of the children finish getting dressed. Finishes putting on makeup. Oh crap! My coffee! Goes and gets cold coffee and warms it up in the microwave then get bombarded again with more demands from the smallest child, distracting me again from finishing getting ready. Crisis averted, finishes getting dressed and ready only to hear, "what should I do with your coffee?". Crap. My coffee 🙄. Brett pours my coffee in my to-go mug that turned out to not be great quality (new ones are on their way!) or I just bring it in whatever mug it was in. "Finn! I have asked you THREE TIMES to get your shoes on!" "Lucy! You can't just walk out the door, we aren't ready to leave yet!" "Wait guys! Backpacks!"
Despite our best efforts to get out the door by 7:45, it's usually closer to 7:51... Or so... But, by the time we're out the door, most chaos is forgotten by the nice walk to school. Sometimes not but that's life haha.
This was a video I took of them yesterday on our walk
Walk to school
Here is one in two parts that Lucy took. It's long but pretty adorable!
part 1
part 2
And here are Finn's
Finn part 1
Finn part 2
Finn part 3
I'm not sure why I can't post videos like I used to so, I apologize that this is a hit inconvenient! Anyway, I hope you enjoyed them haha it's fun to see from their perspective and that they tend to be in pretty good moods despite the whirlwind mornings.
School hours
Once we get to school (around 8) we sign in at the front office and take the elevator to my classroom. The kids stay with me until about 8:20 and so a variety of activities: drawing, Play-Doh, blocks, or TV, while I do my best to get some work done and class set up for my students. Around 8:15, Finn and I drop Lucy at the bus (which she still loves, by the way) and head back up. Finn's classroom is on the second floor so I drop him off there and I continue to the third. Brett has already been plugging away on the 4th floor.
My students start to trickle in about 8:20. We will have a variety of activities for them to do before school starts for the day: cursive writing, finishing assignments from previous days, or a choice of education based online programs. We then start our day with a welcome song, the calendar, a weather song, announcements, and then some phonics, grammar or spelling before moving on to Math. Depending on the day, the kids will go off to PE, Choir, Music, Mandarin, Violin, Fencing, or Art. They will be in my class for Literacy and Guided Reading every day, and Science/Geography/History twice a week.
Lunch is provided by a catering company as we do not have a kitchen. Some days are pretty yummy and exotic like, we'll have duck once in a while. And some days are less yummy... and those are the squid days...
On Mondays and Fridays, I work on my class blog that updates the parents on what is happening in the classroom and what to expect that coming week. Tuesdays I have some more prep time, Wednesdays we have staff or committee meetings, and Thursday I teach Botany for my After School Club. Monday through Thursday we stay until 4:45 and Fridays we are permitted to leave at 4:30. We typically stay later than 4:45 almost every day but not much later than 5:30.
After school
Once we've finished our work, we are all ready to leave. We usually go somewhere to eat but will sometimes eat at home. There are many restaurants around our neighborhood
and have found our favorites. The kids are much happier with different types of food now so we've been able to expand on the amount of restaurants we can actually go to. The food we get ranges from basic Korean dishes such as kimbap and mandu soup, ramen, Japanese style pork cutlets, or western food like burgers (found a couple good places nearby but they are definitely on the more expensive side).
When we come home from dinner, we will usually tidy up the house a bit or just take some time to relax or help Finn with a little reading and writing homework. Kids usually go to bed around 8, Brett and I watch a show or two and then head to bed!
School day
Morning
The kids have been sleeping until about 7 so Brett and I are usually up around 6:30/6:45. We make coffee, have breakfast, and wake Finn up-despite the fact that his alarm has already been beeping for several minutes 😂🙄. If Lucy isn't already up, we'll wake her up too. Lucy tends to pop out of bed a bit easier than Finn and recently has asked to get dressed almost immediately. The tricky part is she wants to wear her own clothes that she picks out but unfortunately she has to wear her uniform. Most of the week she wears her PE uniform which isn't very exciting so the other day when she picked out a colourful flowery shirt, she wouldn't let me take it off so our compromise was to put her PE shirt over it. Luckily her school is a bit more relaxed on uniform rules and her teachers are very understanding haha! Finn takes a bit more convincing but the uniforms for him make it easier and he doesn't care as much.
Breakfast
Breakfast (video)
We are so grateful to live closer to Costco and have been going almost every other weekend because: bagels. Cereal is limited here and pretty expensive so fruit and bagels are our typical go to. Sometimes we'll have eggs: scrambled if I'm feeling ambitious, with toast and jam. All the coffee beans sold here are on the darker end but I found some lighter roasts on Gmarket. Quick note on Gmarket-- they have received quite a lot of business from us recently... It's a lot like Amazon. I was really excited to find what I thought was a large bag of Bisquick buttermilk mix, only to have a tiny 200g bag of biscuit mix .. I even read through and translated the description. Rude. Oh well. We made 6 bacon, egg, and cheese biscuits last weekend. Moving on!
Here's a good rundown of the morning events:
After and during breakfast we are all trying to get dressed and pack up backpacks and in the meantime, Lucy is starting to show interest in potty training but calls everything "poop". So like, she'll pee but tell that she pooped and want to use the potty but just sits for like 30 seconds, does nothing, and demands a treat. Gets off the potty, new diaper, has more breakfast then actually poops. Crying, runs to the bathroom, says she needs to use the potty but already missed her opportunity. New diaper, more time spent not getting ready. I have my contacts in, half dressed, Finn's back in bed because he's cold and forgot he was asked to get his socks, Brett's in the shower or getting dressed and we trade off/tag team with getting breakfast and kids ready. Oh crap! I had coffee *sips lukewarm coffee. Ugh my coffee is cold. Leaves coffee on counter to break up a fight involving a stolen breakfast item and helping one of the children finish getting dressed. Finishes putting on makeup. Oh crap! My coffee! Goes and gets cold coffee and warms it up in the microwave then get bombarded again with more demands from the smallest child, distracting me again from finishing getting ready. Crisis averted, finishes getting dressed and ready only to hear, "what should I do with your coffee?". Crap. My coffee 🙄. Brett pours my coffee in my to-go mug that turned out to not be great quality (new ones are on their way!) or I just bring it in whatever mug it was in. "Finn! I have asked you THREE TIMES to get your shoes on!" "Lucy! You can't just walk out the door, we aren't ready to leave yet!" "Wait guys! Backpacks!"
Despite our best efforts to get out the door by 7:45, it's usually closer to 7:51... Or so... But, by the time we're out the door, most chaos is forgotten by the nice walk to school. Sometimes not but that's life haha.
This was a video I took of them yesterday on our walk
Walk to school
Here is one in two parts that Lucy took. It's long but pretty adorable!
part 1
part 2
And here are Finn's
Finn part 1
Finn part 2
Finn part 3
I'm not sure why I can't post videos like I used to so, I apologize that this is a hit inconvenient! Anyway, I hope you enjoyed them haha it's fun to see from their perspective and that they tend to be in pretty good moods despite the whirlwind mornings.
School hours
Once we get to school (around 8) we sign in at the front office and take the elevator to my classroom. The kids stay with me until about 8:20 and so a variety of activities: drawing, Play-Doh, blocks, or TV, while I do my best to get some work done and class set up for my students. Around 8:15, Finn and I drop Lucy at the bus (which she still loves, by the way) and head back up. Finn's classroom is on the second floor so I drop him off there and I continue to the third. Brett has already been plugging away on the 4th floor.
My students start to trickle in about 8:20. We will have a variety of activities for them to do before school starts for the day: cursive writing, finishing assignments from previous days, or a choice of education based online programs. We then start our day with a welcome song, the calendar, a weather song, announcements, and then some phonics, grammar or spelling before moving on to Math. Depending on the day, the kids will go off to PE, Choir, Music, Mandarin, Violin, Fencing, or Art. They will be in my class for Literacy and Guided Reading every day, and Science/Geography/History twice a week.
Lunch is provided by a catering company as we do not have a kitchen. Some days are pretty yummy and exotic like, we'll have duck once in a while. And some days are less yummy... and those are the squid days...
On Mondays and Fridays, I work on my class blog that updates the parents on what is happening in the classroom and what to expect that coming week. Tuesdays I have some more prep time, Wednesdays we have staff or committee meetings, and Thursday I teach Botany for my After School Club. Monday through Thursday we stay until 4:45 and Fridays we are permitted to leave at 4:30. We typically stay later than 4:45 almost every day but not much later than 5:30.
After school
Once we've finished our work, we are all ready to leave. We usually go somewhere to eat but will sometimes eat at home. There are many restaurants around our neighborhood
and have found our favorites. The kids are much happier with different types of food now so we've been able to expand on the amount of restaurants we can actually go to. The food we get ranges from basic Korean dishes such as kimbap and mandu soup, ramen, Japanese style pork cutlets, or western food like burgers (found a couple good places nearby but they are definitely on the more expensive side).
When we come home from dinner, we will usually tidy up the house a bit or just take some time to relax or help Finn with a little reading and writing homework. Kids usually go to bed around 8, Brett and I watch a show or two and then head to bed!
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