I’ve been documenting a Week in the Life with Ali Edwards for as long as I can remember. It’s a practice she started that combines photos and words to capture the everyday details of life for one week. Her project is often accompanied by a scrapbook, but I’ve always kept mine in my journal or shared it here on the blog.
Since I’ve been mostly offline, I haven’t kept up with when Ali does Week in the Life each year. So I thought it might be fun to start my own little tradition and document the week of my birthday every year.
The last Week in the Life I shared here was in 2022, and so much has changed since then. That’s one of the things I love most about this project. At the time, the days can feel so ordinary and repetitive, but looking back lets me see all of the gradual changes that are otherwise so easy to miss.
7:45 AM | Today we slept in, which feels like part of our Monday rhythm these days. Weekends often mean no naps for our bigger boy, so we let him sleep in whenever we can. When he wakes up, he comes in to snuggle until the very last minute before we have to get moving. Breakfast and vitamins for him and for me. After the dogs get their breakfast, they hang around the kitchen while I make lunch, waiting to see if there are any extras for them.
8:30 AM| Wrapping up our morning routine. These days, feeding the baby adds about 30 minutes to getting everyone ready. It’s a little pocket of calm among the chaos because there’s really nothing productive I can do at the same time. Currently loving the chair in the room where my rocker is. Some mornings I end up being joined by everyone in the house.
12:43 PM | Daytime contains cycles of sleeping, eating, and playing. During the first one, I drop big brother off at school and try to get any errands done. I love being able to do things like returns and shopping during the week instead of spending our weekends doing them when the stores are more crowded. Today was a quick trip to the store for storage bins, and then I packed up a few of Callahan’s outgrown toys to make room for the new ones from his recent birthday.
4:47 PM | In the afternoons, one of us does school pickup while the other starts dinner. Today I went to pickup while Wesley finished his nap at home. We had beef tacos and fruit for dinner—keeping things simple these days. I loved our matching stripes and big man’s ever-growing Pokémon collection.
6:56 PM | After dinner, we watched baseball (Cardinals vs Reds tonight) and went for a walk outside. It’s been miserably hot lately, with heat indices over 100 and insane humidity so when we get a cooler day (in the 80’s) we take full advantage. Callahan knows how much I love flowers and asks if he can take a picture for me. Just one of those small moments I want to remember.
See you here tomorrow for more ordinary moments. I’m trying to hold onto them as they are right now—messy, repetitive, and quietly beautiful in the way only everyday life can be.