Jan. 9, 2025

We Are The Hansons A Day In The Life Of The Hansons

We Are The Hansons A Day In The Life Of The Hansons

In this episode we take you behind the scenes of our busy, beautiful, and sometimes chaotic family life with 13 kids. From the moment the alarm clock rings to bedtime routines and everything in between, we'll share how we juggle morning madness, school drop off's, meal times, household chores, extracurricular activities, and quality family time. This episode is a heartfelt look at the joy, love, and intentionality that fuels the Hanson household, offering inspiration for families of all sizes.

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Welcome back to We are the Hansens. I'm Maya Hansen,

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and today we're taking you along for a little journey

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into our daily chaos, I mean, our perfectly coordinated routine.

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If you've ever wondered what life with thirteen kids looks like,

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buckle up because it's a wild ride. Let's dive in.

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Let's start at the beginning of our day, because let's

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face it, mornings are where the real battle begins. My

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alarm goes off at six am, but let's be real,

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at the time, I'm already awake because someone had a nightmare,

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someone else needed water, or somebody had to use the bathroom.

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First priority in the morning.

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For us is coffee, and yes I have my own

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special mug. I down that while the house comes alive.

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Picture a symphony, except each instrument is out of tune

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and played at full volume. We've got kids demanding cereal,

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teens scrambling for clean clothes, and my husband calmly watching

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and drinking coffee in the middle of it all like

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he's watching a comedy show while laughing as we're all scrambling.

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He is that guy.

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Sometimes he drives me crazy. This is the type of

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stuff my husband says to me in the morning, when

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there's all this chaos going on and he's sitting there

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watching and drinking his coffee. He'll say things like, we'll

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get through this, honey. It's just like a football play,

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one step at a time. Bless him, he's a very

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brave man. Next, I want to talk about our carpool chronicles.

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This is a disaster every morning. You know, we go

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through the kids and how they are with getting in

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the car and fighting over who gets the front seat.

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It's kind of like this hurting cats with opinions I

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call a shotgun.

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No, I call it first Yeah, it's like that.

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And then you got some of the kids already in

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the car in the back, like the little ones, and

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they're sitting back there enjoying a snack.

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I mean that is kind of like what we do.

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Some of the other stuff, Like in the morning, my

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kids will be arguing and somebody yelling mom, he's in

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my room or she's in my room, or they won't

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get out of the bathroom.

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That's our stuff.

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But if you could sit there and just imagine how

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chaotic it is in the morning at our house, it

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is is craziness. But anyway, our trips in the morning,

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if we have to all pile into the car, the

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kids are always yelling and fighting over who gets the

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front seat, and I'm over here trying to remember if

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I signed a permission slip for today's field trip or

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if I.

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Pack the lunches.

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I mean, that's what goes through my head as I'm

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trying to keep the kids contained, especially in the car,

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because they're fighting over who gets dropped offers or whatnot.

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It's chaotic lunchtime madness for us. After drop offs and errands,

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it's time for us to eat lunch. Feeding this family

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is right like running a diner with no staff, because

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it's usually me. My husband will try and keep the

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kids contained until dinner's ready and I'm trying to get

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everything ready. But then you got them kids. Certain kids

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want different things. One kid wants peanut butter and jelly,

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one kid wants turkey, one kid wants ham. It's never easy.

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And then someone drops their banana on the floor and

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the dog gets it faster than I can say no.

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It is crazy.

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Lunch is also where we sneak in those little life lessons.

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You don't finish your vegetables, guess what you're eating that

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for a snack time. We run a type ship, or

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at least we try to. It's not always tight, but

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we try. We're going to fast forward a little bit

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to a lot of times my kids lose their stuff

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and it is a mess trying to find it.

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It is so chaotic.

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We call or while I call it the Lost and

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Found Olympics, because when you have thirteen kids, you think

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you would have perfected an art of organization.

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No, not at all.

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Mornings always include at least one missing backpack or a shoe,

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or someone asking where's my homework. It's like we're starting

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our own episode of Survivor and you got one kid

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wearing mismatch socks.

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Yes, that is a thing.

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Granted I don't like when my kids are wearing mismatch socks,

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but they do. It seems like when we're scrambling all day,

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the time is going so fast. By the time we

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get all the chaos and everything, you think you're ready

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to just sit down and take a break, and nope,

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something else comes up. So it's not always calm. I

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should say it's not ever cam because there's always something

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that's got to get done. The snacks you got one

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kid when they at home and they're hungry for a snack.

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One kid wants ramen noodles, one kid wants granola bars,

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one kid wants fruit snacks, one kid wants to the lunchible.

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It's always something different. Every child of mine picks different things,

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and you're running like crazy trying to get what each

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one wants, because you know, after school they seem to

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be starving, like they've not ate all day even though

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they had lunch, So that right there is a mess

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in itself. Then getting these kids calmed down enough that

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you can get dinner done, get them fed. By the

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time you get them fed, you're jumping into getting them

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ready for bed. Because there's never a dull moment. We

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are always so busy. It seems like we go from

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dinner and they'll play, maybe for a very short time,

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and then we're getting in the bath and getting ready

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for bed because we try to have our kids in

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bed and asleep by ten pm. Granted, the older ones

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tend to stay up past that, but the younger ones,

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most of the time, they are asleep by ten pm,

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out cold. It does get more peaceful when they're sleeping,

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but then you have the older kids that will be allowed,

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and you're always like, be quiet, be quiet. The little

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ones are sleeping, we don't want them to wake up.

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And the reason we don't want them to wake up

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is because once they fall asleep and they get woke up,

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then they don't want to go back to sleep, and

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then more chaos. So we try to keep that quiet

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time with the bigger kids, even though we know they're

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older and they want to chit chat and have fun

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and joke around with their other siblings, but that we

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try to keep that quiet because otherwise them little ones

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will hear that, they'll be wide awake and they'll be

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wanting to play and stay up all night, and we

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just cannot do that. The evening chaos. For us, dinner

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is like an Olympic event. Imagine passing hot dishes across

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the table while refereeing arguments over who gets the last

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dinner role. We end up most nights with the family

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in the living room after dinner. During dinner, we make

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sure we always pray, but after dinner we end up

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in the living room and we try to chill out

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for a little while before we jump into the showers

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or the baths and get ready for bed, just because

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your belly needs time to take a break. The little ones,

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they don't really like to sit for very long after dinner.

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They like to play, so it's hard.

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I try and get them to watch movies, you know,

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just to relax and mellow out before bed, but it

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doesn't always work, and it's very hard. I can tell

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you that just our normal day is very chaotic. You

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start off in the morning, you're scrambling around, you got

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kids yelling and fighting. When I sit back and look

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at our day, I laugh. I know it's not funny,

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but we really got to look like some crazy people.

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And I was sitting down yesterday with my daughter Madison,

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and we were watching Cheaper by the Dozen, and I

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thought to myself, does my life with my family look

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as chaotic as theirs? Because they have twelve children and

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just seeing how their life is, I'm like, I wonder

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if people think, you know, do we really look like that?

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Because honestly, when I sit back and think about it,

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yes we do.

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We do look crazy like that.

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And people probably think if we had a guest over

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and they spent the night with us and seeing how

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our everyday life goes, they would probably think, oh, my gosh,

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how do these people do it? Because to me, I

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wonder sometimes myself how we do it. It's fun, but

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I think me and my husband are crazy. I honestly

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think we are crazy with having this many kids and

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the stuff that we go through every day, and our

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daily routine is not always the same, not always the

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same at all. Sometimes we got kids going to a

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friend's or sometimes a friend's coming over to our house,

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or one kid's going to work at this time, and

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one kid's got to work at this time. There is

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so much happening, Like I try and schedule, like medicine

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pickups and stuff like that at Walmart, and it doesn't

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always go as planned. So our day, every day day

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is never the same, but the same stuff and chaos

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happens throughout the day from the time we wake up

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until the time we go to bed. If you could

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imagine craziness in the morning, regardless of where everybody's going,

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craziness in the lunchtime, which lunchtime ain't as bad, and

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then you got in between lunch and dinner, and that

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isn't so bad. Really. Most of the time, the older

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kids are gone, so it's just the three girls at

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home and then you got nighttime, and nighttime is when

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all the kids like to come over and visit and

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hang out and eat dinner. But it's okay because we

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enjoy having them in our home and enjoying the conversations

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and laughs, and we literally sit and talk about everyday

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life at our dinner table. We talk about what this

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kid wants to do, or what that kid's gonna do,

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or what type of girls are boys like, or you know,

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different things, and each kid has something to say. One

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kid will be teasing one kid about something, and then

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they all chime in it's just and then they're all laughing.

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It's great, It is great, And we never have a

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dull moment in our life. There's always something going on.

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I can't tell you how many times I laugh a day,

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because there are so many times that I just sit

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and laugh about whether it's something one of the children say,

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whether it's something one of the children do, whether it's

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something one of the kids are picking on the other one.

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For perfect example, Tristan our Son, he works at a

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place that does flooring, and a couple days ago, he

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pinched his finger between a piece of wood and another

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piece of wood, and he came home last night and

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his finger was huge and it had puss on the side,

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and I told him, soak it in some apps and

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salt and.

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Draw that soreness out.

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So he goes and gets the bowl and the apps

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and salt and puts hot water in there and puts

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his hand in there and he's soaking it, soaks it

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for about fifteen minutes, and he says, Mom, it's drying

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my fingers out. And I said, Tristan, it ain't drying

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your fingers out. It's what it's doing is it's pulling

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all that soreness and infection out of your finger. And

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he says, Mom, I just think I need to pop

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it with a pen. And I'm trying to tell him,

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don't pop it because your grandma did that and she

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got MRSA in her finger from popping it. So Tristan

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goes and he decides he's gonna pop it. And his

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brother Keenan's laughing at him because he's like, how in

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the world did you managed to do that?

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You know?

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And Tristan he's just given Tristan the riot Act and

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teasing him about pinching his finger.

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He said, I would never have done that, you know.

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So just listening to them bicker, I call them to

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the old ladies in the house because them, too will

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bicker like two little old ladies all day long. They

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still always hang out together. Even though they bicker, they

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still hang out together all the time. They're almost it's

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almost like two best friends. And it's great to see

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because you know, who doesn't want their kids to be close.

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All of our kids here in Missouri are very close,

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and I love it because there is never a dull

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moment with them, and they can fight and argue and

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bicker and still be close and.

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I love that.

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So at the end of the day, I'm exhausted, but

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my heart is so full. Sure our life is messy

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and loud, but it's also filled with love, laughter and moments.

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I wouldn't trade for anything, and I don't think my

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husband would. So if you are a parent out there,

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just know that no matter how crazy your day get,

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you're not alone. And if you've got any tips for

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getting thirteen kids to bed before midnight, send them my way,

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because I can get the little ones to bed, but

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the older ones not so much. They never fall asleep.

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I can walk in that room a hundred times and

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they'll be laying there watching TV. Even if the TV's off,

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they'll just be laying there wide awake. So I'm glad

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that the little ones go to bed. I want to

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say thanks for spending some time with me today and

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we are the Hansens and don't forget to subscribe to

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our YouTube channel. You can also send us a message

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on We Are the Hanson's Facebook page or send us

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an email at we are the Hansen Show at gmail

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dot com. Until next time, embrace the chaos because that's

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where the best memories are made.