In the end it was a very nice and slow weekend. We did go school shoe shopping, out for ice cream with passes from the Library reading program, and to see the movie Finding Dory (Work party with McKay's work), but other then that the rest of Saturday I was free to prep my fall schedule and take a wonderfully long nap. So nice!
I really love the idea of schedules and think that they really can be helpful, but I usually fail to follow through with mine for more then a couple weeks. I REALLY hope this one is different. I have been thinking about it and planning it mentally all summer long and I think we have found a winner. I tried to keep things spaced out and very low key so hopefully we can follow through with it most days. I really believe that kids and babies crave routine and rhythm in their lives and while I personally like to mix things up now and then I am going to try and be a little more consistent for their sakes.
Some things that I added to our schedule that I am excited about are our rotating lunch schedule, grocery shopping at night, and the new rule that Daddy puts the kids to bed.
Lunch time is hard and I was tired of pb&j everyday. So I wrote out all of our favorite lunch ideas and divided them into two weeks of lunches. Now I just switch off which menu I am using each week. Then I take the list for the current week with me to the grocery store and make sure I have all of the ingriedents for that week's lunchs. I have been using this system for about a month and it is going great.
I also finally gave up on trying to take the kids with me to the grocery store each week. This was my last week dragging them with me and I will now start grocery shopping on Tuesday nights when McKay is home. I am grateful that we had some evening time available for me to go instead of stressing myself out each week by trying to take them with me. Everyone is different on what they can handle and 4 kids was my limit at the grocery store. haha! I am sure I will still take them to the store every now and then, but I will be nice to not have to do it every week.
My favorite addition to our routine is the new rule that Daddy does bedtime. Before we started this routine in July we would switch off putting the kids to bed, but whenever McKay was the one to put them to bed they would all cry for mommy. By bedtime my patience is so thin and I really had a hard time not being a super grochy mama during the bedtime routine. McKay wanted to help, but whenever he took over the kids would just be super whinny and it ended up stressing us both out. So after talking with my aunt about it we decided to just make bedtime "special daddy time" every. single, night (unless he had a church meeting). The first few nights I had to go in my bedroom and lock my door to help them understand that it was daddy's turn to be in charge. They cried a bit for mommy to come, but now it is completely normal and they have accepted that Daddy puts them to bed. They have a fun routine that they came up with complete with bedtime exercises and then daddy usually reads to them from a chapter book (currently they are reading the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe). I am SO grateful that we came up with this solution and that McKay is so willing to step up and help out. I am enjoying my little bit of down time in the evenings and have even started working out a bit more while he puts them to bed.
We also added in two new family traditions this past summer that I wanted to write about because they are both fun little things that our family is enjoying. I am always on the look out for more family traditions to add in, but they have to be simple and easy otherwise they probably wont last. The first one is waffles on saturdays. SO simple, but I love that my kids know this tradition. They expect it and it is so fun to sit down as a family for waffles on Saturday mornings. We use this recipe and it feels semi-healthy even if we do cover them in syrup. The last tradition is truely just for my sanity, but the kids love it. It is cold cereal on sunday mornings. We never used to buy cold cereal unless it was a special occasion. But a few months ago I was talking to my neighbor and she told me that they do cold cereal sundays for breakfast. Guys, sundays are hard days for me. It is sad to say this, but it might be the longest day of my week. We have 1:00 church. McKay has meetings all morning and then usually something in the evenings too. So I am alone with the kids all day. It is hard figuring out stuff for them to do all morning and then they skip their naps because of church so we are all a little cranky in the evenings before bed. Cereal for breakfast just sounded too easy to pass up. The kids take turns picking out the one box of cereal each week and then they save it until Sunday morning. We buy one small box of cereal each week and it is usually gone in a couple days since they snack on it after we eat it for breakfast sunday morning. They really have loved this tradition and it is working well for me too.
It is so fun to have my kids getting older and starting to show an interest in family traditions and activites. I feel very grateful for my sweet little family and hope that they know how much I love living life with them!
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