Fun is what you make it!

I should have checked the weather forecast before I made this week's FUN plans.  I was thinking of good indoor activities, but the days have been SO gorgeous we just had to get outside.  Instead of making scarves yesterday, we whipped up some banana bread and headed outside.  The girls made a game of scooter races on the lawn while Mr. A cheered them on.  Also, everyone got good and muddy in the sandbox.  That's how you know you've had fun!

Today's FUN plans say we're inflating the bouncy castle, but it looks like it's going to be warm enough to go outside again so I think we'll do that.  We may go for a walk, or if it's dry enough, putter around in the garden. 

What are you doing for FUN today?

Well, that was easy.

I sat down tonight to work on next week's meal plans, and realized there were five meals from this past week's plan that I didn't cook.  One thing or another came up and I wound up making pasta and grilled cheese -simple meals the kids always eat- for a couple of those nights, and the slow cooker lasagna and bean soup were such big recipes we had enough leftovers for both a lunch and a dinner from each.  So, that means last week's meal prep was minimal and this week's planning and shopping will also be much easier!  I love it when life works out that way.

Plans for Jan. 16 - 22 are here!

Finally - The Plan is Complete!

I've finally made up my mind and completed next week's plans.  Ah, it feels good to have some order back in my life!  Now, I just need to keep the discipline to stick to the plans and I should have a great week!  Does anyone have any tips for maintaining personal discipline?  Good advice is always welcome!  Please comment below.

Yes, I'm still alive.

I know, these posts are quite hit and miss...  I'm still trying to get back in the habit of blogging every day.  I have a leg up on next week though.  I have all our meals planned for the week of Jan. 10th.  I'm still working on FUN plans, but the meals are updated on my Week at a Glance page.

Goodbye 2010, Hello 2011!

I don't know about anyone else in the world, but I still have Christmas ALL over my house.  Not only are our decorations still decorating, but opened gifts are strewn around my sofas because no one wants to put away their new stuff.  It's nice to see all the fun, new things, and it helps the girls remember what hasn't been played with quite yet when they wander past.  I've had quite enough of the big piles of "new" by now though.  I've enjoyed the Chrismas lights and nativity scenes and advent calendars, but it's time for them to go away.  We still have puzzles to put together, and a new board game to play and stacks and stacks of new books we haven't read.  Miss M has a new doll that hasn't even come out of her box.  I'd hate to put those in their new homes quite yet because they'll be totally forgotten if they're not enjoyed first, so I devised a FUN plan that will also clear the clutter.  We're going to have a "Good bye Christmas" New Year's Eve. Today we'll play the new game - and put it away.  We'll puzzle out the new puzzles - and put them away.  We'll read the new books - and put them away.  We'll keep going till the sofas can be sat on again and each gift is in it's new home.  I also plan to record each gift in our family journal along with the giver's name so we'll be organized to write our thank you cards tomorrow, right after we pack up all the decorations.  Gosh, I love it when organization and FUN come together!

Happy New Year everyone!  May 2011 bring you loads of FUN and enjoyment with your own families.

HUGE site full of fun Christmas activities!I

Just popping in to share a cool site that is choc full of fun Christmas activities for your family.  You'll find everything from simple coloring pages to crafts to games.  If you're running out of ways to keep the kids in the spirit (or just plain occupied) just click the link and let Woo Jr inspire you!


http://www.woojr.com/christmas/

Merry Christmas everyone!!!

It's working! It's working!

Just popping in to confirm - making a list results in checking it twice.  I haven't heard "What can we do?" once since my little list of FUN ideas went up!  The girls made special cards for Santa yesterday, and we're almost finished making name tags for our stockings.

I wonder what they'll choose for FUN today!

Holiday FUN plans!

This morning I updated the Week at a Glance calendar with the jobs and fun that must be done before Christmas.  I included making treats for the neighbors and Santa in the fun, but otherwise, I've left them open.  Instead of scheduling specific fun, I made a list of different things the kids enjoy and when they have some down time they can just choose something fun from the list.  I used my scrapbooking software to jazz it up a little, then I printed it to hang on the fridge.  Hopefully, it will keep me from hearing "I'm bored", "What can we do" etc. for at least the rest of the week. 

Back in the Saddle Again - Kind of.

Alrighty, here I am, getting back in the swing of things.  So far I have updated my Week at a Glance with meal plans and a rough outline of the week.  I'm still working through all the fun things I'd like to do while the girls are out of school.  I have a huge list of fun ideas and quite a few things on my "To Do" list, too.  I also have a shopping list to make, but I'm going to back off and let all that list making simmer for a while.  I want to make sure we do the Christmasy stuff before the big day but I'm starting to stress about it all, and I hate stressing over fun.  I'm going to go get my morning basics finished and possibly come back this afternoon.  It would be nice to have the whole week planned before the day is through. 

Happy Monday!

Where have you been young lady?

Alright, I know it seems as if I just fell off a cliff and totally disappeared since I've only made two superficial posts in almost two months now, but I do have a good explanation. I decided I need to take a break from blogging because I had bigger fish to fry. Two of my kids have birthdays in December, so to say that it is an INSANE month is a ridiculous understatement. I always try to have all birthday and Christmas shopping finished before Thanksgiving, and this year I experimented with moving the birthday parties forward a few weeks. Moving the parties was a big success because every child we invited was able to come, which is a first for us because December is a crazy month for everyone. It has also spread out the insanity for me, which was actually nice because I had time to recover between events. And, now I'm all ready for Christmas except a few last things I need to pick up for Christmas dinner. Ahhh... I love being prepared.

All that said, I'm going to try to get back into the habit of blogging again. I've really missed having all my plans laid out so nicely. Plus, I want to optimize the kids' time out of school and in order to do that I need to at least make some basic lists of possibilities and responsibilities. So, I'm off to make Mom Plans!  It's good to be back!

Wow! Another out of the blue post!

If you know a child who likes to bounce (I know, they're rare) you'll want to go check this out!  It's a chance to win an awesome inflatable bouncer!  The blog hosting the contest is also pretty cool, too.  So, go - read, enter, enjoy!

Shutterfly Saves the Day!

I'm a big fan of digital scrap booking.  I love how flexible and easy it can be, and use my scrap booking software for everything from calendars to track Miss E's reading minutes to building scrapbook pages and birthday party invitations.  I usually design our family Christmas card from scratch, but this year I have just been too busy.  Enter Shutterfly.  Shutterfly has long been a favorite photo printing site.  They have a huge catalog of fun products with very reasonable prices and really great quality.  It took much longer to snap a few quick pictures of the kids than to select and  build our Christmas cards.  I had a lot of fun perusing all the possibilities.  My first thought was to go with a folded card.

Ho Ho Ho Christmas 5x7 folded card

Shop Shutterfly.com for elegant Christmas photo cards.

View the entire collection of cards.

I liked this one because I had lots of pictures I wanted to include, and this style allows you to use two more pictures inside.  But, as I browsed the other styles, I found I loved the bold colors of this flat card.

Mod Snowflakes Story Christmas Card

Make a statement with Shutterfly Christmas photo cards.

View the entire collection of cards.

I also liked the option to personalize the caption beneath the pictures. That's unique among this type of card. However, I had my heart set on using black and white pictures, and decided I liked the contrast between them and this gorgeous blue.

Let It Snow Christmas Card

Shop Shutterfly for elegant custom Christmas photo cards.

View the entire collection of cards.

This card just looks so bright and cheerful! I really love how it makes my black and white pictures pop. The overall appearance of this choice made my decision easy.

If you're not on my mailing list, I hope you'll enjoy this Christmas card post and consider this my Merry Christmas wish to you!

(Might I also recommend Shutterfly's photo calendars , photo note cards,   thank you cards.  I order these fairly often and am always pleased.  There is nothing like sending personalized note cards, even when your message is short.  Also, if you have a blog of your own, follow this link to apply for Shutterfly's free cards for bloggers promotion!  I love free stuff!)

Snow and Rain Won't Keep Us Out of the Sandbox!

Confession time - I've gotten a little mentally tired of writing every day.  I decided that meant I should take a little break, so I did!  I'm aiming to get back to regular posts and an update of the week at a glance page, but for now I'm just going to do a quick update of today's fun.  It's a rainy/snowy day, but Mr. A's current favorite words are "DIRT!" and "TRUCK!" which he says with great gusto when he wants to go out to the sandbox.  Since that isn't practical today I decided to break out a great substitute - Moon Sand!  I haven't let Mr. A play with it before because he's still so little and rambunctious I knew it would end up all over my house.  However, I knew he was getting to the point that he'd really feel the loss if he couldn't go play in the sandbox with his trucks and the moon sand would be a great distraction.  You can see he made himself right at home and found a truck just the right size for the Moon Sand Box.  (Miss M also had fun molding stars and creatures!)

Just because the weather stinks we shouldn't have to quit filling dump trucks with sand!

Gosh, now I feel bad.

Last week, and the week before that, I got out toys the kids hadn't used for a while.  We played with Barbies and board games and blocks and lots of other great toys.  It was fun to revisit them all, but I was also hoping to find some things the kids didn't really like any more that I could donate to charity and clear out our playroom a bit.  One thing that was on my chopping block was a plastic Barbie play kitchen.  When Miss E received the kitchen for Christmas we spent hours playing restaurant.  It was a favorite toy but it's been collecting dust for a while now so I was planning to sneak it out of the house soon.  Yesterday, I watched an old episode of Blue's Clues with Miss M where Blue and Steve played restaurant.  I told Miss M that used to be our favorite game.  She said "I don't know how to play restaurant."  I thought about it, and it's true.  She was just a little baby when Miss E and I played all the time.  By the time she was big enough to play, we'd finished the play room in the basement and moved the kitchen downstairs, where it was put in a corner.  She'd only occasionally excavated through the rest of the toys enough to reach the kitchen, and Miss E had moved on, so they played other games together instead and because they had each other, I played less and less.  Now, however, I can't believe she's almost five and doesn't know how to play restaurant!  That can only be neglect on my part, so I decided to give the kitchen one more chance.  Today, I'm bringing it and the huge tub of accessories out where we can play with them.  I'm going to teach Miss M (and Mr. A, of course) how to play restaurant.  Everything is portable enough to take out into the sunshine, too!  Bonus!

It was too nice of a day to stay inside and blog.

I didn't post this morning because I was busy running errands and basically covering all my bases.  I'm so glad I did all the things that had to be done early in the day though, because the afternoon was a glorious time to be outside.  Some neighbor girls came over after school and again after dinner and really made a party of it!  I took some fun pictures of them all out playing tag and rolling around on the grass.  Ahhh...  Nothing like tag and some grass in your hair to make your day complete. 

Chalk drawings were safe zones.

Tag!  You're it!

Mr. A LOVES the neighbor girls.

Whoo Hoo!  Twirling with the big kids!

What was I thinking?

I looked at my Week at a Glance calendar today and wondered what I was thinking.  I'm trying to stay close to home so Mr. A can work on his potty skills, so I'm not sure why I planned a trip to the park.  That's going to become FUN outside but at home, because frankly, we have everything a park has in our own back yard.  I think we'll start with our Little Tykes cars.  We have a Cozy Coupe for Miss M and a fire truck for Mr. A.  They love to "race" them down the sloped driveway in our back yard, even though Mr. A is still figuring out how to really make his go.  I also have some work to do in the garden to get it ready for winter.  I need to pull out the old, frozen plants and basically clean it all up.  Miss M should especially enjoy helping with that.  She loves that sort of thing.  So, we aren't going to the park, but we are going to enjoy this gorgeous fall day!

Monday: A New Beginning

Every Monday brings a new chance to have a great week.  That was a friend's Facebook status this morning and I liked it, so I'm using it to get me motivated this morning.  As I've written about many times before, I'm still not doing 100% of the things I plan every day.  Some days I do really well, but more often than I'd like I have many good intentions but fewer actions.  This week, I'm trying out a new mantra:  Work First, Play More.  I've figured out that it should only take me two hours or less to finish all my "work plans", and that should leave more than enough time for "FUN plans" but I just haven't been disciplining myself enough to do the work first.  I'm really good at just hanging out, but I'd like to do better when it comes to actively doing the things I like or find important.  I spent the weekend making a mental list of the things I'd like to do for fun, whether just for myself or with the kids or with the spouse.  I'm going to work on fleshing that list out today, and will choose something to reward myself with if I successfully complete all of a day's plans.  Wish me luck!

Oh - the Week At A Glance page is updated with meal and FUN plans.  Last week's experiment with Kraft's 1 Bag, 5 Dinner's plan was less than fabulous.  I was right - some of the recipes were a bit funky.  I'm giving it one more chance though.  This week we'll be using their Healthy Living Bag 3  Everything looks pretty straight forward (and less funky) so hopefully we'll be happier with our meals this week. 

Our FUN plans mostly involve playing outside as much as possible.  The weather forecast looks fabulous so we'll take advantage of it.

Have a great Monday!

Too Cute to Keep to Myself

Kim Komando selected this as a Cool Site of the Day, and it's too cute not to pass on.  Miss M is in love - she keeps cooing or awwing at every picture.  If you have kids who love cute animal pictures, this site is for you!

Click HERE - Cuteness Ahead!

Who doesn't love a Friday?

Ah, the end of the week.  I do love Fridays.  Today our FUN plans include playing in the sandbox and finishing up our pumpkin carving.  We carved two pumpkins yesterday but Miss E created quite an elaborate design and didn't have time to finish it last night.  Actually, she didn't have the attention span to finish.  Funny how that can happen even with the best of activities.  We're also getting ready to have friends over for trick or treating tomorrow night. (Yes, I know tomorrow is not Halloween.  It's tradition in our community to celebrate on a Saturday if it falls on Sunday.  It's a religious thing...)  So, we're off to carve roads in the dirt and faces in the pumpkins!  Have a great weekend and HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

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A pretty good start!

What a puzzeling day.

Potty training is underway with Mr. A, and it's been and up and down experience.  On one hand it's been great because he's so willing to try and is so close to really understanding. But then there's the down side...  With my girls I bought them a bunch of little toy "potty prizes", and they got one every  time they went potty as encouragement.   It was a pretty easy process and there was very little drama.  Mr. A is obsessed with his bucket of prizes.  He stands in the bathroom moaning for a prize and is so sad when he can't have them he has resorted to walking around whining "prize".  The bright side of this is I am more determined than ever to stick with training and move him past this stage as quickly as possible.  He's very close so it's full steam ahead.  This will keep us close to home, but hopefully it's only a few days.  And it's compatible with our FUN plans, since we were going to play with puzzles again today.  That's a nice, indoor activity so he can run around in his undies and we'll close to a potty all day.  Also, since Halloween is just three days away, I guess we'd better carve some pumpkins.  We meant to do that yesterday, but didn't get that far with our plans.  Today is a new day though, and it's another chance to do the things we want to do.  Here's to sticking to our plans!