Summer Can't Come Soon Enough!!

So...are you ready? I'm going to share with you something I have worked WEEKS on and let you download it for yourself! For FREE! Yes, I love free and I love giving things to people so it's a win-win.

I have a wonderful friend, Lara at Overstuffed, who does a summer reading thing with her girls every year. See? I have loved this idea! But Karate Kid and Little Miss? Ha.

This year is different though. Karate Kid was recently diagnosed with Aspergers. I know...wow. And? We learned that a schedule would help our family out immensely! I have played around with the schedule idea and I think I finally found what works and maybe it will for you too!This has had a BIG impact on our family. We now "get" it...sort of. We're "getting" it, anyways. 

Like I mentioned yesterday, with much inspiration, I decided each day would be a theme....a  less stressful theme! lol 

Settle Down Sunday - Our family likes to go for walks, walk on the beach, and spend time out in nature on Sundays after church. It helps our family and it's a nice touch after a refreshing church service. : )

Make it Monday - I thought it would be fun to make something - edible and non-edible alike. We could be baking cookies, ribbon wands, salt dough, or comic books! 

Take a Trip Tuesday - I just want to make sure my kids get out of the house! And me too... 

Wonderful Wednesday - This is the day I set aside time to do our book related activities. More on that later.

Thinking Thursday - My kids like to figure things out and sometimes learn a lot....sometimes. So, I thought it would be fun to ask questions - get them to ask questions anyways, and find the answers out! 

Friends on Fridays - After chores and lunch, we will go pick up friends and bring them back for activities and fun play!

Silly and Serving Saturday - I felt it was important for my kids to get used to serving. I planned for a fun family activity as well as something every week we can do for someone else. Love it.

Here's a look at Monday's schedule as an example.

 My kids ALWAYS get up at 7:00 a.m. I don't make them, they do it naturally. lol Some of you parents are cringing. I just know it. Yes, it's not always convenient, but they are a lot happier sometimes. Also, there are "May Do"s and "Must Do"s. 

May Dos are fun things like playing with playdough, reading, coloring etc. Must Dos are chores and things that need to get done around the house. I have made a bunch of each and they will go in these cute re-purposed containers I have.  They will draw the needed amount - usually four each - and then they will have the ability to CHOOSE when they would like to do it, within reason. For instance, on our Monday's example, I chose "Folding Laundry." I can choose to fold the laundry at 8:00, 9:00, 2:30 or 3:30. I wanted to give the kids a choice, yet limit it to times when I can be the support.

I am planning on laminating the schedules and putting velcro on each May Do and Must Do spot to make it easier. I tried to include outdoor time since I often forget to send them out and my kids aren't always gung ho to go outside. Weirdos. 

Below are the links to download each day's schedule as a powerpoint so you can manipulate it as you'd like and that works for your family! Tomorrow, I will post all about my book packets that go along with our weekly schedule! Aren't you EXCITED!?!?!?!?!

*Note - Don't worry about the dropbox preview, it won't look like that when you download it! haha 

Settle Down Sunday

Make it Monday

Take a Trip Tuesday

Wonderful Wednesday

Thinking Thursday

Friends on Friday

Silly and Serving Saturday

Also, here is the link to download my list of May Dos and Must Dos:

May Dos and Must Dos

Enjoy!

Baby It's tooooo Cold Outside!

I don't like cold... and lately, it's been VERY COLD!! Negatives for HIGHs and -45 wind chill? No THANK YOU! So, we ended up having a snow day here. It was fun...we did lots of fun things...actually, this was before the worst. I was just informed that we have had 45 inches of snow in the last 10 days. Yeah. NOT OK! So here's some pictures to enjoy from the past week and a half while we've been buried in snow.

This picture makes my heart swell.

This one... not so much. But, she's just like me...

Chickie was afraid of the tube for a while...

Little Princess

Peering into the tunnel to Karate Kid's tent.

Atlas enjoying my lap!

This also meant PAJAMA DAY!

And a tea part for lunch....

Karate Kid got his car track out.

 

 

 

Our front room.....on a snow day!

Helping mommy!

Snowy day.

The roads on Tuesday.

Roads on Tuesday.

My poor honey in the bitter cold.

Little Miss with her Chinese Dragon! LOVE IT!

I'm gonna sit right down and write myself a letter!

So, living out here in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, we don't see our family a whole heckuva lot. I see my parents about four times a year and Honey's parents maybe...once. My sis, maybe once a year....Honey's brothers and sisters? Um...last time we saw them (our family seeing them) was....in May of 2010. Uh ... yeah. LONG TIME! So.... I dreamed a dream...an idea that has been popping in and out of my mind's eye for a few months now. This is unusual as I'm an impulsive person and usually JUMP to start something new....so I waited and let it incubate. It's still not fully formed, but I've got to throw it out there before it's too late! 

My idea...and maybe YOU, my blog reading friends, can help me turn this into gold. Maybe....I'll inspire YOU to join me in doing the same with your family.....anyways.... MY IDEA!

I wanted my children to feel like they knew "Aunty Dot" even though they don't get to see her and vice versa. I don't want my family to just get a yearly letter. I want them the feel like they know us and are connected with us. So...at first, we will write a letter telling what's going on and then we will ask questions. Questions similar to journaling questions. Questions like....What kind of games do you like? What was your favorite thing to eat as a kid? Now? Then, we answer those questions! That way, we learn about them and they learn about us! 

After a few months, we'll be able to see who is interested in being our pen pals of sorts - you know, by seeing who WRITES BACK! Then, if there aren't a ton of people - which I really hope will be the problem - my mom suggested an idea of writing a letter (one page) then sending it to another family member. They read our letter, write one of their own and then mail BOTH our letter and theirs to ANOTHER family member who then adds their letter and passes it on. After it goes through everyone, it comes back to us and we get to read ALL of the letters and see what everyone is doing. We then take OUR letter out and replace it with a new one and pass the WHOLE PACK of letter on to the same person we sent it to last time. This would create a rotation of constantly replacing old letters with new and still being able to read what everyone else is doing! AMAZING! I loved the idea and it was something my mom's family had done with her family. In fact, I will be doing it with her and my sister!

Now, my dear sweet honey doesn't want me to get my hopes up. He's afraid not many people will write us back. And you know what!? That's ok. I will continue to send letters. Not sure how well this will work, but I want it to. Really bad! I plan on scanning the letters from everyone and making a book for our family to reflect on and remember things. Kind of like a big family journal! Awesome!! I get so excited just thinking about it.

Not sure what I will do if a lot of people write me back, because doing that round robin letter idea is great unless there is a lot of people. By then you won't get a letter for ....like FIVE months! lol NOT what I was going for. lol

Got any letter writing ideas?

A New Year...A New Try!!

So.....another new year comes. I love New Years....truly. I get all excited. I LOVE making resolutions and I think I make them all the flipping time! haha So....after hearing some things from my family today, I thought I would share you ours.

Honey: "I think this year I should watch more movies."

Chickie: "No! No! No! More snack!"

Little Miss: Snickers....smirks......nothing.

Karate Kid: "I think you should...." He took on the task of coming up with things WE needed to improve on.

Alas, this was not what I hoped for....but it will get better. I guess I will share with you MY resolutions.

#1 - I resolve to work hard at studying the gospel and spending more time on my knees in prayer in the ultimate goal of getting closer to my Heavenly Father and having my heart changed so I may Love where I am in all aspects of my life.

#2 - I resolve to write more in my journal. I feel that this is one of the most important things I can do this year.

#3 - I resolve to keep in contact with my family. I will post more on my idea...but I have a letter writing idea I'm putting into motion.

#4 - I resolve to make small steps every day toward becoming more minimalistic. I need to clear the clutter out of my life. #1 will help me with this! lol

#5 - I resolve to make my relationship with my husband stronger than it was the day before. I want us to be progressing! 

Now, these are my top five. Of course I have a bunch of things I would like to do....you should see the list, but to be honest, these five matter most to me.

What did you resolve to do!?

The Real Me....

So recently my friend helped me discover "Dressing My Truth." I have to admit.... I was totally skeptical, but she loved it and she's not easily swayed so I thought I would look into it. It's awesome. I have totally changed my view on myself. Of course, there are still a few things that will take time and it's definitely not cure all, but it's made MY life better and for that, I am grateful.

So... I am a Full Fledged TYPE 1. All the way baby.That means I need brighter colors that support who I am... I was doing pretty good...but not everything was great. So, I cut and colored my hair.... got some new jewelry and clothes and I feel great. I feel like me now.

A Man Needs to EAT!!

So we get paid in the middle of the month, which makes budgeting weird, but anyways....I decided to make dump chicken meals for the month - you know where you throw everything in a bag and then when you're ready you toss it in the crockpot. So.... I gathered up recipes from the internet and got some great deal on meat. Just look at my bounty below?!

 Then... I had to set everything up so I can make them. It took me like two solid hours to put everything together. In then end, it was great. The family liked almost all of the meals but were completely sick of chicken by the end of the month.

 See my end result? Beautiful! Even Atlas thought so too.

Oh yeah....I forgot!

So Life happens, right? I have asked recently why I haven't updated my blog and if you can answer that for me, then that would be great. It's probably the same reason I CAN NOT get myself to journal. I loooooooooove the idea of journaling. I have researched Art Journaling and read my ancestor's journals and I love it all!!! Yet, every time I think about journaling, I feel such an intense urge to run in the opposite direction. WHY!?

Anyways, I am writing now. So I have to update a month and a half.... That's gonna take a few posts.. So we'll finish October.

 Shortly after my last post, I went on tour with the Keweenaw Symphony Orchestra. We went and played at a few different places in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. It was awesome! Mind you, these are NOT good quality pictures since I took them with my less than perfect phone.

 

 

This was our first stop. It was really nice! As you can see in this pic, the audience left a lot to be desired. lol

After the concert...tired.

 We didn't leave there until late and not getting into bed until 1 a.m. then wake up at 5 to be at a school to do things with the local high school.

The view outside of the hotel.

 This was the second place we played... it's the Reynolds Hall in NMU I believe. It was SOOOO awesome. The acoustics were awesome. And....it's BEAUTIFUL!

On Saturday we took some time off. When we went outside we saw these wild turkeys!! Hilarious! They scared a whole bunch of people that morning. Every time they did, they poofed up! lol Awesome.

My Going Out outfit.

This is the door to the Wells Fargo Bank in Marquette! lol

At our third place all I got was this pic of the dome on the ceiling. The last place was great and I didn't get a pic there either. Sad. But, it was fun and not really something I would like to do a often. When I left, I had written letters for my family. See?

It was really just a way of me dealing with being gone, but they enjoyed it too.

Halloween went well. I was only able to get a pic of Little Miss....Chickie wasn't really into it and Karate Kid was upset I didn't buy him one from the store. Oh well. At least she was happy.

Planning is Easy. Implementing is Hard.

So browsing Pinterest and other places have given me a TON of ideas and things I want to do. How do I implement them!? I have been trying for weeks to write in my journal and I just can't seem to sit down and do it! But, I thought I would share with you some of the things I would like to do....then maybe.....YOU might want to do them too. That might motivate me.....maybe.

#1 - Make the Christmas Gifts this Year!!!

I have tried really hard to do this. This year, I'm pretty ahead of the game, but still....Here's my plan.

 Honey's Present - A framed needlework of these adorable star trek characters....do you recognize them?

For Little Miss...I'm making her a quilt. A crazy quilt. Literally. I have no pattern and a bunch of material. I did make some individual crazy squares. Plus, I have some scrap strip blocks and some applique house blocks I embroidered on. I will post more about this later. I also thought about doing these adorable princess peg dolls.

From Lil' Blue Boo

 For Karate Kid....I am making cloth Yu-Gi-Oh dueling mats. Like this...sort of. I wanted to make them semi-stiff but still be able to fold them up. I also wanted to put a pocket on the back so he can put his cards in them. Other than that....I'm totally stumped.

Chickie, of course, is "easy" since she is ONE and doesn't really get it, right? Wrong. I have no idea. My niece is slightly younger and I thought about these cute owl things since her mommy is into owls.

Petals to Picots

 For my parents!? I usually get them a calendar for the next year with our pictures in it, and I will be giving them that....which turned out awesome by the way. But what else?! Here's some of my ideas. Of course, they are geared toward my MOTHER...what to get a grandpa?!

Make: Craft - Embroidered Kid Art

Sarah Ortega

 #2 - Things for my home!

I have been wanting to do this faux cross stitching on the wall....just haven't had the time.

Home Heart Craft

We've been needing to implement something better for chores and other things... I think this gal from this blog "Our Story" has a great idea writing detailed instructions on cards. I had a similar idea, but I like this idea better.

How do I stay Organized!?

The Holidays are here....my favorite time of the year, but apparently I'm more likely to be crabby. lol I love this give thanks board where you put what you're thankful for on cards in each envelope. A good tradition, no?

Give Thanks

I'm obsessed with my garden....namely my flower garden. I am PRAYING that all of my flowers live through the winter. And it would the AWESOME to make this sign - or something like unto it - and have it in my flower garden. LOVE IT!

#3 - I want to do REALLY great things for my ONLY Young Woman. 

I just got a new young woman and I want to make her glad she's in Young Women's. I am working on it... but planning and doing? Hard things.

Survival Kit Tidy Mom

#4 - Activities to Participate in.

I am NO photographer. I do not have a super spiffy camera, but I do love it. AND I love interesting pictures. So, I thought these looked like a lot of fun...but when?! The drawing one is a no brainer. Love that too. Maybe I'll start Monday. Who says you have to start on the first, right?

So you see? There are tons of things I would love to do and accomplish. I have tons more on my Pinterest boards. But HOW!? How do you implement them? How do you keep yourself motivated? 

If Only I knew!!!!