More projects

I’ve somehow managed to accomplish a few more projects! This window frame is something I’ve been working on for months. It’s still not finished, because I want to put a vinyl saying on it, but I’m out of the transfer paper and waiting for a sale…plus I’m not 100% decided on what phrase I should put across the bottom. I’m thinking about “This is the stuff…” from the Francesca Battistelli song that the girls love to sing. In the meantime, it’s being used to hold the girls’ papers (instead of my fridge!) The black sections are chalkboard, so now I need to go get some chalk so we can write messages and reminders on it!

The other day, I happened to be spending the entire day at home. This is a rarity. I didn’t quite know what to do with myself. I knew what I should be doing, but somehow scanning blogs, which I haven’t done in ages, was more interesting than cleaning the shower. Go figure.

Anyway, I came across an idea and I thought, “I totally have to do that!” And so, I did! Right then! I never do that. But like I said, I was home all day.

These are our Summer Activity Jars! So cute & fun!! As if we need more activities to do this summer…But, I decided I want to be more INTENTIONAL about what we do together this summer. We only have 5 more summers before Sarah leaves for college. Gulp. And I suppose she’s eventually going to get a job and be all grown-up and then she won’t want to do these silly things. So I thought. I’m gonna go for it.

In this jar we have things like, playing charades, memorize Scripture, create puzzles from drawings/pictures, and interview family members. There are LOTS more, as well.

The “Let’s Eat!” jar contains fun stuff like, bake cookies and deliver them, bake a cake from scratch, make homemade lemonade, and create a rainbow of food.

“Oh, the places we’ll go!” obviously has places to go on the slips of paper. Hopefully we’ll be visiting a couple downtown Bellingham museums, local parks, and libraries. I don’t want to type the exciting places in my blog – the girls like to read my blog and I don’t want to give away any surprises!

The plan is that on Sundays we will look at our week and what is scheduled…swimming lessons or camps or whatever…and then we’ll pick an appropriate number of slips out and make sure that those things will all work with the weather and number of available days we have. Some slips require some advance prep, like having marshmallows in the house, and so after the slips are pulled from the jars, we’ll plan for it and hopefully accomplish it that week!

This does not mean that we will not be spontaneous and go swimming with friends or go kayaking with G&G if the opportunity presents itself. We will have total flexibility with these activities even after they’re on the calendar and can move them around accordingly. I just think it’ll be fun to try some new things and this is one way to guarantee we try at least a couple!