Summer Fun!

 

As a stay at home Mom I do feel lucky to be able to have year round spending my days with my little ones but it's always been just kind of "go with the flow" days and we would pick out each day what we wanted to do, the challenge  for me now is finding fun things to entertain a toddler while having the baby there too.  Now that it is summer and Cory is older and able to communicate a lot and I know he really enjoys getting out to play and do new things so I wanted to set up a kind of theme for the week to get away from the monotony of staying home.  I just love summers and getting to spend lots of time outdoors and playing in water and Cory is just full of energy and no longer takes a nap so I have thought about lots of fun things to do with him to help preoccupy him and our time.  I know I have a 6 week old which makes it a bit more of a challenge to do a lot and I don't want the day to be jam packed, but I wanted to set it up to have at least 1 specific thing to do that day along with the daily routine. 

Here it is for each day of the week, (some ideas I got from pinterest):

1.  "Make it Monday" -  This will be a day where we make something each week.  Ideas are to make a craft, paint a picture with finger paint, build a Lego castle, make a fort, some kind of art project or even making a batch of cookies together! 

2.  "The Play Day Tuesday" - Tuesdays are when Cory's best buddy Avery comes over to play so this will be a day to play with all kinds of toys, play outside, swing, jump on the trampoline, etc.

3. "Water Wednesday" - This will be a day to get wet!  Sprinklers, pool day, baby splash pool, play in the hose, water table, water the plants, etc. 

4.  "Take a Trip Thursday" - Thursday is a day I will venture out with the boys ;) I will just do things I feel comfortable with by myself (like probably not the zoo this day).  This day we'll go to the library, go to the park/playground, go to Jen's house to play with Kayla/Clay or a friend's house, go to McDonald's playhouse and get ice cream cones, etc.

5.  "Family Fun Friday" - This will be our fun family day with Daddy here too!  This day we could do something fun like go to the zoo, go to All About Kids or an open gym, go for a hike, story time at the library, then in the evening have a family movie night or maybe even a family camp out occasionally in our backyard with a bonfire.  Cory would have fun pitching a tent and sleeping outside on a warm summer night. 

Then for the weekends, Saturdays will be a day to do whatever comes up, grill out BBQ with friends or family, yard work, get groceries, etc, and Sunday is church day where we go to morning and evening service and have a relaxing rest day at home in between and I can plan for the week's activities! 

I am looking forward to Vacation Bible School which will be fun and the library has tons of fun activities and things going on this summer so I plan to take the kids to the different events and crafts they have there.  Yesterday we took Cory to the Summer kick off at the library where they had a petting zoo there and we just love going to the library, we check out movies and books while there too. 

These are the plans, of course things will come up where our schedule fluctuates but I will switch days when things come up and maybe stay in on the day we take a trip if we've already gone out and done quite a bit that week or something, it will all be flexible and hopefully lots of fun for Cory!  We will also continue things we have in place already like our daily family walk every evening with the pups and Cory and I will do our daily chores, and have a reading time and coloring time in the mornings before we do our main activity.  Cory is getting at the age where he can help out with the household duties and enjoys helping Mommy so I want to add some little responsibilities for him to do each day like picking up his toys and books, helping mommy with laundry, etc. before we go out and about.

Yay for Summer!!