The timing of me having baby Asa worked out perfectly so
that I can use my 12 week maternity leave to stay home with the kids all summer
which I’m so excited about. I’ve always wanted to be a stay at home wife/mom so
here is my chance to see if I can do it without going crazy...lol. Keeping in mind I’ll have a newborn, I don’t
want to over schedule, yet I also know
that if I want to keep the kids and myself sane, we need to have some
activities planned. I don’t want anyone getting stir crazy or spending the whole
summer watching tv because we don’t know what else to do.
For activities this June, all three kids will be doing the
summer reading program at the library on Tuesdays, Jaleigh and Brandon will be
taking an art class on Wednesdays and Jaleigh will have a week long
cheerleading class. Luckily Gram (my mom) is off in the summers she’ll be able
to help with transport duty. I’m very thankful they are old enough to
enjoy activities on their own without a parent being there to supervise. They
are also all taking swimming lessons, but in the evenings so Dad can
transport and get to see what all they learn.
They all love the water so we figured a nightly swim would be a lot of
fun and a great way to wear them out too. :)
We’ll see how June goes before we schedule July, but most likely we’ll
keep the swimming lessons without any other weekly activities for that month so we can slow down and make time for other special events.
Also, we’ll have all three kid’s birthdays. I love planning parties, but knew it would be
tough to pull together with Asa here so I planned them all in advance and have
already ordered everything I need besides the cakes. Jaleigh will be having a “Girls
Rock” rock star themed party with family and friends followed by a sleepover
with a few of her friends here. I’m
hoping we can find her a reasonably priced guitar as a gift since she’s been
asking for once since she became "Taylor Swift's biggest fan." For Brandon’s birthday we hope to have it in
Sweetwater with my grandparents like we did for Aidan’s last year. It will be
Thomas the Train Themed. For Aidan, we’ll have a small party here with a Monster
Truck Theme.
Besides birthday parties, I also have bought everything we
need for our summer reading parties. The kids read every night to us and then we read from a chapter book to them. When we finish the book we have a party
that includes basic costumes, a themed dinner followed by the movie of the book
we read. Last year we read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and The Secret Garden. This year we’ll be
reading Peter Pan and Alice and Wonderland. Any ideas for the themed meal for
these two books are welcomed as I haven’t made the full menus yet.
To ensure good behavior and help around the house we’ve
created a few more things as well. I made behavior charts (Thanks to Debbie Rohloff for the idea) for each child with
five items each on them. We tried to keep them
positive sounding rather than negative. For example, “Aidan can say please and
thank you.” So instead of just getting angry with Aidan when he doesn’t, we
will notice when he does and each time put a sticker on that section of the
chart. Once they get so many stickers we will let them do something special
with us. For example Brandon may want to go out to eat with his Dad or Jaleigh
may want to go get a pedicure with me (I’m hoping for that one..haha). Josh also wanted to teach the kids about
money this year. Not only how to count
it, but what to do with it. So he came
up with the idea for a “Chore Store.”
They had chores last year but this year they will be paid for them plus
given extra opportunities to earn more by doing other chores that will help me
out. At the end of the week, Josh will
pay them, teach them to set aside what goes to God, what goes to their
piggy banks for saving and then they will
be allowed to spend the rest at the “Chore Store” which will be
stocked with dollar store toys and various kinds of candy.
Finally, since we’d like their grades to go up next year, we’ve
purchased workbooks and flash cards so they can set aside some “school time”
each day. All of my friends in school to
be teachers are welcome to take over this for me whenever they’d like since
teaching is new to me. I'll sign off that you did your student teaching. ;) We're also planning to buy a small pool and
set it up in the back yard as well as the slip and slide so the kids will be
encouraged to play outside. It was really tough for them last summer with the
extreme heat so hopefully this will take care of that. Add a few movies, video games, and lots of
books, friends and snowcones and we should have another wonderful summer together! We've made our schedule, but we'll have to see what Asa has to say about it and adjust accordingly. I'll update as the summer continues with pictures and details of how everything goes!
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