June summer break so far

 

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard, “this is the worst summer ever,” “this is going to be the worst summer,” or some variation of this thought. The focus this month has been on learning a good worth ethic and building good habits. Each morning the kids have to start the day with their “morning routine.” This includes: making their bed, scriptures, journal, prayer, and doing their laundry. That’s it. But it must be done before they can eat breakfast or get going in the day with anything else. T, W, Th’s Travis is waking the boys up to do a small amount of weight lifting (nothing crazy) for about 15 mins. The other days they’re allowed to sleep in. Then each day they are responsible for accomplishing 1-hour indoor work, 1- outdoor work, and 1-hour of learning. They can easily be done by lunch if they focus, but it has NOT been received well.  I cannot tell you how many fits, fights, complaints, and tears have been shed over this new routine (by all of us!) Travis has even had to come home over a lunch break to mediate between a certain child and myself. You guys, the work isn’t even bad! During the outdoor work this sometimes includes “15 mins of walking the dog,” or “play with the girls for 30 mins.” It’s not even like it’s all yard work. And learning time includes 30mins of reading… I wish I had 30 mins a day I was forced to read! But either way, this system has been rough going and all time consuming. 

We also have had LOTS of baseball nights. Mon-Thurs evenings have been spent at the ball fields and Saturdays we’ve been divided, some of us at baseball tournaments, the others of us at soccer games. 

We’ve been enjoying going to the library each week; it’s probably been our favorite outing. We had lunch with travis while the boys were at piano lessons. Maddix has been in golf lessons, the boys have gone to Susan’s to help her around the house. We’ve been enjoying s’mores and dinners on our back patio. We’ve had friends come play at our house LOTS. And the kids have been enjoying lots of playtime with the neighborhood friends. We even got to spend an entire day with the Fox family while they were in town and it was by far one of my favorite summer days so far. 

So nothing too big or grand right now. Just the basics. Focusing on the small and simple things because we need some tune ups to our attitudes! And then I’m sure we will add in some more fun outings. I can sense some great things are to come!