Our last semester of college, D and I took on a lot.
He was attending both BYU full time and UVU full time in their intense fire academy, working 20 hours a week, and helping me with all of my crazy projects.
I was attending BYU full time, working 20 hours a week TAing 2 classes, and directing 2 shows.
We hardly had any time together.
We were crazy.
Life lately has felt a lot like that semester.
D works until 3:30pm and when he gets home, I pass off J and teach piano and voice until 8pm M-Th.
And then it's dinner, bath, bottle, rocking and snuggling boy, and then we're all ready to crash.
Friday and Saturday we find ourselves just playing catch up (laundry,
cleaning, grocery shopping, doctors appointments, returning phone calls etc.) and then Sunday is, well, Sunday.
We hardly have any time together.
We are crazy.
Something needed to change.
We had a long conversation late one night about a week ago (and we both stayed awake the whole time!). I committed to doing more to keep the house clean and tidy and stocked with food during the mornings with J, and D committed to doing the same in the afternoons while I teach lessons.
We also decided to implement
Friday Family Fun Days
in our home.
We need more fun and joy together!
Spending all of our time working on endless to-do lists is not the way we should be using all of our time.
I got my idea from this date night idea, but tweaked it to fit our purposes.
I picked up some colored popsicle sticks at Michael's, busted out a mason jar and some sharpies and went to town writing ideas for our Friday Family Fun Days on the popsicle sticks!
I got my idea from this date night idea, but tweaked it to fit our purposes.
I picked up some colored popsicle sticks at Michael's, busted out a mason jar and some sharpies and went to town writing ideas for our Friday Family Fun Days on the popsicle sticks!
My ideas include:
- Take silly-face pictures
- Write letters to far away family members
- Make and play with play-doh
- Make a gratitude list
- Make homemade pizza and watch The Italian Job
- Watch old BYU Football on YouTube
- Finger paint
- Go swimming
- Play Bingo
- Go to the dog park
- Make family silhouettes
- Make a goody basket and ding-dong-ditch someone
- Play with Legos
- Go on a hike/walk
- Plan our next family vacation
- Go bowling
- Learn all of the rules of College Football
- Do family history work
- Go to a concert
- Go Stargazing
- Make sock puppets
- Go to a museum
- Go to a sporting event
- Play Rock Band
- Color
- Go to the temple
- Go to a bookstore and read our favorite children's books to J
- Build a fort and watch a movie
- Go ice skating
- Go four-wheeling
- Go out for dessert
- Visit the zoo
- Look at Christmas lights
- Design our dream home
- Go on a ABC photo scavenger hunt (take a picture of something that starts with A, B, C, etc.)
Some activities take more $ and coordinating than others, so we draw a popsicle stick on Mondays.
Some activities are seasonal (like Christmas lights).
But they're all fun!
So now Fridays in our home are all about having fun together! It's precious time set aside to not worry about anything other than being together and enjoying one another.
Great idea Landon! We are huge on having fun together as a family. It is not always easy because Tyler has school almost every night, but man does it make a difference to family life. I have also vowed that date night will be re-instituted when we make a friend we can trade babysitting with, move back to Utah County (free g-ma babysitter) or Tyler finally graduates. Those times are precious for a marriage too.
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