How We Spend Our Days

There's so much that shifts in your life when you have children! I feel like we are always having to change our home environment to accommodate my children's developmental stages. Just when I finally get around to moving things off the bottom shelf out of Tate's crawling reach, then he's walking and I have to do it all over again! 

There are also shifts in the kinds of activities we spend our days doing. I remember being so happy when Henry reached the age when he no longer put every.single.thing in his mouth and we could finally take him to the park to crawl around. 

Our family is in a new stage now: the one nap stage. We recently decided to make the switch, and it's awesome! Our schedule feels so much more wide-open on the weekends. Tate was napping at 9:30am and 2:30pm, which really truncated our options. Now we just need to be home by noon. We have a nice morning block and afternoon block for family time. 

I feel like I need to spend a couple minutes wrapping my brain around this shift. For example, last weekend we were able to go to church for the first time in more than a year (we go to a Unitarian Universalist Church, which is a very non-churchy church). 

What are some of the things we want to fit into our weekends? 

• Matt's run on Saturday (he takes the boys in the double-stroller, which is awesome); I use this time to blog
• Picking up the house: I've been trying to get into the habit of doing this for 15 minutes each evening. I turn on the New Age Essentials station on Pandora and try to use it as a bit of a meditation experience. If I keep this up, then there won't be much that needs to get done on the weekend. 
• My run: I can fit this in on Sunday morning while Matt takes the boys to the dog park
• Church: We can go after my run (there's time to come home and shower before hand)
• Tacos! We can pick up breakfast tacos on the way home from church.
• Getting outdoors! We have lots of trails around, the Nature and Science Center, the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, etc. 
• Grocery shopping
• Food prep for the week
• Crafting: I'd like to get into the habit of doing a craft each week with Henry
• More time outdoors: Our front-yard garden is a fun place to hang out, as is our backyard.

I know! I should make a list on our big whiteboard. Having a list will help me find the perfect blend of planning and spontaneity. When we have a big chunk of time and don't know what we want to do, we can consult the list for ideas. I have certain projects I want to do (like build a sandbox) and little holiday traditions (like carve pumpkins) and certain places I want to go (like back to the Austin Animal Sanctuary). 

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