my sanity savers.

Summer time is fun, but it's also really stressful and hard having the kids home all day everyday.  I have found in years past that it is always best when we have a solid plan and keep a pretty regular schedule.  Not an hour by hour schedule because that's way too much for me.  We just have to have a plan everyday so that we don't get bored and stay inside all day.  That's when I get stressed out and anxiety sets in.  Each summer we make a list of things we would love to do and try to cross everything off the list.  Here's our list for this summer:  

(my favorite one:  Make a treat for daddy's workers!)

I saw this on pinterest (I can't take credit for anything these days...) We will fill one of these charts out each week with what we plan on doing each day.

 Lunchtime is always hard for me when all of the kids are home.  I never know what to make.  In an effort to simplify that time of day, I made a lunch menu.

 Here's the inside.  It has pictures of everything the kids could possibly want for lunch.  I'm hoping that they can all decide on one thing so I don't have to make five meals in one.  We'll see how this goes.  It might be more stress than help.  All I know is, they are super excited about it.

 Now here's the ocd in me.  I had to have a place that all of this could go and I didn't want to put it on our freshly painted walls.  We cleared off the front of the fridge and made a nice home for all of them.

 I made a little pocket of paper for the menus.  Really simple.  Just stack three kinds of paper up, put a solid sheet behind it and sew across the edges to keep it secure.  I added twine to make it pretty.

 I did the same thing for the weekly activity chart only I added clothes pins so that we could attach that weeks activity to the paper pocket.

I can now breathe a sign of relief every time I walk past my fridge because I know there is a plan.  Here's hoping we make it through the summer with very few meltdowns!