I can't believe it has been a month since I last posted here. Time is flying by and the school year is going to be over before we know it!
We still haven't found a great way of getting our mornings running smoothly and next year all 3 of my kids will be going to school! My husband has suggested that they should be required to get all their chores done before getting to eat breakfast and I think that is something to certainly try. I'm just worried that they'll end up going to school without breakfast, but he doesn't think that will happen. It's not like they have a lot to do before school...just the basic things. They need to put away their PJs, make their bed, brush their hair and feed the pets. Then we could do breakfast and finish up with brushing their teeth right before leaving. The more I think about it, the more I like it.
My kids are probably not going to like the idea, but it really might make our mornings run smoother. I think we'll have to talk about it tonight during Family Home Evening and get started with it tomorrow.
Our afternoon schedule is still working out well. Some days the kids get to play video games/computer time and others they decide to not finish their chores and they don't get to. I'm still working on the not nagging part because I'd always like their chores done, but this is still the best afternoon routine we've tried so we are going to stick with it.
I guess it is time to start thinking about morning and afternoon routines for the summer time!
Monday, April 22, 2013
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
Early to Rise Challenge Etc
I've officially given up the Early to Rise Challenge and life his been less stressful for me. I just really don't think that me getting up before my kids would helpful to me. I can see how it would benefit a lot of people, but things are working fine for me the way that we've been doing them.
I actually got up today at 7:05 without an alarm clock set, so maybe all I needed was the stress of the alarm gone to get up earlier.
I would eventually like to get up earlier for the sole purpose of getting exercise in before I take the kids to school, but I'm not going to force it. I'm going to keep working on waking up without an alarm and see if I start to wake up earlier.
Even though I've been ignoring this blog, I have still been thinking about my "trying to yell less" challenge for myself. I even went downstairs to talk to one of my kids yesterday instead of just yelling from the top of the stairs. Which for me is huge. I am constantly just yelling at them from upstairs to do things or to get ready to go somewhere. I am trying to change this. I want to make sure and always been in the same room as my kids when I'm talking to them.
Our new after school schedule is still working marvelously. The kids choose to get their chores done most of the time so that they can get a little video game time in. There has only been a few days where they played instead and didn't get them done. And I just let it happen. I didn't yell or get upset when chores weren't finished. I just explained that there would be no video games because they had chosen to not get their chores done. It was glorious.
Now, I still need to find a way to get mornings running more smoothly.
I actually got up today at 7:05 without an alarm clock set, so maybe all I needed was the stress of the alarm gone to get up earlier.
I would eventually like to get up earlier for the sole purpose of getting exercise in before I take the kids to school, but I'm not going to force it. I'm going to keep working on waking up without an alarm and see if I start to wake up earlier.
Even though I've been ignoring this blog, I have still been thinking about my "trying to yell less" challenge for myself. I even went downstairs to talk to one of my kids yesterday instead of just yelling from the top of the stairs. Which for me is huge. I am constantly just yelling at them from upstairs to do things or to get ready to go somewhere. I am trying to change this. I want to make sure and always been in the same room as my kids when I'm talking to them.
Our new after school schedule is still working marvelously. The kids choose to get their chores done most of the time so that they can get a little video game time in. There has only been a few days where they played instead and didn't get them done. And I just let it happen. I didn't yell or get upset when chores weren't finished. I just explained that there would be no video games because they had chosen to not get their chores done. It was glorious.
Now, I still need to find a way to get mornings running more smoothly.
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
Early to Rise Challenge Day 9
I actually got up at 7:00 today even though I could have slept in because I don't have anything to get to this morning! I feel like I shouldn't be so excited about getting up at 7:00, but since I've been struggling so much I do feel excited.
If I keep up with 7:00 for the rest of the week I think we'll try and move on to 6:45 next week.
If I keep up with 7:00 for the rest of the week I think we'll try and move on to 6:45 next week.
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
Early to Rise Day 8
I keep wondering if I should give up on this Early to Rise challenge because I am just not doing very well, but I'm going to keep trying until the month is up. Maybe by the end of the month I'll be doing better.
I woke up just before my 7:00 am alarm and turned it off and went back to bed until 7:38. I shouldn't be tired because I feel like I'm going to bed at a decent time (always before 11:00) but I just feel like I need more sleep whenever it comes time to get out of bed. I'm going to keep trying to get up at 7:00 until it becomes easy. Perhaps my challenge is going to last longer than a month.
I woke up just before my 7:00 am alarm and turned it off and went back to bed until 7:38. I shouldn't be tired because I feel like I'm going to bed at a decent time (always before 11:00) but I just feel like I need more sleep whenever it comes time to get out of bed. I'm going to keep trying to get up at 7:00 until it becomes easy. Perhaps my challenge is going to last longer than a month.
Monday, March 11, 2013
This Week's Menu Plan
I love when people post their weekly menu on their blog because I like getting new ideas for our dinner, so I thought I'd start sharing mine every Monday.
Breakfast at our house is never planned but will consist of either pancakes, cereal or eggs of some sort.
Lunch is also never planned, but is mostly sandwiches with some macaroni and cheese thrown in here or there.
Dinner plans for this week include:
Fish Tacos with Cilantro Rice (recipe adapted from Alton Brown's)
Orange Chicken Stir Fry (found on pinterest, this will be our first time trying it)
Chicken Noodle Casserole
Clean out the Freezer Night
Crock Pot Beef Tacos
Leftovers
Eat Out
I usually try to plan 4-5 things to eat each week depending on how many leftovers I think we'll have. I also do plan which specific days I'm going to cook things depending on what is going on each night and how much time I'll have to prepare dinner. Things of course don't always work out as planned and sometimes we end up with sandwiches for dinner, but for the most part, I've gotten good at keeping to my plan. It's taken years to perfect it though.
Breakfast at our house is never planned but will consist of either pancakes, cereal or eggs of some sort.
Lunch is also never planned, but is mostly sandwiches with some macaroni and cheese thrown in here or there.
Dinner plans for this week include:
Fish Tacos with Cilantro Rice (recipe adapted from Alton Brown's)
Orange Chicken Stir Fry (found on pinterest, this will be our first time trying it)
Chicken Noodle Casserole
Clean out the Freezer Night
Crock Pot Beef Tacos
Leftovers
Eat Out
I usually try to plan 4-5 things to eat each week depending on how many leftovers I think we'll have. I also do plan which specific days I'm going to cook things depending on what is going on each night and how much time I'll have to prepare dinner. Things of course don't always work out as planned and sometimes we end up with sandwiches for dinner, but for the most part, I've gotten good at keeping to my plan. It's taken years to perfect it though.
Our Weekend
I started this blog so that I could vent somewhere about how terrible I feel when I spend all day long yelling at my kids, or at least it feels like that is all I do.
But whenever I sit down to write about one of our days, I can't recall the same type of yelling that occurred before I started the blog and it's only been just over a week. Perhaps just starting the blog and feeling like I'm going to be more accountable has helped, though I'm certainly not thinking about it throughout my day. "I better not yell right now because then I'd have to write about it on my blog" is not what ever goes through my mind, but either way I'm happy that there is already less yelling.
We had a fun, relaxing Saturday with the whole family, which really doesn't happen that often. We spent our morning doing chores, which the kids are still getting used to. It wasn't really going well and was taking way too long so I did have to get upset and start the timer for our boys to finish up. If they can't finish before the timer, there are no video games that day. I didn't really yell, but I wasn't that calm when I let them know that I was turning the timer on. After that, they started working their little bottoms off and were able to get done just in time to be able to play some video games. Except that we had some errands to run before they could play.
I was in the mood to spend money instead of sitting at home all day so we went to the mall because I had some clothes money burning a hole in my pocket. The boys picked out a few T shirts because that is all they needed right now and then they were real troopers as me and Emily shopped for her and spent forever trying on clothes. We also went to Toys R Us and let the kids spend their allowance and birthday money. Last stop was Home Depot to pick up a few things so that we could spend some of Sunday finishing up trim and painting to get ready for our carpet that will be installed in the next month at some point.
Kids were well enough behaved through all this that we never yelled at them, which was strange. And then when we came home and spent the rest of the day/evening just hanging out doing our own things, there also was no yelling. I don't know what is going on in our house!
Sunday was spent going to church and then working on painting the trim in our bedroom. The kids played well together while we were at home and again, no yelling. I think this weekend was a freak accident or something. Or maybe with me yelling less, the kids behave better? We'll just have to keep seeing how things go. Our new afternoon schedule for school days is still working beautifully, which seems to really make the rest of our day go better.
Here is to another week of less yelling in our home.
But whenever I sit down to write about one of our days, I can't recall the same type of yelling that occurred before I started the blog and it's only been just over a week. Perhaps just starting the blog and feeling like I'm going to be more accountable has helped, though I'm certainly not thinking about it throughout my day. "I better not yell right now because then I'd have to write about it on my blog" is not what ever goes through my mind, but either way I'm happy that there is already less yelling.
We had a fun, relaxing Saturday with the whole family, which really doesn't happen that often. We spent our morning doing chores, which the kids are still getting used to. It wasn't really going well and was taking way too long so I did have to get upset and start the timer for our boys to finish up. If they can't finish before the timer, there are no video games that day. I didn't really yell, but I wasn't that calm when I let them know that I was turning the timer on. After that, they started working their little bottoms off and were able to get done just in time to be able to play some video games. Except that we had some errands to run before they could play.
I was in the mood to spend money instead of sitting at home all day so we went to the mall because I had some clothes money burning a hole in my pocket. The boys picked out a few T shirts because that is all they needed right now and then they were real troopers as me and Emily shopped for her and spent forever trying on clothes. We also went to Toys R Us and let the kids spend their allowance and birthday money. Last stop was Home Depot to pick up a few things so that we could spend some of Sunday finishing up trim and painting to get ready for our carpet that will be installed in the next month at some point.
Kids were well enough behaved through all this that we never yelled at them, which was strange. And then when we came home and spent the rest of the day/evening just hanging out doing our own things, there also was no yelling. I don't know what is going on in our house!
Sunday was spent going to church and then working on painting the trim in our bedroom. The kids played well together while we were at home and again, no yelling. I think this weekend was a freak accident or something. Or maybe with me yelling less, the kids behave better? We'll just have to keep seeing how things go. Our new afternoon schedule for school days is still working beautifully, which seems to really make the rest of our day go better.
Here is to another week of less yelling in our home.
Early to Rise Challenge Day 7
Can I blame not getting up on time on Daylight Savings time even though I've gotten just as much sleep over the past 2 days as I normally would have anyway?
My alarm went off at 7:00 this morning and I thought I'd have no problem getting up, but I just could not get out of bed. I spent the next 45 minutes just hanging out with the hubby in bed. I think I might have dozed off...
I still plan on trying this challenge for the rest of this month, but at this point I'm not seeing myself sticking with it after that. I enjoy my sleep and have no reason to get up early. I'm sticking with it though to see if maybe I would enjoy getting up early.
My alarm went off at 7:00 this morning and I thought I'd have no problem getting up, but I just could not get out of bed. I spent the next 45 minutes just hanging out with the hubby in bed. I think I might have dozed off...
I still plan on trying this challenge for the rest of this month, but at this point I'm not seeing myself sticking with it after that. I enjoy my sleep and have no reason to get up early. I'm sticking with it though to see if maybe I would enjoy getting up early.
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