We want to go......

It gets a little rough keeping things interesting around here during the winter.

 

Wait.

 

Scratch that.

 

The kids ALWAYS find ways to stay entertained, but during the winter, the things they find entertaining can really REALLY get on my nerves.

 

For instance, making a fort that stretches across the entire kitchen; making decorations out of colored pictures for every wall in the house; riding bikes in the house; rearranging the pantry; jumping on furniture or beds; and the list could go on.

 

So last year, I started having the kids make a winter "bucket list". Basically things we can do to keep winter interesting without driving Matt and I absolutely nuts.

 

Things like:

 

Go see Christmas lights

Go to the Dinosaur Museum

Ride the train

Make a snowman

Make cookies

Go to Chick Fil A

Go to a movie

 

Things of that nature. I like to cut-out each list item and hang it on some branches which sit in a mason jar. (This is the exact same way I display our "Thankful Tree" during Thanksgiving. Same branches, same jar, different ribbon).

 

 

 

This year, we accomplished a lot of the things during Thanksgiving break, which is a little bit of a bummer since there's a lot of winter left.

 

But!

Luckily, a lot of the items can be done multiple times - like sledding.

We live about 3 blocks away from a really fun sledding hill. It's right next to the neighborhood playground, which works out nice for our situation. Bennett isn't quite big enough to go sledding, so he has to stay home with his mommy. Dad takes the three older babies sledding by himself. (What an amazing guy!) None of the kids like to go down on their own, so Matt has to take them down on his lap one-by-one. With the playground nearby, two kids can play on the playground while Matt takes one child down the hill for a few runs.

 

 

These pictures are pretty horrible, but Bennett was in the car crying because he needed to be fed - such is the life of a nursing mother.

 

The kids had a blast and can't wait to go back. I'm just really excited that no one got hurt. Well, I take that back, Matt usually ends up hurt in some way. He's a trooper though. He carried kids up that hill for almost 2 hours.

 

Kids make life so much more fun. I never really enjoyed sledding when I was young, but it's so much fun to go now. We've already started talking about the different kinds of sleds we'll be able to buy when the kids get a little older.

 

A few years ago, when Maddox was really tiny, we used to plan things and I would feel a little bit of dread. It was SO hard to take all the kids out and try to have fun. One or two of them was always upset about something and it was really easy to get frustrated. There were a lot of times where I thought, "That's it! We're never leaving the house again!" I used to think it was because the kids were just so little, but now I'm realizing it's just because we just kept trying. We eventually learned how to keep everyone happy and the kids learned how to act when we were out. It was rough for awhile, but I'm really glad we toughed it out. I love these little adventures we get to have with our kids.