Making Our Home a Haven- Day 4, Fun

If you haven't been keeping up, you can scroll down to find my other entries for the week and you can also go to the "motivator" on her blog, Monica.

Today, our focus is fun. Making memories, making coming home an atmosphere, not of tension or worry. But when the kids come home, or hubby comes home, they know they can look forward to being there.

One thing I do to make it more fun for boys and daddy when they all get home, is I get all of the work done before they come home! I try to have all work done. Or at least appear to have everything done, so that the tension of an out-of-control house, is not an issue.

Next, for the bigger boys, we do the dirty work first. We get that dreaded homework done. After homework is done, they love to make books, draw & play dress-up (you know dress-up for boys... policemen, firemen, cowboys...)

Today, here is my goal:

-Wake-up at 7am, boys up
-fed, dressed, practice those spelling words one more time!
-hubby off to work
-boys off to school
-computer time for mama, before baby wakes!
-Off to the barn ( I forget to list this, but we get our eggs, and feed chickens & cats)
-Laundry (Didn't get it finished yesterday!)
-Start of "Thanks & Giving" (see below for details)
-Sewing
-Work on Drawing Project for our Women's Ministry Tonight!
(while I do that, Caden will probably be coloring!)
-Boys home, hubby home!
-work on our "Thanks & Giving" with all boys
-Dinner: Talapia w/ Hawaiian Marinade (Mmmm!), cut potatoes (from the garden) & either sweet muffins from last week, or Pumpkin Rolls that I made last night...
-Then I am off to day 2 of our Women's Ministry Classes... And day 2 of our drawing projects! We will be finishing our Christmas Cards. I am very excited!
-Home, boys will probably be in bed, thanks to hubby
-Relax at home, Bed! (Yayyy!!!)

So, there is the day. Not everything is going to be fun, but a prep time so we can have fun.

But, one project I saw and wanted to do was called "Thanks & Giving" Trees. (The original idea is here, but I have revised it a little.) You start with a skeleton of a tree. Make another one. On one, label "Thanks", on the other label "Giving". Then make a bunch of leaves out of colored paper, or find some on the internet. Cut these leaves out.

Second stage of this project, will be the explanation and doing it! These will be for my boys... Everyday, the boys need to write one thing on a leaf that they are thankful for, and paste it on the Thanks Tree. And then write one thing they did that day, where they Gave something, like helping someone out with something, making someone smile, drew someone a picture, etc., then put that on a leaf and paste it to the Giving Tree. I think this idea can be a real good challenge for children. I want my boys to remember that they should not only be receiving things (which they are Thankful for), but they should also be doing things FOR OTHERS. This is an area of struggle... especially for most kids. I hope this is a challenge that they will remember, and continue to try to improve on.

And the thing that makes my boys the happiest when they come home, is to play with each other. I have 2 boys in school, a 2nd grader & a 1st grader. Then, I have a (almost)4 year old at home, and a 7 1/2 mo old. So the older 3 really miss each other, and they run off and play.

The thing that makes my husband the happiest when he comes home, is no dishes in the sink, and no laundry to be put away... I can USUALLY accomplish this. The laundry is the hardest, because there is SO MUCH of it!

So what are YOU doing today that is FUN???