Summer To Do List- Fun!

Lately I've been feeling like I'm in a rut of sorts.  Nothing major, but we've been so busy with showers/weddings and more baseball than I thought possible I feel like I've slipped in spending intentional time with my family b/c at the end of those long days all I want to do is curl up on the couch on in the tub with a book or go to bed early!  None of those things are bad, but I also want to remember to be intentional with the relationships I have with my hubs and our boys. 

Plus, it's summer and summer calls for spontananity-- which if you know me-- you know that I'm NOT good at being spontaneous!  So yesterday while I was at work, but bored out of my  mind b/c we're very slow lately I was browsing my pinterest boards b/c I"m guilty of pinning and having ideas, but not carrying through with them.  I came across two things that really caught my eye.  One was a list of suppertime questions and the other was a summer fun to do list. 

I printed out each... added my own to some of the summer fun things-- tweaked it a bit. Cut little strips of paper for at least 30 min. and ended up having a ball with my boys last night.  Seeing B's eyes light up when I told him what was going on was priceless. 

Don't get me wrong- I know that one good quality I have is that I really do try to carve out time to establish routines and spend time with the boys. In the winter we play lots of board games in the evenings before bed, but as warm weather and sports took over this fell to the wayside.  We read a couple of chapters in a book before bed, we pray, we talk, and we do fun things as a family, but being spontaneous is not usually something that is high on my list of things to do!  And B loves surprises.  I knew this would fill his love tank and give us some memorable summer fun!  Corbin is happy as long as he's hanging out with us and being involved so he's pretty easy. 

I really thought that Ryan would think I was crazy, but he hopped on board and thought it was a great idea- what a happy surprise!

I know that we only had our first night of doing this and it was an off night with no ball or other activity so that made it easy, but I really do want to carve out this special time each night.  I printed off enough activities to do one per night until school starts. 

I put the cut up questions in a glass jar and the cut up "summer fun to do" activities and put those in a separate jar.  When we sat down at the supper table I set them in the middle and waited on B to ask what in the world they were.  When I explained it to him his eyes lit up.  He chose a question and we answered it... and then an activity.  He drew the activity "organize a dodge ball game".  Well since it was 107 outside I told him we'd have to play in the basement and he said, "YOU MEAN WE'RE GOING TO DO THIS TONIGHT?!?!?!"   Even he knows good ol' mom usually only goes by a plan and isn't spontanous. 

After we had cleaned up supper we headed downstairs and just used one of those big green rubber balls like they sell in the big containers at walmart.  Our dodge ball was far from organized and we basically just tried to hit each other, but the boys thought it was wonderful and we all were cracking up laughing.  It wasn't the activity that mattered, but the fact that we were being intentional in how we spent our time together. 

I don't have any pictures b/c I was too busy trying to run from three boys who were coming after me with a big green ball (can we say pick on momma?!), but I did want to share because we enjoyed it so much and I thought it might be an idea for someone else. :) 

I know that we are going to have nights (like tonight when we have a ballgame at 8:30) that it's hard to get it in, but we'll try and even if we don't make it happen every single night I think it will still be a success :)