This Mesa Mom: Getting Organized for Summer

I'm down the to the wire. When I woke up my kids this morning - I reminded them it was the LAST week of school! FOUR more days (counting today!) till they are home for the summer. I realized I need to get organized. For me, being organized helps me be a better mom, keep my house clean, and lets my kids make their own choices, and know what to look forward to every day.

So I got out my calendar, and I organized the next few months. We have a modified year round schedule, so my kids start school again at the very end of June. But I wrote down all our doctor appointments, camps, swimming lessons, birthday parties, planned vacations, etc.

Then I got to work. Here's a few things I created:

Summer chore chart and weekly schedule. I've assigned chores to each child each day, some are the same every day, some change. I saw somewhere were 20 minutes of physical activity was also included in their daily tasks. I love this idea. We have a pool in our backyard, so we swim almost every day in the summer. It's too hot in the summer months to be outside for long periods of time in Arizona, and since I know we will be swimming often, I did not include that.

Here's a close up of our weekly schedule:

And our chore chart:

I got this idea from Pinterest. Here's the link to Kristen Duke's blog. I did it a little different....my kids are younger and I didn't want to have to keep track of fake money. My kids drive me crazy about food! So this summer I'm being proactive. I got these cute tubs at Target. I divided up the snacks to "semi-healthy" {crackers, pretzels, goldfish, healthier granola bars} and "not-so-healthy" {cookies, granola bars, pudding} and then I labeled the semi-healthy snacks for am, and the "not-so-healthy" snacks for pm. They can choose one snack in the morning, and one in the afternoon. They can also have a yogurt or string cheese in the afternoon to help keep them full for dinner. I also have a stash of popsicles, fruit snacks, and more candy-type treats for trips to the movies, random treats, and field trips and car rides. I will have fruits and veggies stocked up for "free" food that they can eat anytime.