Thursday, June 28, 2012

REDy or not... It's summer vacation!

I am so happy today! It's the last day of school and I get to have both my boys home for two whole months!
Nesta LOVED his teacher this year. I wanted to buy him a gift for being so darn awesome but I don't have a lot of extra money right now so I turned to Pinterest for an idea and found the cutest gift bag stuffed with all kinds of goodies that were orange and a gift tag that said "orange you glad it's summer?"

I'm too stubborn to use another persons idea so Nesta and I came up with our own twist...(no pun intended)







Yes, I'm that mother who has tears streaming down my cheeks at back to school time, but truth be told I have been experiencing a bit of anxiety about the summer time boredom epidemic. I remember being a kid and telling my mom I was bored. She would always tell me to draw, read, or write but she never offered to join me.  I would just roll my eyes and go back to watching the TV. I grew up watching a lot of TV in fact I can still remember the exact after school programming for the 3 channels I had. I guess I turned out okay, but there is a lot of literature that suggests we should limit our children's screen time to an hour a day. That includes tv, hand held devices, computers, and video games. I'm determined to have activities prepared for my kids when the inevitable words leave their mouths... "MOM! I'm bored!"
Again, I'm turning to Pinterest.  Some of the bloggers out there are so creative, organized and inspiring to me. I figured I's better start with the organizing thing...at the moment my favourite organizing blog is...i heart organizing I'm sure Jen would agree that the boy's room as it was, was not suitable for an organized summer. I live in a 3 bedroom 1500 sq/ft apartment, so we gave the boys the master bedroom, so it could double as their playroom, and we could still have a spare room/ office.  I'm not always thinking "I should blog about this", when I set out to accomplish a household task, so my 'before' picture is actually a '20 minutes in' picture...
Ughhh...it took a lot of nerve to actually post that shot! Don't judge me...this was a combination of a pre-existing disaster area...and the start of re-arranging the furniture. In the end though I think I achieved a more organized space for sleeping, playing, and crafting...





I found an awesome idea for taming the technology monster that is right in line with my philosophy on limiting screen time over at Organizing Made Fun! Check out these printables...
Just cut 'em out, and the kids get to choose their form of media in 15 minute intervals! GENIUS!
With Canada Day right around the corner, and 4th of July shortly after, I thought Winston and I would get right to it with the crafts after I saw this idea on...you guessed it...Pinterest
We're not celebrating the stars & stripes so here's our Canada Day version...





I've been pinning lots more 'boredom busting ideas on my board "Summer Projects" 
Let the boredom begin!!!

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