Fall and winter are my favorite times of year. As we enter the month of September, I’m making the most of beautiful autumn weather while preparing and organizing so that we can enjoy a restful holiday season.
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Enjoying Fall and Preparing a Restful Holiday Season
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I kept life pretty simple with my August goals.
Going Back to School
The first day of school was hard on my kids, but they seem pretty well settled in now. I think the rough beginning was inevitable after an amazing summer. Organizationally, the back to school transition was seamless. The kids get up and pack their lunches, come home and put their stuff away, do homework, and practice instruments and play until dinner. After dinner is typically family time until their 7pm bedtime.
Birthdays
We enjoyed Mike, Lily, and Anna’s birthdays. Anna’s birthday party got pushed into September, just to accommodate back to school busy-ness.
Extracurriculars
The kids are sticking with music only as extracurriculars for now. If the right gymnastics program shows up, we might add that. It’s a trade off, though, because every extracurricular means less free time.
Getting Outside
Gorgeous California weather makes getting outdoors easy, especially now that Anna is excited to ride her balance bike. I’m hoping that getting Anna riding a bike will inspire her older siblings to bike more.
Setting Goals for September 2016
November and December are my favorite months of the year, so starting in September (or even August) I get as much prep work done as possible so that I can relax and enjoy the holiday season. I buy all the kids’ presents early, and I focus on organizing and de-cluttering the house. As always, I added goal focus areas in italics
September Goals
- Enjoy Anna’s birthday party. Focus on mindful living and gratitude.
- Sew together Lily’s quilt top. Focus on learning.
- Enjoy the cooler weather by spending time outside. Focus on mindful living and gratitude
- Declutter and organize downstairs shelves. Focus on mindful living
What are you hoping to accomplish this September?
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MaryAnne is a craft loving educator, musician, photographer, and writer who lives in Silicon Valley with her husband Mike and their four children.
September has proved to be pretty busy for us so far, but we’re about to celebrate some very important birthdays in this house…40 and 12! I’m busy getting ready for that!
September is such a hectic month. My kids all start school tomorrow: 2 in high school and one in middle school! Yikes! How did this happen so fast?! I need the month to get into the swing of the new schedule … so I would like to tag along with your goals of gratitude, and mindful living. While I am looking forward to fall weather, I am missing the summer already. It went by way too fast this year. The years seem to fly by faster and faster.
I also want to focus on the idea of creativity for myself and my kids.
This September we’re going to Williamsburg, so this week is crazy prep for Williamsburg week.
We love our balance bikes! My two- year-old just claimed the smaller one and she is so excited about it.
We have a lot going on between work and volunteering. My goal for September is to make it to Point Reyes – we planned to go this summer, but it slipped from our list :)
Point Reyes is beautiful!
My kids all got super-enthusiastic about biking again when David had to finally give up the balance bike to his younger brother… and then learned how to ride a “real” bike the same day! His older sister fiiiinally learned that day, too. In fact, they all rode around and around our back garden so much that they killed one area of the grass and I had to put a halt to it! I hope Anna’s balance bike triggers a similar chain reaction for your family. :) I love how you prep early for the holidays – thanks for inspiring/reminding me to get going with that, too!
I’m hopeful, especially since it worked like this for your family!
I love your decluttering goal. I have one as well. Looks like you have a fun month ahead of you. We just had our first day of school and we shall see what all happens. I hope you have fun outside!
I hope your girls enjoy school this year!