Hi Friends!
Happy October!
What a weird year... The last time I wrote in this blog was April... woah. It feels like so much has changed since then yet somehow it also feels like so much is still standing still. This year has been, well, hard. As I'm sure it has been for most of you too. I guess maybe a better word would be different? And sometimes different feels hard. Especially when it's abrupt. I've spent the past six months thinking things would go back to "normal." any day now. As you can probably assume, that got exhausting and lead to several hard days. I finally feel like I've kind of let go of that idea and instead have just decided to try to do things as "normal" as possible in my home. We LOVE holidays around here. Like so much. I started to feel pretty bummed when I realized the holidays would look pretty different this year. I sat with that for a little bit and then just tried to figure out what I CAN control and what activities my family can still do to make the holidays fun. I wrote down all of our usual traditions and tried to figure out what we can still do, what we can't do, and what we would have to adjust. I then created an October calendar and started to schedule everything in to make sure we watched all the movies, ate all the fall foods, had costumes done on time, etc... I feel soo much better now and we are already making October such a fun month. I'm planning on doing this same thing for November and December so we can still have tons of holiday fun. I encourage all of you moms that are feeling in a rut to do the same thing! I promise it'll bring happiness to you and your family. Holiday traditions are such a blast and your kids will be so happy to have a little normalcy in their lives! Just make or print out an October calendar and start filling in fun fall activities! I made little graphics with some of my personal favorite activities! I hope this helps make your October a little more fun, a little spookier, and a little more normal.
A few other things I didn't put on the graphic are:
-Halloween family home evening. I made a highlight with ideas on my IG page! Doing themed FHE is something my kids love! It makes it so fun for them!
-We use a little spider called Spooky Ooky to promote good behavior. I literally just printed out a cute spider, laminated it, and called him spooky ooky. In our house he takes toys to his "cave" (haha just a drawer) and keeps them there til the girls earn them back. He also talks to the girls each night about how they are doing behavior-wise and gives them a hug before bed. At the end of the month he gives them a "Halloween surprise" if they have earned it. They love him so much. Britt from The Holiday Co. does a fuzzy spooking spider. She has a super cute book for it too and shares a lot about him on her IG page. I started doing my version before I knew about hers but I definitely would recommend checking hers out! It's put together so well!
-Decorate cookies! The first year we moved to San Diego I was so bummed that there weren't very many fun family activities for the holidays since I was used to living in Utah where there is something to do every weekend! So, I threw a little mommy and me playdate where the whole concept originated from the idea to decorate Halloween sugar cookies. It got a little bigger as I started planning... but it was so fun! Since then I haven't thrown that big party but have still made an effort to decorate cookies! Here's a link to the party post!
-A Spooky Halloween dinner/breakfast. Pinterest has soo many fun ideas but honestly, Trader Joes will be your best friend! They have so many awesome Halloween/Fall themed treats and foods from shaped pasta to pumpkin spice everything! You can also use food coloring to literally dye anything. Black pasta is super fun! I love doing orange pancakes with Halloween sprinkles for breakfast on the 31st.
Again, it the little things like this that will make holidays soo much fun for the whole family! Figure out a few things that work for your family and run with it! And message me if you have any questions or suggestions!!
All my love,
Aleigh Joy
