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Week 2: Getting in Shape – after 40

October 20, 2017 by kim.milius@gmail.com Leave a Comment

(If you’re just finding this, you can click here to go back to week 1, the first of my getting in shape after 40 series.)

It’s been a week, so it’s time to check in! Usually what happens with me is that I start to work on getting back in shape and then I have an injury or get sick and it gets derailed. I always wonder why that would happen when I’m trying to do something good. After my Friday declaration of it being time to get back in shape, I started running a fever on Saturday afternoon and had a rough couple of days of a cold that kept my head feeling all foggy. This time, though, I realized that maybe the little bit of adversity is a way of testing my resolve. And I decided that a little sickness wasn’t going to stop me. Luckily, it was just a little bit of sickness. It held on for several days but I wouldn’t start feeling tired, run down, and foggy headed until after lunch time so at least I got my exercise done in the morning and plans for healthy meals. It could’ve been much worse; my husband, who never takes sick days, has been in bed for 3 1/2 days this week.

For exercise, I kept with the walking I’ve been doing and added some jogging. I was worried it would be too hard, but it felt so good! I started out easy with 1 minute of jogging 3 times during the walk but by today I was able to increase it to 2 minutes of jogging 3 times during the walk. I did that for Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and a 20 minute beach body workout on Tuesday and Thursday for strength training. I take Sunday off and need to come up with a plan for my Saturdays when the kids are home and we’re off our normal routine — I haven’t figured that out yet. I actually started to get excited and feel like maybe I could work toward a 5k sometime in the spring.

And it paid off! The numbers on the scale actually started moving down for the first time in a very long time and it feels so great! So I have some great tips and recipes to share with you from my week!

Tip 1: No eating after 8pm. I heard this years and years ago and it’s something that is so hard for me to do. My last child goes off to bed at 8:15 and then I want to pull out ice cream and chips and anything bad for me and sit in front of mindless tv. I am exhausted at the end of the day! This week, though, I did pretty well at keeping to the no eating after 8pm rule. I did have a small snack a couple of times but tried to keep it healthier. Bonus Tip: If you’re trying to do this, don’t scroll through Pinterest in the evenings — all the yummy food pins make it really hard to stay away from the snacks!!

Tip 2: With me being sick last Saturday it became a pizza night. But I learned a great tip from a friend a couple months back. She cuts the pizza slices in half! So, if you eat 3 slices, its really only 1 1/2 regular slices of pizza. It really is a mental thing but it works with my kids and with me and the family, as a whole, ate less pizza than we usually do.

Tip 3: One thing I forgot to mention in my back story last week is that 3 years ago I was in a car accident. I ended up with lots of back and neck pain. I finally got over the back pain but ended up having neck surgery (disc replacement — I have titanium parts now!) back in March. I feel like any type of chronic pain makes it hard to exercise and eat well. So, I try to keep up with the stretching that I know makes me feel better. I’ve found some great stretching routines on YouTube. Brett Larkin has lots of short yoga routines for different ailments. Right now, I use this neck routine every day (when I skip a day, I have terrible headaches). And when I was dealing with my low back pain, I used this routine.

Recipes!

Here’s a few of our favorite healthy recipes from this week:

Blackened Chicken with Cilantro Lime Quinoa — This is one of my favorite meals (healthy or not healthy!). It really is amazing, especially with the cool avocado sauce on top!

Slow Cooker Apple Cinnamon Oatmeal — A friend went to the produce market yesterday and picked up a huge box of apples for me. With the extra apples, I remembered this recipe that I haven’t made in a long time. It has a little bit of sugar, but I still feel like its pretty healthy. 3 out of 5 kids loved it for breakfast which says a lot around here! Throw 2 sliced apples, 1/3 cup brown sugar, 1 tsp cinnamon in the bottom of the crock pot. Pour 2 cups of oatmeal and 4 cups of water on top. Do NOT stir. Cook overnight for 8 – 9 hours on low.

Parmesan Garlic Sweet Potatoes — My personal recipe! These are a great side dish for a meal or sometimes I just eat a bowl of them for lunch.

Parmesan Garlic Sweet Potatoes

If you’re following along with me, I’d love to hear your progress! How did it go this week? What will you improve next week? What great tips or healthy recipes do you have to share?

How We Reduced the Yelling in Our Home

October 18, 2017 by kim.milius@gmail.com Leave a Comment

(This post contains affiliate links which means if you choose to click on a link and buy that item, I’ll get a small portion of the sale for advertising. Please understand that I only recommend products we already know, love, and use around our own house, there’s no increase of price to you, and it’s just a way to pay for the time I spend putting off my chores by blogging about things I love!)

I wouldn’t say that we were horrible at yelling in our house, but any amount of yelling is too much for me. I especially hate it when I find myself yelling at the kids because I’m old enough to know better and I should have better control. Besides, what kind of example am I being? I would often find myself thinking that when I’m a grandma, I would be sad to hear my kids yell at their kids, just like I do to them. Then, I heard this quote* “there should never be yelling in the home unless there’s a fire.”

It was a lightbulb moment for me! It stuck with me and I thought a lot about it. I also thought about how I wanted our house to be a safe place, a sanctuary for our family. How can we feel like its a sanctuary when we’re yelling at each other?

So, we sat the kids down and talked about what a sanctuary is and how our home should be like a sanctuary for our family. We also talked about how yelling takes that feeling away from our home and they all agreed that they didn’t like the feeling when there was yelling.

And then I introduced the quote! “There should never be yelling in the home unless there’s a fire.” I pulled out my new toy bullhorn that makes a fire engine siren and told them that when someone was yelling, I would turn on the siren because there must be a fire in the house.

And it has worked like a charm! There is still the occasional outburst, kids yelling at each other or while they’re throwing a tantrum, but I can usually (not always) diffuse it with the siren (or talking in a deep, calm voice through the bullhorn). This thing is the greatest! And there were three things that surprised me about how it worked:

I don’t even need to use it very often anymore, because the kids became more aware of their actions or got out of the habit or something. Basically, the amount of yelling has decreased tremendously.
The kids all thought the bullhorn was fun (It’s a cute and loud toy, what’s not to love?) but my 7 year old who I’ve had lots of struggles with lately actually told me one day, when I had to use the siren, that I always think of such fun things to use in the house. It was a good moment for us!
My yelling has greatly decreased! I thought it would be helpful for the kids but what I discovered is that most of my yelling is done while trying to get the kids to stop yelling. By using the bullhorn it gives me a way to address what’s going on without yelling. Most of the time I just run toward the yelling with the siren on and saying, “Where’s the fire? Where’s the fire?”. When I do need to continue to speak, I do so in a deep, calm voice through the bullhorn and that can even get some laughs out of kids that are throwing tantrums. I never thought I’d use the bullhorn part. I just bought it for the siren. But the bullhorn came in handy too!

If you’re going to use this neat little trick to help with the yelling in your house, I’d suggest a few things:

We have a rule that kids don’t touch the bullhorn/siren. Our house is noisy enough & I don’t need the added noise of kids playing with a siren. It would also lose its effectiveness if they heard it all the time. It sits on top of the fridge and only Mom and Dad get to touch it.
Make sure you include the sanctuary/safe place talk when introducing the bullhorn/siren.
Remember that you don’t need to yell when you’re using the siren. It is loud enough to get their attention, so you can keep your voice calm and quiet.
It won’t work every time. That’s okay! If you have young kids, there will be times when their tantrum can’t be quieted. I just have them go to their room and close the door so the rest of us don’t have to listen to it.

If you want to get your own bullhorn/siren, you can get it here at Amazon.

*The quote is attributed to David O. McKay, but I couldn’t find a source to verify that it was true. I did, however, find a source for this quote by David O. McKay: “Let husband and wife never speak in loud tones to each other, ‘unless the house is on fire'”

Getting in shape — after 40

October 13, 2017 by kim.milius@gmail.com 2 Comments

TODAY IS THE DAY! I’m in the worst shape of my life . . . okay, not the worst shape. But I’ve almost gotten back to my heaviest weight and although I have been exercising for a while now, I’m still tired a lot, would rather sit than be up taking care of things, and am exhausted at the end of every day. I need all that to change & I’m starting today on a Friday — not waiting for Monday! I’ll post each Friday with an update on how its going and any great tips or recipes I find along the way in case you want to do it with me too.

Here’s the long back story . . . not excuses, just how I got to where I am today:

I was never happy with my weight in high school. Although, looking back, I sure wish I could go back to that weight again! After high school, I started running . . . jogging, really. And I felt really great! Unfortunately, shortly after running my very first 10k I got a mosquito bite while jogging that we believe was the cause of a strep infection in my leg. It was several days before I could walk without severe pain and jogging was not even an option for a long time. Then, my young adult years got busy with school and work and I just didn’t get back to the great routine I had started out with.

After getting married, the first several years were very difficult. We wanted to start a family right away and I had some medical issues in the way that caused a whole lot of emotional distress. I was a major stress eater during this time and during the times when I was working full time we did a lot of eating out — bad, bad, bad! Along with not having an exercise routine, that really took me to being in the worst shape of my life. And feeling awful about the way I looked and being sluggish and tired didn’t really help with all the emotional stuff.

But I had started my own business and was loving what I was doing. And I also met some great women along the way who were very inspiring. I managed to start eating better and get some pretty regular exercise to drop a few pounds.

When we started fertility treatments, my forward progress stopped and it was very hard not to fall completely back to where I had been. The medications were hard on my body and much of the time made me feel too miserable to exercise or do anything else. Plus, that stress eating was there again because going through fertility treatments is about the most stress I’ve ever felt.

When I finally got pregnant from InVitro (IVF) after 3 years of fertility treatments, it was a rough pregnancy. But I was pretty proud of myself for keeping the pregnancy weight gain to a minimum. When our first baby was just a few months old, my husband headed out of the country for work and was gone for 5 months. I went to stay with my parents in another state and while I helped around the house and had a baby to take care of, my responsibilities weren’t nearly as much as running a house by myself. Even though having my husband gone was certainly stressful, I kicked into gear and got myself moving. I started running again (even in the horrible Arizona summer heat) and being careful with my eating and by the time Jeff got home I was a couple sizes smaller and really feeling great.

That became a cycle. Fertility treatments again, followed by a reasonable weight gain in pregnancy, and dropping the weight and a little bit more after pregnancy . . . two more times first with one baby and then with twins. When the twins were born, our oldest was still 3 for another month and there was also a two year old. But somehow, I did it again. This time, I did a couch to 5k program and when the twins were just a few months old, I ran my first 5k in years.

The cycle started again for our last baby. But when she was born, she was rushed to the hospital by ambulance at 6 days old. She was put on oxygen and had to stay on oxygen for the next 11 months. Because of an unrelated heart issue, we were told she couldn’t get sick for the first 6 months or it could be very dangerous. So, we kept her secluded as much as possible and even after that 6 months. Even after we came out of seclusion, keeping up with carting around an oxygen tank and all the extra doctor’s visits really kept me from focusing on myself at all. It wasn’t long after she got off of oxygen and we all felt like we could breathe a little again that we started the next round of IVF. Even though it didn’t work this time, it took months out of my life, prepping with medications and doctor visits.

When we got past that, we had finally reached a good point in life. I was going to the gym every week day after dropping the older kids off at school. The younger kids loved the childcare and getting to spend an hour there every day while I worked out. But even though I was working out, the weight wasn’t budging. A good friend told me to remember that my body had been through a lot in the last few years and to give it time. I also felt that some of it had to do with turning 40. It just seemed like it was so much harder than it would’ve been at a younger age.

Now we’re getting closer to today. Late last year, we started the process of moving to a new state. We did a lot of eating out and convenience foods while getting our house ready to sell and having it on the market. When we moved, we ended up in a hotel for about 6 weeks which meant lots more of the same kind of eating. Only now, I didn’t have my gym and really no way to get out and exercise. That was a 10 lb weight gain right there.

About two months after finally moving in to our new house, we were stunned to find out I was pregnant. I was exhausted all the time and eating a lot of convenience foods again since I was too tired to do anything more. Unfortunately, just a couple weeks later, I started the process of miscarrying. It took me five weeks before I lost the baby and it was a very hard 5 weeks, knowing what was happening and the physical tole that it was taking on my body as well. I gained another 10 lbs during all that.

So, here we are today . . .

I have a lot of weight to lose to get where I can feel good again. Life is just so hard carrying around all the extra weight and I’m ready to be rid of it. I do finally feel like I am ready to focus on taking care of me. Here’s how I’ve prepped:

sold my umbrella stroller and sit & stand stroller to buy a used jogging stroller – I plan to get out and walk/run every morning after walking the older kids to school
have a list of our family’s favorite healthy meals that I’ll be cooking from mostly
taking Plexus Slim – it hasn’t helped with energy levels, curbing sugar cravings, or weight loss yet, but I believe its the reason I got pregnant on my own for the very first time, so I think its helping my hormone levels
got my fitbit and a goal of 12,000 steps each day (I’ve had a few 16,000 step days in the last week)
Beachbody on demand for the days when I can’t get out of the house to exercise because of bad weather or sick kids

I’ll check in every Friday and share how the week went and any great, healthy recipes I’ve found or tips that are helping. I’d love for you to share your favorite tips with me if you’re already doing great at keeping in shape or follow along and do it with me if you have a ways to go like I do. So, please leave a comment if you have any thoughts you’d like to share — I could really use the support!

Fun Halloween Picture Books

October 10, 2017 by kim.milius@gmail.com Leave a Comment

We’re having fun getting ready for Halloween around here. We don’t do a whole lot of decorating and we aren’t big into creepy, scary stuff. But my kids love a cute and fun Halloween picture book. These are some of our favorites:

3 Ways to Have Fun Family Mealtimes while Teaching Manners

September 28, 2017 by kim.milius@gmail.com Leave a Comment

Ahhhh, dinnertime! Does anyone else have this picture perfect image of what dinnertime with your family should look like? So, that image in my head has never matched up with reality. Our kids are actually pretty decent most of the time but there’s your typical whining and complaining mixed with some manners that are always needing work. And, when I watch the great examples of my sisters with their kids, I try to remember to add a little fun to the mix instead of just harping on the kids over every little thing. The fun part doesn’t come naturally to me, so I really have to think about it and inspiration usually comes into the equation, too. And I really do believe that the 3 ideas I’m going to share with you were inspired.

In fact, with our manners buzzer, I had the thought pop into my head while I was sitting at the table making constant corrections to my kids for their bad table manners and getting exasperated with every correction I made. I dismissed the thought several times before I finally listened, got up from the table, got out a buzzer, and told the kids about our new “game”. I have no doubt it was inspiration from God – the way it just popped into my head and wouldn’t let go until I followed through. I believe He can give us those little bits of needed inspiration all throughout our day as we are parenting to the best of our ability and relying on Him to help make up for what we lack.

Each of these ideas are fun ways to use the dinner table as a place of learning. And honestly, the kids love them all. We use them when needed but not necessarily all at the same time and not all the time, either.

1 – Manners Buzzer

The idea behind the Manners Buzzer is that you want to try to go all of dinnertime WITHOUT being buzzed. The first time we pulled it out, they wanted to be buzzed because it was fun. But I just reminded them that the goal is NOT to be buzzed and they followed along after that. So, I kept the buzzer by me and anytime I saw a child doing something with bad manners (eating with mouth open, reaching across the table, not sitting in their chair correctly, etc.), I would buzz them which gave them a fun reminder that they needed to fix something. It really made a difference and they responded to a buzzer a lot better than to mom and dad telling them to change something. It really did work and I need to pull it out again since the good manners have been slipping a bit.

I just used a buzzer pulled out of our Taboo game. It’s an awesome buzzer with a silly buzzing sound but you could pull one out of any game or use something else like a bell or anything else that makes noise.

2 – Victory Laps

Our kids went through a terrible time of instantly complaining that they didn’t want to try something new because it was going to be gross. I got tired of fighting with them about it and instituted VICTORY LAPS. How it works is anytime we have something new or there is something on their plate that they don’t like, if they take a taste of it they get to do a Victory Lap around the table. They get up from their chair and jog once around the table as we clap in unison and chant their name. It became rare for a child to whine and complain and instead they would quickly eat their bite so they could do a Victory Lap and they always did it with a big smile on their faces. Wow – that was a big difference from me threatening no dessert or whatever until they tried at least one bite.

3 – Name That Healthy Food

I really don’t know what circumstances brought about our next game, other than the fact that I wanted to teach my kids about healthy foods so they could make good choices when they were at the age to start making food choices for themselves. I wanted to teach them that while we have some less healthy foods with dinner sometimes, its always better to fill up on the healthier foods and not overload their plates with the junk. We talked with them about what kinds of foods are healthy and then every time we started eating dinner I would shout out, “Name that Healthy Food!!” The kids would call out the healthy foods on the table, usually the fruit or vegetables and it was a great chance for my husband and I to add to the list any items that they might have missed. It would then lead to discussion about part of the dinner being not the healthiest but okay as long as we eat it in moderation.

3 Tips for a Kid’s First Dentist Appointment

September 21, 2017 by kim.milius@gmail.com Leave a Comment

A trip to the dentist makes me very nervous. My childhood dentist visits weren’t that way. My uncle was my dentist. He was gentle and great at his job, plus he was family . . . and I was never nervous to be there. In fact, as I got older I often looked at a dentist visit as a time to lay back and relax. But, sadly, my uncle passed away many years ago and I’ve had a few bad dentist experiences since then. So now, like a lot of people, going to the dentist makes me very nervous.

I didn’t want my kids to have anxiety over trips to the dentist, so instead of just making that first appointment and showing up, I was very thoughtful in how I approached it. Here are the three things I do:

1 – Choose a Pediatric Dentist or one that is recommended by others with kids. We had a great pediatric dentist in Colorado, but when we moved, our insurance didn’t work with any local pediatric dentists. I asked around and a friend with little kids suggested a great office. They are super kid friendly and my kids love this office just as much as their old dentist.

2 – Always show a positive and excited attitude when talking with your kids about the dentist. They take their cues from us! I’m always very excited when I let my kids know they have a dentist appointment coming up and they always look forward to it.

3 – Have a “dress rehearsal”! Okay, I know that sounds weird. I don’t know where I came up with the idea, but I used it before taking my oldest to the dentist and with every one of the kids since then and they’ve all done great. The thing is, if they know what to expect, then when the dentist is putting instruments in their mouths while they’re laying on a funny chair, it won’t seem nearly as scary. I talk them through as much as possibl, having them do the actions, and even use props and sound effects, saying things like:

“The dentist might take some pictures of your teeth with a funny looking camera.” — just use your phone to take close up pictures

“There will be a big chair to sit on and it lays all the way back like a bed!” — have them lay down on the floor, using arms to pull them up to sitting and laying back down

“You’ll need to open your mouth really big; show me how big you can open yours!”

“The dentist will probably count your teeth with a little metal tool that will tap your teeth.” — use a spoon handle to gently tap and count their teeth

“There will be a silly toothbrush that they’ll use to brush your teeth, like this.” — use a toothbrush but make a motorized sound effect

“There might even be a big light that shines in your mouth and a little mirror to help the dentist see all of your teeth.” — use a flashlight and a compact mirror

“There will be a little water squirter that sprays right in your mouth.” — a little squirt gun, eye dropper, or spray bottle with a tiny bit of water

I really think this has been huge for helping my kids love going to the dentist. Knowing what to expect, makes it not so scary. And every time we’ve taken our kids to the dentist, especially for their first visit, we always get comments on how great they do. You can even repeat this the first couple of visits since little kids might forget what to expect. Here’s some recent pics from Breanna’s first dentist visit and practice session at home. She did great!

Snow Party for Kids

September 18, 2017 by kim.milius@gmail.com Leave a Comment

This was the perfect activity for a warm summer day. We had some friends over for a SNOW Party and they had a great time! This would be a fun birthday party theme or just as an excuse to have some friends over for some fun! We had 4 different things to do that went along with our snow/ice theme.

Snowball Fight

I bought a bunch of cheap white socks at the dollar store and added all my socks from the laundry room that were missing pairs. As the kids arrived, I put them to “work” balling up single socks. When that was done, we took the basket of socks outside and they had a snowball fight, just running around the backyard throwing socks at each other.

Ice Excavations

A couple days before the party, I put some dollar store animals inside of balloons, filled them up with water, tied them off and put them in the freezer. When the kids were ready, we brought out the frozen balloons, peeled the balloon away and they used a hammer to chip away at the ball of ice until they found the animal inside. This was so simple but they all seemed to have a good time with it. Tip: To keep the animals from floating to the top, I rotated the balloons once they started to freeze. However, by doing this a couple of mine burst in the freezer, so be sure to do a couple extras.

Snow Sculpting

Using a recipe I found online, I added 1 cup of white colored hair conditioner to 3 cups of baking soda. I did a triple batch in a huge bowl for the number of kids we were having over. Each kid got a scoop of “snow” in a disposable aluminum baking tray from the dollar store and they just played for a while. Most of them liked using their plastic animal from the ice excavations to play with their snow. When they were done, I bagged up individual portions from their tray for them to take home. Tip: Make sure you like the scent of the conditioner you use because your whole house will smell like it!

Snow Cones

Of course, the hit of the party was finishing up with snow cones. Instead of using snow cone cups, I just use styrofoam cups with spoons. We’ve had a cheap plastic snow cone machine for a while and it gets the job done, breaking the ice into tiny pieces. But if you find you will use it as often as we do, this shaved ice machine we just bought is pretty awesome – it’s quick and actually shaves the ice. We love it and use it a few times a week in the warm weather months with our yummy Torani flavorings – I get the 25.4oz/750ml bottles and I like to add the pump since it doesn’t come with one. (Cherry Lime with a little scoop of vanilla ice cream mixed in to the shaved ice is my favorite!)

Easy and Fun Online Art Lessons for Kids

September 14, 2017 by kim.milius@gmail.com Leave a Comment

My kids love to draw and they seem to have a talent for it, too. We let our oldest do an after school art class one semester but the cost and time to have all 4 school age kids involved is a lot. They get their art gene from my husband, definitely not from me. So, thinking that I could help them develop their talents is kind of laughable.

Then, I discovered this super awesome website. It’s called Art for Kids Hub. They have all sorts of projects with video tutorials. We mostly do the drawing videos, but there’s also a few sculpting videos, origami, and painting.

The videos are great! Rob takes the kids through a drawing project step by step and has a child doing it right with him on the screen. He has a really energetic and fun personality that makes it enjoyable to watch. My kids will sit and do one drawing after another and they’ve done some pretty awesome stuff (see pics below done by my 7 & 9 year olds). You can sort the drawing videos by type or age and it’s amazing what kids can do with the step by step instructions.

They’ve made a ton of them available for free, but we’ve gotten so much benefit from it that I wanted to support the site and decided to become a member for just $34.99 a year which is so cheap for how often we use it. Seriously, pull up the site next time your kids are looking for something to do. If they like to draw at all, I’m sure they’ll love it!

Summer Fun Binder for Kids

May 16, 2016 by kim.milius@gmail.com Leave a Comment

Summer vacation is coming up VERY quickly for us. I’m thrilled to pieces because it means no more trying to keep kids on task to do their homework in the evening, no more loading up all my kids to make 3 trips to the school each day (drop off, 1/2 day kindergarten pickup, end of the school day pickup), a more relaxed schedule, and a chance to spend more time with my kids having fun and teaching them some new things and life skills.

This year, I decided to put together a binder for each one that will help us stay organized for the summer. (And so you don’t worry about my kids being over scheduled during their summer, they will have HOURS AND HOURS of free play time every day — they need it and I make sure they get it. But I also think structure, goal setting, and learning life skills are just as important. There’s really time for all of it with all the hours in a day!) I’m getting the binders started with the basics and then the first week that school is out they’ll get to help me customize their binder a little more with what they want to add and by coloring their binder cover. Here’s what’s in our binder:

Binder Cover – cute summer coloring pages

Tab #1: Calendar of Events

Each child will have a monthly calendar to write down all of our scheduled stuff for the summer, so they can easily see what’s going on and get excited for fun things that are coming up.
One of our weekly events is an online art class that I’m very excited for!

Tab #2: What to do

Here’s where we’ll keep their weekly “to do” list. If they complete everything on their list (Mon-Thurs), we’ll do a fun activity on Friday (go out for ice cream, go to the splash park, go out to lunch, go to the park, have a movie day, etc).
I’ll also include any special tasks I want them to complete each week. Example: My kids that are learning to write will have a couple handwriting worksheets to do.

Tab #3: Summer Reading

My older kids get to use these cute summer reading lists to keep track of all the books they read this summer.
I’ve also included the Barnes and Noble summer reading program to earn a free book.
When our local library does its summer reading kickoff, we’ll add that info too.

Tab #4: Summer Goals

I’ve included a place to list Acts of Service that they’ve completed during the summer and this will also be customizeable for each child to include the things they want to accomplish during the summer. We’ll also be working as a family on completing a Family History booklet that I included inside the front pocket and we’ve already talked about training to do a 5k together as a family at the end of the summer, so I’ll be including the Couch to 5k training schedule. Ideas for what to include for kids to customize their own: recipes they want to learn to make, piano music they want to learn, sewing patterns, and any other skills that interest them.

Tab #5: Summer Fun

This is going to be a “go to” place for all those “I’m bored” moments this summer. I’m going to include fun activities like games, crossword puzzles, special coloring pages, etc that they can pull out and do when they’re needing something to do. These will be different depending on the age of the child, but each one will get a zipper pouch with a set of dice and a new pencil and some fun games to play with dice. This tab will have things added throughout the summer so they don’t do everything in the first 2 days of summer!

So my children will know

March 28, 2016 by kim.milius@gmail.com Leave a Comment

My daughter’s kindergarten teacher sent an email today to let us know that the mom of a boy in her class was killed in a car accident over spring break. I didn’t know her but it hit me hard and left me in tears. I thought a lot about what my own kids would be going through, if it had been me.

For a few months now, I’ve been having the feeling that I needed to write letters to my kids in case I were to die while they’re still young. But it seemed like such a daunting task that I’ve never followed through with that feeling and actually done anything about it. That changes today. Today I am starting to write. And while I hope I’m around to see my grandchildren have children of their own, I’m going to write down the most important things I want my children to know, in case I’m not able to be with them as they grow into adults.