Time To Simplify

When my children were babies I would always say that I could not wait until they were older so they could join some activity.  As my daughter reached the age of three I put her in a ballet/tap class and she loved it.  When she got even older we would be rushing to about three to four activities a week.  That does not sound too bad but then throw my son into the mix and all of a sudden you have no free time. 

I became more and more burnt out.  I finally had to sit down and figure out a way to simplify our schedule.  Here is an example of our schedule when both my children played indoor soccer this past spring:

Sunday~church
Monday~school during the day and Girl Scouts at night from 5:30-7:00pm
Tuesday~work from 8:30am to 2:00pm and then both had Tae Kwon Do and then soccer practice.
Wednesday~school in morning ballet at 12:30-1:30
Thursday~work from 8:30am-2:00pm and the soccer in the evening.
Friday~school and then Tae Kwon Do at 3:15pm-4:15pm
Saturday~soccer games in morning

Our schedule was out of control and I had to fix it.

The hubby and I decided that each child would be able to participate in two activities each and Tae Kwon Do had to be one of them.  So that left one activity to choose.  My daughter was already in ballet at the time so she chose ballet as her second choice.  My son on the other hand had a little tougher choice; Cub Scouts or basketball.  Finally, after a few days he decided to go with Cub Scouts. 

Now that the blessings have chose their two activities I still had some more simplifying to do.  After much talk with the hubby we both decided that it would be good to stop working my part time job and go back to school.  Even though we need the money we know that hubby's promotion pay will be here in the next couple of months we decided that we can live on one income until then. 

So here is what our new schedule looks like:

Sunday~ church
Monday~school (for both kids and I) and nothing in evenings
Tuesday~school and Tae Kwon Do and son has Cub Scouts from 6:30-7:30pm.
Wednesday~school and then ballet and nothing in evenings.
Thursday~school and nothing in evenings.
Friday~school and Tae Kwon Do and daughter has Girl Scouts from 6:30-7:30pm.
Saturday~nothing

I am excited to see that we went from being busy six days a week to three days a week.  Also, we only have two nights of activities instead of three.  This will give us more family time which is very precious with the hubby having to defend our country.  Our new schedule begins next week and I am so excited. 

Simplifying can be so simple sometimes!

**I know I said each child has two activities but I feel that Girl Scouts is a great opportunity for girls.  Also, Cub Scouts and Girl Scouts are great activities to add to a college resume ;) **