Intentional Parenting

I can't real pen point the exact thing about Sunday but it will go down as one of my favorite days in a really long time. As I said the other day I didn't get home until 6 am so Sunday morning Ryan got the kids up and they headed to early church while I slept in. I woke up around 10 and headed to meet them for an afternoon on the boat. They were so good and were so excited to be going boat riding!

I know, he desperately needs a hair cut. Aunt Lisa trimmed the hair around his ears the other day for me-Thank you!!
What better place to take an afternoon nap!

After tubing, wakeboarding and knee boarding we headed straight to church. Like seriously straight there in our swimsuits and beach cover ups! Sometimes I'm so thankful to attend a contemporary church where it doesn't matter what you wear it just matters that you're there!

That night we played a crazy game of softball with tennis rackets and tennis balls and crazy rules. It was a lot of fun and all the students seemed to really enjoy it.

That night when we got home Ryan and I got to talking about some different things we have noticed in our family/relationship that we want and need to change. We've been talking about it a lot lately but hadn't really nailed down the specifics. I'm going to write them on here for my records so you can just skip over this if it's not interesting.

We want to do better on Intentionally doing things with our kids. Yea, we play with them all the time and go places non stop but are we really connecting with them...or are we just watching them play while we nod along and are watching TV or playing on our phones.

I want to take more time to engage them. Do puzzles, crafts, paint, cook...just enjoy them being young and not just pacify them while I'm basically doing nothing. Lately both of us have realized how quickly their childhood slips away and I don't want to look back in 10 years and wish I would have enjoyed it more.

We are also committing to not talking/playing on our phones from 6-8 every night. Those stupid iPhones suck you in and then before you know it the night is gone. This won't be to hard for us since we already don't answer the phone during dinner and always eat at the table together.

Funny story-one night my phone rang and I got up to answer it during dinner and Ryan just stared at me and I said what? He said "Tiffany, we don't answer the phone during dinner unless God is calling and last time I checked he didn't use AT&T as a form of communication!"

We also want to focus on them not being so materialistic. I know this is completely our fault and I take responsibility for it but it is getting out of hand. If they even had a small idea on how good they have it they would be blown away. We are stopping buying things just to buy them and getting whatever they want wherever we go. We talked about it and not only does it contribute to materialistic kids but I think it also contributes to kids who think the world is just habded to them. I want Ryleigh and Tanner to know that you have to work and save for things and you can't get everything you want just because you want it. (This is also a lesson for Ryan!!) :)

We are going to start having chores for them to do. Nothing hard just easy stuff they should be doing anyway. They will in turn get an allowance that will be half of what their age is. (I think on this we are going to use Ryleigh's age for both of them just to make it easier). They will then have 3 jars to put their money into. 10% will go to their offering in bibleland, 10% will go in their give jar and the rest into their spend jar. That way they can save up to buy something if they want it. Ryleigh already has a pretty good concept of money so she'll enjoy this. Poor Tanner though, it's going to be a rude awakening for him.

We are also adopting a child through Compassion International. We are hoping this will help to show them how lucky they are. Compassion is a wonderful organization where you can write to the kids and they write back and you can send them things. They will be able to do that with

their give money.

We also want to commit to praying more with them and in front of them. We say the blessing every night and pray a lot of times before bed but we want to make it a more regular thing. There is a great blogger Angie Smith and she had a great idea about 7x7. I'm going to try that out and see how it goes.

Ryan and I are also going to start reading a marriage book that came highly recommended from our pastor. It's called Sacred Marriage. We are going to try to read a chapter a night. Ryan hates reading so this will be a battle! We recently read 5 Love Languages and it was really good.

We will see how all of this goes! Wish us luck!