Being an Intentional Family

Family Studies is my major so it wouldn't be appropriate to not have at least one post about the family...so here it is!

As I've been pondering on the new year and things I want to work on individually and as a family, I feel like the list keeps getting bigger and bigger and was getting a little overwhelming. See why I don't normally do this!! So  I had to take a step back and think of what was really important to me and what was stopping me from doing that. The result was family and the problem TV, computer, phone, kindle, etc! I can be one of the biggest offenders of wasting time and feel like I am starting to become a person that always is looking for ideas and thinks to do and never doing it!! That's also the case when it comes to doing things as a family. We forget to enjoy the simple things before all these electronics and rarely do anything unless we go out and do something which is sometimes even rarer. For me, enough is enough...it's a new year and I'm doing something about this!

So to get to the point of telling you my "not so great" discovery of myself is to basically encourage myself and maybe others with this problem to be more intentional when it comes to spending time with our husband and children. We all know from experience that it's easy to say "Let's spend more time together!" but until we actually plan a time to do it and DO it, it will never happen. If you want to have better communication and grow closer as a family maybe sitting and watching TV isn't the best activity. Intentionally plan family dinners at the table and encourage conversation, plan weekly family game nights or evening walks, learn together as a family through weekly FHE, have family counsels, and try and find free events around your area to go to with your family. Living in Provo I have become aware of all the festivals or events going on around the area that are great for families and most often free which I wasn't use to having growing up in a small town. I'm probably preaching to the choir, because this is basically for me but my main challenge is to  stop wasting time on distractions that aren't important and starting DOING!

This brings me to my last point. We are lucky enough to have a really good baby who is great at entertaining herself. This sometimes gives me the excuse to do other things, but I've also come to the realization that it's important to sometimes give our children attention even when they don't need it. To play with our children and do things that enable them to learn and grow. Read to them, sing to and with them, and talk to them! This is also important because it teaches our children that they don't have to through a fit to always get our attention either. Not that I was never doing any of this before, but I especially want to start doing more of this now that Mia is developing her motor skills and is learning new things daily. In fact for those of you interested, I came across this blog Click.Play.Love that has great activities for babies 12-18 months that are free and easy to make with things around the house!

I hope that we all can strive to become more intentional in our families and make a resolution to spend more time together, regardless of our busy schedules and also spend less time on those things that don't matter as much (yes, that includes facebook and pintrest!!).