My question is whether or not you schedule your family reunion at Bear Lake at the same time each year so everyone in your family can calendar around it or do you have to go through the calendaring issue each year. I find it tricky to balance all the in-laws reunions and ours and find a time each year we can all gather at our cabin. Just wondering if you all go there the same week each year so it can be in perm. ink on the calendar.
This is a perfect time for this question because with the logistics of big families it obviously helps to start super early. Each year we try to keep the family reunion the same general week (the Wednesday through Sunday after the 4th of July). It works well for us because I have three brothers who work for the same company who have a conference in Utah the week before so it works well logistically. This year is proving to be a little bit tricky because of some unique things our family is trying to work in, but I think it's a great idea to have a week everyone plans on every year so everyone can just know it's there to plan around, especially as families grow and become more and more involved in the summers.
I can't wait for the sleep over post... it's something I am thinking about, and would love to hear another mom's input on! I find it so helpful to hear what others do and then use that to set guidelines in my home. It's especially nice to get opinions from others who have strong family values and a Christian perspective versus the mainstream America one.
I can't remember which post this question stemmed from, but I've been asked whether or not we do sleepovers probably more than any other question. I know I've answered parts of it before, but here is our stance: We don't allow sleepovers except on rare occasions (a best friend from a different city, a cousin, one child needs some extra attention, etc.) I know maybe a really good parent would just say no and that's that, but we feel like there are unique situations that really warrant some flexibility. That's what works for us. We do "late nights" quite often in place of sleepovers which seems to help quench our kids' thirst to be together every waking minute with their friends :)
I had so much fun at sleepovers growing up and I want my kids to have those experiences, but I've heard too many negative things that have happened as a result of sleeping over and so we pretty wary of them.
We started doing "awards" last week. {from this post} The kids loved it, and are eager already for next week. Do you give every child an award each week? Also, do you give multiple awards to one child (say if they are neat as a pin, and a leader for the right)?
We have not been good at doing these awards this year so thanks for reminding me! We've shifted a little bit to talking about who should win an award in conjunction with things in our family motto (that I talked about back here), so I'll let you know how that goes.
But, as far as the awards you are taking about, Dave and I always tried to make sure everyone gets praise as to what they did well, but if one child really did amazingly well on three of them one week they really deserve to have all three on their door. I think if we always tried to make everything "fair" then they wouldn't care as much because "everyone will get an award." If they don't get one one week, they'll try harder the next week.
I think we live in a society where too much is tried to make "fair" and it's a disservice to our kids.