Surviving Summer Vacation (Ebook Shorts): Plans and Prayers for a Mom's Sanity

By Kathi Lipp

This summer, it's all about having more fun and less stress. Period.

Ah, summer vacation. Sunshine and iced tea. Long, sultry evenings. The kids riding their bikes until the streetlights blink on. Pure bliss.

Then, ten minutes later . . . "Mom, I'm bored."

You bite your tongue to keep from yelling, "You know what I'd give to have three months of nothing to do?!" Instead, you calmly suggest an activity that will be rejected out of hand. Then repeat. Sometimes hourly.

But summer doesn't have to be that way. You and your kids can have a fun, relaxing, and fulfilling summer together with just a little preparation and prayer. Kathi Lipp makes summer as easygoing as it should be with ideas such as
· taking trips to the farmers' market (where shopping gets done at the same time!)
· kid-focused cooking (that actually gets meals on the table)
· assigning summer chores
· planning mom-only activities
· art activities even moms will love

She also gives you short, to-the-point prayers to keep your heart connected to God and your family and includes helpful links to free downloads of a summer calendar, a cookbook for kids, and more.

Ready for a summer the whole family can enjoy? With her signature wit and hard-earned wisdom, Kathi shows you the way.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
• Release date: May 6, 2014
• ISBN: 9781441220110

Kathi Lipp

Kathi Lipp is a national speaker, podcast host of the Clutter Free Academy, and the bestselling author of The Husband Project, Clutter Free and Overwhelmed. She and her husband, Roger, live in San Jose, California and are parents of four young adults. Using humor and wisdom, Kathi offers hope paired with practical steps to women looking to live with meaning. You can follow Kathi at www.KathiLipp.com.

Book preview

Cover    47

1

And Summer Begins . . .

I’m an awesome starter. If there is an idea that I love, I will get it rolling.

Need someone to get the PTA excited about the new Get a Night Off of Homework fund-raiser? (Wouldn’t that be the most lucrative fund-raiser ever?) I’m your girl.

If you want someone to lead the brainstorming session on how to bless the nursery workers at church, I’ll lead the charge.

But when it comes to printing the passes or cleaning up after the appreciation brunch . . . well, I’ll do it, but not with the same enthusiasm as when I started the whole project.

Yep, I’m a starter. And that is never as evident as it is with summer break.

I’ve bought all the books. The ones that say, Just follow our plan and you’ll have the summer of your dreams. These books contain more detailed plans than a military attack on a small nation. Just reading the books made me feel overwhelmed and exhausted.

You see, I’ll make the plans. (I’ve even been known to make an Excel spreadsheet of our family’s daily schedule.) I’ll buy the materials for all the craft ideas. I’ll buy the ingredients so we can make Shakin’ Summer Smoothies.

And by week three, I’m out.

I’m out of energy and ideas for how to keep these kids entertained over an entire summer. I wonder why I was so excited for summer to start, and I search for the number of the school board to lobby for classes to start early this year.

At some point I realized I’d been approaching summer all wrong.

I was approaching it like a teacher: lesson plans and activities to make sure that my kids never uttered the forbidden word of summer—bored. But I’m not a teacher who has to make sure that all my kids pass a standardized test at the end of the year. I’m a mom who wants to have a summer with more fun, less stress, and the feeling that we can come out on the other end a little bit closer to each other. What I really needed to do was plan things we would all enjoy and invite my kids along for the ride.

Instead of me buying a junior gardening kit for my kids to plant seeds and watch marigolds grow, we planted a pizza garden together and made marinara-based meals all summer long. A fun activity and actually getting dinner on the table? Score!

Instead of spending the day watching my kids get tokens and try to conquer each other in a ball pit, I planned trips to the farmers’ market in a neighboring beach town so we could not only have some summer fun but also do some much-needed shopping for the rest of the week.

Instead of me spending half an hour of setup on a finger-painting project that my kids did for five minutes—and then spending forty-five minutes scrubbing washable paint off the walls of our kitchen—we worked together to create mosaic stepping-stones to put in our garden.

I finally realized that if I wanted to keep up the summer activity schedule, I had to schedule activities I actually like. Instead of creating crafts for my kids to do, I

Reviews for Surviving Summer Vacation (Ebook Shorts)

[destinyisntfree · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I received this from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I don't read a lot of nonfiction, but as a mom of 3 hyperactive and impulsive kids, this one just sounded like a must read.

My hope was that I would glean some useful tips for dealing with my rambunctious brood.

Be warned that this one is Christian-based and includes prayers and scripture verses. If this offends you, don't read this book.

I love that at the end of each chapter, there is a link to a worksheet for something discussed in that chapter. I may have to buy this one just so I can access those worksheets on my computer and print them out.

I found this book informative and full of useful tips. I just wish some of them were move detailed.