@Elisabeth – yep, there are just a lot of hours. Weekends have tons of hours. My 12-year-old, for instance, was doing tech for 3 runs of his musical, so he was at school from 5:30-9 on Friday and from 12:30-9 on Saturday. He also went to church on Sunday morning (10-11) and with us to the car show (about 12:30-3:30). That seems like a lot but alert readers might be able to calculate that 9-11 was screen time on Friday, 9-12 or so on Saturday morning, probably 10-11 Saturday night, and then 3:30-9 with a stop for dinner on Sunday. It is just a LOT. Because there are a lot of hours.

@Dee- good question! (And probably a good subject for a post). Some stuff just comes up every year — I have to remind myself that we enjoyed it in the past but since we’ve lived here for 10.5 years now there’s a lot of wins from the past that can be revisited (and, of course, things we didn’t enjoy as much that we just don’t do again). As for new things, I have something of a running list of ideas (just a list in a notebook) and if there’s something that’s got a specific date to it, then I put it on my calendar as a potential item for that time (or if I need to get tickets during a certain window I’ll put it then). There’s something of a seasonality to this. In September/October and April/May we tend to have a lot of weekend sports so we’re not really hunting for stuff to do. Whereas in January we are. So if there’s stuff that can go at any time, putting it in the winter is a better idea.

Too cute about Henry’s comment; a 2-year old saying the word beautiful is pretty adorable in itself! And couldn’t we all use some more motivational pats from our kiddos?!