Ahhh the days of summer! When time slows down, the temperatures warm up and the moms start scrambling for ideas of what to do now that their kids are home all day! Kidding. Kind of. But, in all seriousness, I am longing for the Ultimate Summer- one full of relaxation, good memories and lots and lots of family fun. I thought I would share how I am prepping for the Ultimate Summer, share some tips and tricks along the way, and hopefully encourage and motivate you to soak up the moments this summer instead of letting the days pass by or trying to simply endure.

The first phase of the Ultimate Summer takes some intentional planning and some open conversations with your family. I recently listened to this awesome podcast from Your Life Rocks about 5 steps to plan an awesome summer. I was instantly inspired and put her tips into practice. If you haven’t heard the episode, please give it a listen! You’ll be so glad you did.

The Summer Dump List vs. The Summer Bucket List

Before you start making plans, saying all the yeses to everyone’s invites and signing your kids up for every sport, camp and vbs in your area, it’s critical to get a big picture plan and pick just a few solid ideas or you’ll find yourself spinning your wheels in the midst of chaos.

One way to envision it would be to start with a few solid rocks (summer must dos), then add a few pebbles (easy get togethers and quick moments), and then as time allows fill the rest of your bucket with the everyday things. If you fill the bucket first with all the yeses to the everyday invites and such, you’ll not have any room for the big moments you’ve been craving. Think: family vacations, learning a new skill, taking on a new hobby, making a big change, etc.

One easy way to sort through the various layers of activities is to create a simple “Dump List.” This is where you and your family simply write down any and every thing they could possibly want to do this summer. Keep writing, write some more and then jot down some more ideas. Dump it all out onto paper. If you’re stuck, check out my Pinterest board of ideas.

I added two crucial rhythms that I’d like to incorporate this summer to remind myself of: one hour of technology free time each day, and one day each week of no plans. I know myself (total yes-man) and that my family will function best if we just take that time daily and weekly to reset.

One of the tips from Your Life Rocks podcast was to ask your kids, spouse and self two simple questions:

• What is your favorite summer memory?
• How do you feel most loved?

Then, work together to partner the Dump List with the answers from the two key questions to create the Ultimate Summer Bucket List. If you didn’t catch the answers on our IG stories, you can see them in the Summer Ideas highlight reel!!

I used these two pages of the Daily Action Planner to help move ideas from our Dump List into our Ultimate Summer Bucket List. The prompts of creating my “Savor Daily,” “Savor Life” and “Get Connected” lists helped me frame our priorities and be sure to nail those big rock moments.

After you create your Ultimate Summer Bucket List, go ahead and start filling in your weekly plans to include a few of those must do, big rock moments. If you’re creating that rhythm of rest like we are, don’t forget to block out one hour a day and one day a week for just quiet, tech-free, family bonding. More on that in a future post!

I love this opening page of the DAP to doodle my inspiration of each week. You can see my priorities that week were to release my two new patterns, Finley and Daisy, and to squeeze as much QT with my two girls! Let’s just pretend I’m really good at drawing and doodling ok?????

Come back next week for another post from the Ultimate Summer series!! In the meantime, be sure to check out our Instagram feed and stories for daily Summer #momhacks!

Big thanks to our new friends at Savor Success for the awesome Daily Action Planner!!! We are so thrilled to be able to use it in creating our Ultimate Summer!!