63 Things to Do With Your Kids Before They Grow Up

Southwest Airlines' in-flight magazine, Spirit, from April of this year wrote one of my favorite articles of the year so far.  If you have kids, you gotta read this.  It's a perfect fit for me.  Two things I love: action and lists!   

ACTION - Give me a ball and I can't wait to start throwing it.  Give me a game and I can't wait to start competing.  My heart jumped for joy yesterday when my 6 year old boy, Kaden, said to me, "Dad, let's throw the baseball."  "Yes!!", I thought to myself and gave a little fist pump in my mind.  It seems like he could do it for hours.  I love it.  I can get lost in it.  There's something very rhythmic about throwing the ball back and forth.  It's soothing for my spirit, mind and body.  Does anyone else feel that way?  I get the same feeling with Alex - only he usually wants me to throw him football passes - especially the kind where he can dive for it!  There's nothing better than connecting with my boys in this way - through action and sports.  I never want it to end and I hope it never does.

LISTS - My second love.  Does anyone else love lists like I do?  Give me a task and I love to check it off my list.  I love to make them, then sort them in my Franklin Planner and then one-by-one check them off.  The only problem is, I also hate lists.  Especially at the end of the day and I've only done 30% of what I planned.  What happened?  A typical end of the day thought in mind when I look at the low check count in my planner is: "What the heck was I thinking I could get so much done?"  That's the problem with lists - they put me under pressure and they can set me up for failure if I'm not too careful. 

So, what am I going to do with this list of 63 things?!  I'm going to pick my Top 10 and commit to doing them this year. That's do-able.  And, plus, these seem to be sensible and easy.  Here are some of my favorites already:

Do Lunch - take your kid out of school and do something just the two of you during lunch hour - that's pretty cool!

Camp out - pitch a tent in the backyard. 

Puddle Jumping

Stuff a time capsule

Read kid classics (we're reading Prince Caspian together now)

Build an obstacle course in your backyard

Send me your Top 10 list.