The "Ta-Da" List & February Break Recap

I don’t know about anyone else but sometimes I feel like I should be doing more.  Spending more time with the kids.  Being more engaged.  Being more fun.  Hosting more play dates.   Making time for just Logan and I.  Seeing friends.  Visiting family.  Etc.  I know we all probably feel like that and I know I find myself compering my choices to others when I see all the great things others are doing.  Consciously I know that we all share and celebrate the good things online and not as much the bad.  That’s great and I have no issues with that, but I do have to remind myself that what I do is also enough, even if it’s different.  One way I have come to appreciate how privileged we are as a family is by downloading all my photos to the computer at the end of each month.  As I go through the endless stream of photographs I am always struck by how lucky my children are to have so many opportunities in their lives and how much time we actually do spend together.  Recently I was listening to Gretchen Rubins podcast,  Happier, and one of the hacks she recommended was making a "Ta-Da" list.  She suggests instead of making a 'to do' list and crossing things off, you can switch it up and make a "Ta-Da" list to celebrate all the things you did accomplish, regardless of how small they are.      I adapted this idea to help me reflect on all the experiences and memories we create as a family as I go through our photos each month.  

Here is a snapshot of our February break "Ta-Da" list. 

• 1 Escape room and dinner with friends (adults only).  I love making time to spend with friends, reminding ourselves that we are adults and have interests and needs beyond our parenting/work duties.

• 1 adult trip to the lake, 15 km of cross-country skiing, and 4 adult only meals.  Thanks to my parents for keeping the girls from Friday  to Sunday.  It’s just what Logan and I needed.

• 1 pleasure reading book completed, 2 professional resources read/skimmed and 4 hours of auto-book listened in the car. 

• 2 Birthday celebrations, Cooper (2) and Logan (36).  We gave Cooper the Build-a-Bear experience as a birthday gift.  I am a BIG fan of experience birthday gifts.  Logan also had an experience gift, the  adult- only weekend getaway and the Escape Room experience.

• 10+ hours of skiing/snowboarding lessons for the kids at Table Mountain.  The first tow days were frigid cold, like -30C, EEK.  On the last day Logan joined us and we spend the day on the hill as a family.  Both kids improved their ski/snowboarding skills immensely.

• Countless hours of watching the Olympics in the evenings.  We mostly watched the skating and snowboarding events.  Halie was inspired by the Big Air competition in snowboarding which resulted in her trying rails and little jumps in the terrain park.

• 1 sleepover with our friends Kelsea, Madeline and Zurie and one trip to the pool.

• 1 trip to the outdoor skating rink.

• 1 trip to the dog park to spend some time with Tanner.

• 2 stomach flues and endless trips to the bathroom to wrap the week up. 

I encourage you all to focus on writing a "Ta-Da" list of things you’ve done in a course of a week/month as a family instead of thinking about all the things you didn't get around to.  You’ll be shocked to see just how many little things you do all together.