Almost a new year's resolution...

I'm not a big fan of new year's resolutions (or New Year itself if I'm honest, although not really sure why!) but December was a bit mad this year so I have found myself calming down and taking stock in January.

Alongside wanting to dedicate a bit more time to my blog, I have been thinking about our time at home. My aim is to be more inspired and organised with our play and activities in 2019. My preference is to be out and about all the time but with the constraints of school runs, toddler naps and a growing baby bump we are going to continue to spend a fair amount of time at home this year.

None of us are very good at coming up with lots of imaginative play ideas on the hoof so this is partly about having more ideas up my sleeve and more resources to hand when a prompt is required. If all goes to plan and I am spending the summer pinned to the sofa feeding a tiny baby then anything that helps to entertain the boys is going to be useful. And I am also hoping that having things a bit more organised and a bit more visible will spark more inspiration in the boys. Sometimes, in between long spells of following me round the house asking 'what can I do?', middle son really surprises me with the activities he comes up with for himself and I want to encourage that.

One very tangible thing I am going to do is get back into #tufftraytuesday every week over on Instagram, with a monthly round up on here. T in particular likes knowing what is on our weekly timetable and asks me what is on the tuff tray on the way back from nursery every Tuesday. (He also asks on a Thursday but I'm aiming for one set up a week at the moment!) We are three school Tuesdays into the year and so far so good!

I've started a notebook (old school I realise in this day and age!) with ideas I'm picking up online. I find it really helpful to write things down otherwise I can feel myself trying to keep all these ideas in my head and it doesn't leave much space for other things. And when I do want an idea to use, I find it easier to flick through the ideas written down in one place rather than looking on various apps and notes on my phone.

One place I am finding lots of ideas is an e-book I found on inspiredplay.net called '50+ Inspiring Play Accounts on Instagram'. As well as picking up lots of inspiration, I'm keen to find ideas for other things to do with all the resources we already have. Both the boys and I are very bad at getting over-excited when an activity comes with some new stuff, and I would like to get better at reusing what we have rather than constantly acquiring new things. And some of the write-ups in the book have reminded me that I need to do the activities with the boys, rather than for them. I like taking pictures of what we are up to for Instagram and on here, but then I need to put my phone down and spend time getting stuck in.

So January has been filled with a couple of trips to Ikea for more storage solutions (I spend a ridiculous amount of time thinking about storage!) and trying out different arrangements of toys around the house. I am going to draw a line under organising things at the end of the month and focus instead on giving some of these ideas and activities a go, hopefully without buying too much more stuff!