Family Matters – May Happiness Project

Jen of Defining My Happy and I are working on happiness projects this year and this month we are focusing on Family. Please join us every Wednesday to follow along and link up your happiness related posts. The linky will remain open for 5 days.

May is the start of summer around here and with all the fun that brings it is also the start of my husbands busy season at work. Summer means long hours for him and limited days off. For me it means long hours with a toddler and limited time to myself.

So for me May seems like a good time to try to boost the happiness of my family. But how do I boost my families happiness during a time of year when it’s hard for us all to even sit down and eat dinner together?

Sunday Breakfast is something I’ve been wanting to do since we moved into our house. I love the idea of a family tradition of a big breakfast every Sunday morning. I also love the idea of sleeping in on Sunday. So this may take some work.

Let it go. I’m going to try to not hassle everyone, especially John (cause really Jack and Bailey don’t know I’m hassling them) about little things. He’s stressed enough he doesn’t need me nagging him. Not that I nag or anything.

No yell zone. Here is an example of a morning in our house. I go upstairs to get dressed, and Jack yells “Mom, Mommy, Mom” and I yell back “what Jack”. Or John yells, “Is there any laundry done” and I say, “what I can’t hear you” and Bailey barks and Jack yells for milk and soon everyone in the house is shouting for something. And I’m over it, it doesn’t make for a happy home. So cause I can’t change the rest of them, I’m changing myself. I’m not responding when others yell and I’m not going to be yelling.

Plan small. Sometimes I tend to go big when I plan things. Sometimes I plan a big day full of activities when John is off, which doesn’t always make him happy. So I’m going to focus on planning small. Days at home doing something together, trips to the park, lunch out. And leave the big plans for another time or at least limit them.

Make memories accessible. A few months ago I wrote about meeting up with old friends and looking at photo albums. We had such a wonderful night and I realized that the night and the memories we shared would not have been the same had we not had those albums to look at. I have thousands of pictures on my computer and on Shutterfly but they aren’t easily accesible. And who wants to curl up with a lap top and look at pictures it’s just not the same. My goal is to get those memories off the computer and into our hands, which means catching up on several years worth of pictures.

After last months struggles I’m looking forward to a new month and a new focus. What are your happiness goals for this month? What family traditions do you have?

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