Unplugged

I have had a very, very busy fall. Most afternoons consist of Lily napping in her crib, the boys doing “Quiet Time” in front of the TV (watching a movie or something on Netflix Instant Watch) and me working like mad on the computer. Then after some quiet time I try to multi-task between the kids, catching 5 minutes here and there to answer an e-mail or edit a picture, prepping dinner, etc. It’s been chaotic to say the least.

About a month ago I received an e-mail from some of the folks at Hallmark asking if I wanted to participate in a BlogOut. Really though the afternoon or day would call for more than just going silent on my blog – it would involve unplugging electronics and getting back to basics with my family. How did they know I needed something like that?!

Hallmark sent me a fun little raccoon and book to commemorate the day of unplugging (the raccoon responds to certain phrases in his book), and I got to work planning fun activities to do with the boys.

Wednesday night I stayed up until 1am to finish up a final client gallery, which finally meant I was caught up on all editing projects (for 2 days – ha!). As I went to bed I thought “tomorrow would be the perfect day to unplug” and so we did. When I picked the boys up from their preschool class at 11:30 I told them we’d be doing something new and different that afternoon. I told them I had exciting and special things planned, and they got more and more excited as we drove home!

When looking at this fort I built using Lily’s play-yard, I have the sudden urge to dress my children as Biblical characters and read the Christmas story… ha!

The boys got a kick out of reading stories in the fort. They also got a HUGE kick out of the raccoon responding to his story book. I’m pretty sure I read that story 8 times at least.

We also took the two big boxes Lily’s new car seats came in and turned them into houses! The boys thought this was awesome, especially when I handed them their big bucket of crayons and told them to color the houses!

And what kind of unplugging day would it be if we didn’t….

Bake cookies!!

The boys helped me whip up some peanut butter chocolate chip cookies. Yum, yum!

After Lily woke up, the boys spent a good deal of time trying to coax her into the fort. Lily was far too interested in the fact that she wasn’t penned in and could roam freely!

All in all, the unplugged day was utterly exhausting and my voice was slowly fading by bed time, but it was a fantastic day with my kids. The boys had a ball and only asked to play Wii once (about 3 hours into being unplugged). I didn’t end up turning the computer back on until 9:30 last night, so that’s 10 hours unplugged during the day – probably the longest I’ve gone with staring at a screen in a long time. I think my eyes appreciated the break.

How long as it been since you completely unplugged from social media, the TV, video games, etc? It had been a while for me, because even if I’m not on the computer for a few hours, I’m usually snapping a picture with my cell phone and posting it on Facebook. I restrained from even doing that yesterday. With the holidays coming quicker than any of us are probably ready for, set aside just an afternoon even to completely unplug and just enjoy some quiet or your kids (cause obviously those won’t go hand in hand – ha!). You’ll love it, I promise! Even if it wears you out more than the usual day…. 😉