Take A Child Outside week has arrived! [I know, it’s a super misleading acronym…]

Though I would love an entire week dedicated to tacos, I’m just as excited about spending time outside with my kids this week!

Not to imply that you need a special week to spend time outside [obviously], but our local park district has all sorts of fun and engaging activities this week to facilitate more quality time in the great outdoors. Plus, this week acts as a reminder to spend as much time outside as possible during the beautiful fall weather! Fall has to be my absolute favorite season because of all the apple picking, pumpkin farming, hay wagon riding, camp firing, trick-or-treating, cider sipping [I could go on all day, folks] fun to be had!

Another emphasis of this week is time together, which is a good reminder for me to get outside and actively spend time with my kids, as opposed to sending them outside to play while I stay indoors. I’m considering making a goal to spend 1,000 hours outdoors in a year [which I heard someone did and find very inspiring], so it’s been interesting to see how quickly I am ready to go back inside. And I consider myself to be someone who loves the outdoors – but apparently not quite as much as I thought.

1,000 hours is A LOT…

But, anyway, back to TACO week.

Today, we kicked things off with Farm Frolic at our local park district’s farm. We enjoyed face painting, sand digging, pumpkin painting, goat petting, corn shucking, barn raising, and pony riding. It was exhausting for me pulling the three kids around in the wagon by myself, but we had so much fun! I’m glad I didn’t skip it just because it was going to be hot and tiring. Time outside really does do wonders for the soul!

I’ve been reading a new book, There’s No Such Thing as Bad Weather, by Linda Åkeson McGurk who was raised in Sweden where apparently people love the outdoors so much that there are literal outdoor schools and they go out in rain or shine or snow or sleet or whatever. It has really inspired me to take my kids outside more often anyway.

So, this week is the perfect opportunity to see if I can make my outdoor goal a reality and refocus on spending time outside enjoying this beautiful Midwest fall.

Here are some photo highlights from our day:

So, are you taking a child outside this week?

Karis