Creating a Summer You Actually Enjoy

Summer doesn't have to feel like survival mode.

In this season one finale of Praise, Prayer & Protein, we're talking about simple summer rhythms that help your family thrive without mom burning out. From meal planning and chore systems to summer schedules, bucket lists, life skills, and letting go of perfection, this episode is packed with practical encouragement for creating a summer filled with more joy and less pressure.

We'll also talk about the Bible verse that has become our family's unofficial summer theme

And a reminder I think every mom needs to hear:

Sometimes we become so frustrated by the evidence of life happening around us that we forget the blessing attached to it.

Enjoy the episode, grab the free resources below, and stay connected with me on social media this summer.

Show Notes:
• Summer Rhythm Schedule
• Summer Bucket List Ideas
• Meal Plan Matrix
• Summer to Thrive Mini Workbook

Stay Connected 

Instagram & Facebook 

Transcript

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Here we go, here we go, here we go. Last episode of season one. Let's have some summer fun. Hey, I'm Kate, mom of seven, coffee lover, and believer in finding joy in every season of motherhood. This is Praise, Prayer, and Protein, where we talk faith, family, frugal living, and the real-life mom hacks that make it all work. Let's dive in. Hey friends, and welcome back to Praise, Prayer, and Protein. I cannot believe we are sitting down together for the final episode of season one. Honestly, when I started this podcast, I really didn't know if I had enough to say for more than one episode. I thought maybe I would share a couple motherhood thoughts, maybe some meal planning tips, maybe some faithful encouragement. And somehow here we are wrapping up an entire season together. I just really want to say thank you. Thank you for listening while folding laundry. Thank you for listening while driving your kids around. Thank you for listening on your walks and at the gym and during your grocery hauls. Thank you for sharing these episodes, sending me messages, encouraging me when I honestly felt awkward recording into this mic sitting in my bed. This podcast has just been such a joy. And I thought there would be no better way to end this season one than talking about summer. Now, I'm not talking about a Pinterest summer, and I'm not talking about an aesthetically pleasing influencer summer. I'm not talking every moment is magical and curated summer either. I'm talking about real summer. The kind where there are wet towels on the floor and popsicle wrappers in the van and on the yard and bathing suits hanging up everywhere, and your kitchen somehow looks destroyed 15 minutes after you clean it. The kind where the kids are loud and hungry and sandy and sticky and growing. And before we even get into systems and rhythms and meal plans, I want to open with a verse that I got years ago that completely changed how I viewed the chaos and motherhood that comes, especially in the summer season. It is from Proverbs 14. It's a really funny verse, but just wait, just hear me out, okay? Without oxen, a stable stays clean, but you need a strong ox for a large harvest. Okay, I know you're probably like, Katie, why are you talking about oxen in a stable and having a harvest because you have a strong ox? Well, years ago, when I read that verse, I laughed out aloud because I thought, wow, this is motherhood in the summer for me, basically in one season. Because technically, if nobody lived in this house, it would stay cleaner. You know, when they're at school, it stays slightly cleaner because everybody is gone for large amounts of the day. I remember melting down to Micah in the summer, just feeling like it would just I could never keep up. I could never um just keep the house clean. But then I was thinking, if nobody used the towels, there wouldn't be piles of them. If nobody went swimming in the lake, there wouldn't be wet bathing suits hanging around. If nobody ate snacks, the kitchen would stay clean. If nobody came in and out all day long, there wouldn't be piles of shoes at the door. But also a clean stable without any quote unquote oxen means there's no harvest. There's no laughter, there's no memories, there's no abundance. And I think sometimes moms can become so frustrated by the evidence of life that's happening around us that we forget the blessing that's attached to it. Can I say that again? We become so frustrated by the evidence of life happening around us and in our house that we forget that the blessings that come attached with it. The mess means people are living here. The noise means there's joy. Hopefully, and it's not just fighting. The chaos means memories are happening here. The verse became um kind of my unofficial summer verse because summer, our house is full of kids and loud and busy, but it's also so beautiful. And years ago, I actually went through a workbook called Summer to Thrive. It was a huge guided workbook for moms, and it really shifted the way I approached summer. It asked questions about what rhythms I wanted, what obstacles were getting in the way, what matters most, what joy looked like to your family. And one of the biggest things I took away from it was the idea that in order to enjoy summer more, sometimes moms needed to intentionally let go of things. Not add more, but to let go of more. And I remember one year my answer to the question, what can you let go of this summer? was just so simple. It was blow drying my hair. And I know that sounds so hilarious and so ridiculous. Like honestly, why does it matter? But because I realized I was spending all this unnecessary time trying to maintain just normal routines that just flow differently in the summer. Summer is different. And I think instead of fighting that, I needed to really lean into it. Maybe your thing is perfectly folded laundry. Maybe it's spotless for floor. Maybe it's spotless floors, maybe it's elaborate meals. I learned to let go of that a long time ago in the summer. Maybe it's saying yes to every sport or event that happens in the summer. Maybe it's trying to keep your kids entertained every second of every day. But I honestly think one of the keys to enjoying summer is deciding ahead of time what you are not carrying into the season. That's part of why I want to create a very simple little Summer to Thrive worksheet for moms this year. Not a giant workbook because honestly, what busy moms have time to do that? We just need some clarity and we need some simplicity. So I wanted to make a little guide to help moms ask some simple questions. Like, what do you want summer to feel like? What pressure can I let go of? What rhythms matter most? What are some simple memories you want to make? Don't worry about writing these all down right now because I have created the guide for you and it'll be available in the show notes. But because I think we're answering questions honestly, it will really change how we go about our summer. One thing that really changed my mind over the years was creating the summer bucket list. I actually think most bucket lists are pretty bad. Not because memories are bad, but because moms turn them into pressure. Suddenly, summer becomes this giant performance where we're trying to create magical core memories every single day while secretly stressing ourselves out. And by August, we're exhausted and disappointed that we didn't even check off half the things on our bucket list. This is coming from experience. And now the way I approach a bucket list is completely different. I actually base them on things we're already going to be doing and already do in our summer life. They're simple things, normal things. I start with getting ice cream. Of course, we're gonna do that in the summer. Going for bucket rides, watching fireworks, swimming in the lake. Like we live on a lake. 100% we're gonna be doing that. Campfires, popsicles, visit a playground, have root beer floats, a dance party, water balloons, watching a sunset, chasing fireflies. These are things we honestly just do with our kids anyway. But having them on a bucket list just somehow makes kids think that they're special and they have something to look forward to. I actually make our bucket list, a carousel post that I put together, and I'll have that also in the show notes. So this is your sign to go ahead and make a bucket list based on things you are going to be doing. If you're going to be taking a big trip this summer, put that on your bucket list. If you've already planned an itinerary and you know some things you're going to be doing on that trip, add that to your bucket list. Because I think us moms, we need permission to stop trying to manufacture perfection and just enjoy the simple joys of summer. You don't need a thousand expensive adventures to have a magical summer. Do you know one of my favorite summer memories is a few summers ago, we were at one of my niece's grad parties as a family. We were there, it was really late, and we were driving home. And we live on the most beautiful lane. And as we were driving in, I'm talking it was late and we had little kids, um, the field was lit up with fireflies. So many fireflies. We actually pulled over, we just looked at them, and then we got out. We ran around in the pitch dark with all these fireflies. We were catching them in our hands, and I could just even cry thinking about that memory. Like that is a core moment for me about how late it was, how we let our kids stay up, how it was something so spontaneous and something only we can enjoy for a few short weeks in the summer is just seeing how magical our field is lit up with these fireflies. Another thing that really helps our family in the summer is our rhythms. I talked about this in one of my earlier episodes, our school rhythms. But this is our summer rhythms. It's not a strict schedule, it's not military camp, not every second planned, but just a way our summer goes. I wrote this out and had it laminated the same as I did our school schedule. I'm also going to be including that schedule in the show notes because honestly, it has helped our family so much this year. The rhythms are super simple. They're wake up, have creative playtime, breakfast, morning chores, outside adventure, lunch, quiet time, an outside activity, snack, tidy up, screen time or show time, and then supper. Our evenings are just kind of wide open. What I love about this is it kind of shapes our day without controlling every minute of it, minute of it. The kids know what comes next. They know what we are doing. The kids know what comes next. They know we're not doing screens first time in the morning. They know chores happen before we go out on adventures because we actually don't want to leave the house in a chaotic mess all the time. That's why I've structured in some very fast, we call them blitz cleans around here, where everyone just does their chores. We know outside playtime is part of our family culture. They know quiet time is going to happen after lunch where they can read some books and have some alone time, play with their toys. I can't say it enough, but kids really do thrive in rhythms. They love sort of just knowing what's coming next. So I think for some moms who are going to be home all summer, or when moms feel very frustrated that summer has come and the kids just seem like they've gone feral, maybe putting in some rhythms will be super helpful for you this summer. Sometimes us mom thinks freedom means removing all structure, but usually what actually happens is everybody feels chaotic and overwhelmed. Moms then begin to start feeling the mental load of every single decision. So a rhythm really just reduces all that fatigue. And I think one of the biggest things I've learned as a mom of a big family that systems really do create peace. Not perfection, but just peace. Okay, so the third thing that has really helped me in the summer is our summer meal plan. This is something that I talk about a lot. If you know me, if you follow me, you know I'm all about summer meal matrixes, things that make our summer life easy. So starting in June until the end of August, we basically eat the same meals. I know that might sound boring to you, but I have over 40 different types of meals. We rotate through them. I want meal planning to be super easy in the summer because we spend the majority of our days at the lake. We stay there usually pretty late into the evening until Micah comes home from work. Uh, we got a Blackstone this summer, so I'm gonna be doing a ton of new Blackstone recipes on that. But every night does not need to be a gourmet meal. I'm not staying inside cooking. I'm going to play outside. I'm gonna sit by the lake with our friends. I'm gonna go to their pools and hang out. We're just gonna go have fun. I'm not gonna be stressing about meal planning. So making sure I have a meal plan visible, I know what meat needs to be taken out in the morning, what we're going to be cooking. It's a lot of just grilled meat and salads. I've created the best meal plan matrix for the summer. If you want to grab that, that'll also be in the show notes. Uh, it is 10 different meal plans with 40 meals on each meal plan. That's like 400 meals for you to pick and choose from all summer long. These are amazing different themes and categories. I have everything from pasta night, taco night, grill night, slow cooker, which is amazing to use in the summer, especially if you're gonna just leave it and go. Breakfast for supper, snacky type suppers, campfire, blackstone. I just have every theme you can think of possible in that summer meal plan matrix. So make sure you go check that out because you want to also make your meals super simple this summer. The point is just removing the unnecessary mental load of the summer. I also have a meal plan. If you want to pack up or you're gonna be at a soccer field or softball field this summer, you can have meals to go. It is amazing. I think moms underestimate how exhausting constant decision making actually is, especially when kids are home all day in the summer and asking for snacks every five minutes. Another thing that has helped me is we do open kitchen, closed kitchen. This is not a 24-hour snack bar. The kitchen is not free, free range all day, every day. We have certain times that we have snacks. We take snacks to the lake in the afternoon. If we're going out for the morning or having a quote unquote adventure, they can grab a snack. But for the most part, it's three meals and two snacks a day for our family. This has helped so much. A, it's gonna help with your grocery budget, not having kids snack all day long. Two, it's gonna help kids know that they can wait until mealtime to um eat food. They're actually gonna eat healthier food if they're sitting down and eating a meal with a family. Uh, our suppers are always about connection time, and I don't want their bellies to be so full from snacking all day long that they don't sit down and eat supper with us. That's just not part of who we are as a family. And it is going to help you not feel overwhelmed by them asking for a snack every 30 seconds or every, you know, two minutes or always coming to you for a snack. I just lay that down. It's just, it just is what it is. It has been like that since the kids are young. Do I treat my kids? 100%. Do I withhold stuff from them? No, but there are certain times of the day where we're not asking for snacks, and they're just our boundaries around our kitchen. Another thing for us moms, honestly, you don't have to do it all, okay? You don't have to entertain and you don't have to serve all the time. I think it will really benefit our kids if we give them the capability and responsibility to learn some life skills. We need to teach our kids how to make breakfast, teach them how to clean a bathroom, how to do laundry, how to pack up a swimming bag, how to fill up their own water bottle. We don't have to do that and carry that. When my kids were really young, and I had some older ones and some younger ones, we had a buddy system. So the older one was responsible for the younger one. They were to pack a snack and a water bottle for both of them, and they were to make sure they were um had sunscreen on. You might think that is a lazy parenting hack. And yes, maybe it is, but it definitely taught them responsibility because now my three older kids that were the three older buddies get to go get full-time jobs at a summer camp where they are now responsible for eight to ten kids every week. They're responsible for those kids, and I know they learned that young here, being responsible for their siblings. So make sure you um teach them some life skills this summer. All my kids know how to make their own breakfast. Even my five-year-old, who just turned six, how is my baby six? Um, knows how to make his own egg in the morning. Of course, I'm there watching him over a hot stove. That would be irresponsible if I wasn't. But he knows how to crack the egg. He knows how to scramble it. He knows how to add salt and pepper and pour it onto a hot pan. He knows how to scramble it around and he knows how to put it on his plate with his English muffin and enjoy his egg sandwich. Moms, you don't have to do everything. You can allow them to have some life skills. For cleaning, our kids are responsible for chores. We will sit down in the next two weeks before school ends and they will pick their um, we will do a chore chart. So every day during that tidy time, we have someone doing the dishwasher, tidying the kitchen, we have someone doing the bathroom. It gets done three days a week because we're here all day, every day. It gets a little bit chaotic. We have tons of guests that come and swim at our lake. So it just needs a little bit more of a tidy. So that's usually Monday, Wednesday, Friday. We have someone in charge of making sure the laundry hampers from each of their rooms get brought down to the washing machine and get put in. Then they're responsible to put their laundry in their drawers. I don't worry about folding clothes. I don't care if my kids fold their clothes or not. Um, they put their laundry away. We sweep the floor. Uh, because we have so many shoes, someone's always responsible to do two by two shoes. Make sure those are um put together. So during our blitz clean in the morning, everybody contributes, everybody helps, everybody has a job and it is posted on the fridge. Now, one thing I'm going to be super intentional about for me this year. Last year we did no screen time warnings. I absolutely love that in the summer. And what I found is after the first two weeks or after the week that the kids get off school, they are absolutely exhausted. Knowing they can't just wake up and pick up any device they want actually helps them to sleep in. I don't know what it is, but we got darkout curtains, they have fans in their room, and they actually began to sleep in. We were not so strict about um bedtimes in the summer. They stay up a little later. So having this extra sleep in time is super helpful. But for me, I want to be really intentional with my phone this summer. Um, honestly, I know I have a bad habit of checking Instagram and Facebook and being on there for way too long because my kids are so self-entertained that I could just sit there and doom scroll. So honestly, this has been a conviction for me. I did a 21-day fast in January. It was amazing. I do have a one-hour time limit on both of those apps. So I know if I surpass it, then that's it for the day because only my husband and my daughter have the passcode. Um, and then I would have to ask them for that. So I do have some limits on it, but um I really want to be intentional about it. Uh, it's hard because social media is part of my work, content creation is part of business and who I am. I social media manage a few different accounts. Don't know if you knew that or not, but I do do that. Um, but I actually don't want to miss my life documenting it. I don't want to look up in September and realize I watched summer happen through a screen. So this year I want to really try something different. I got um the device called the Brick. I don't really know a ton about it right now, but it does lock certain apps on my phone. So I'm not um endlessly doom scrolling. I would really like it to be locked until lunchtime. So I get up, have my quiet time, do all the morning stuff with the kids. I also want to be able to block those apps for when I go down by the lake. I don't want to be doom scrolling down there. I want to be really present. I want to be on my paddleboard. I want to be soaking in the sun. So I do want to brick, quote unquote, brick those apps when I go down there. So I'll let you know how that goes. You can see how it's going on my Instagram for the time that I get to be on there this summer. Um, but I really want to be present. I actually want to hear my kids laugh at the beach. I want to watch cannonballs off the dock. I want to notice sunsets. I want to sit around campfires without constantly checking all um, checking my phone or having to pick it up. I honestly think um so many of us moms feel mentally exhausted because our brains never fully rest anymore. It's like we can't just sit in it. We have to be picking something up or we have to be watching something or checking our email or checking our notifications or checking, you know, messenger. And I think that summer is a really beautiful opportunity to just reconnect with real life. What did they say? Go touch grass, um, which is honestly why um I'm all about an analog summer so much. This year, I want to play board games when it's raining. We're gonna do the library club because my niece is running it. If you are local listening to this, which I know a ton of you are, go to one of your local libraries and sign up for the reading club. I did this with my older kids so much. My two older kids are such big readers, but also kid number five is a big reader, kid number six is a big reader, and I just never have done that with them. I just don't feel like going to the library anymore because I don't, I don't know why I don't. I just haven't. So I'm signing them up this year for the summer reading club. We're gonna ride our bikes. I need to get a new bike, um, but we're gonna go on bike rides, play cards, have Have campfires as long as we don't have a fire ban. But if we do, I might invest in a propane fireplace. Music in the driveway while we're playing basketball, water balloons, sprinkling, sprinklers. Um, yeah, reading real books. I might get a real book. If you have a real book suggestion for me to read, I don't really read books, but please let me know. We always do the drive-in. Uh, we love going to the drive-in with our friends, playing outside until dark. Uh, going paddleboarding, yes, if you have a paddleboard, let me know. I can add you as part of our paddleboard crew. Um, but I really want to slow down uh this summer, and uh I know that's gonna be the healthiest thing for my family because honestly, having three kids gone for the summer and only having four left just really shows me how fast summer has disappeared. Look at me crying again. That summer has disappeared, like having my three older ones gone already. Like I was talking, I'm going, I'm going off script, but I was talking about this with another mom who their kids went to camp and then they just applied for a job and got it. And it was like, I didn't realize that last summer was my last summer. Cause I didn't know he was gonna get a full-time job and be gone for the whole summer. I did, I just didn't know. Like we enjoyed every moment of it, but I had no idea that was gonna be our last summer. So I'm feeling that I'm feeling the weight of that today. Um, you just don't know when it's gonna be your last summer to have everyone together and be doing all those things. So hear this, moms, when I say this. Um slowing down this summer is gonna be one of the healthiest things we as moms do for our families. Not lazy, it's not unproductive, but it's healthy. I think I want moms to hear this. You do not need to earn rest. You're allowed to sit at the beach, you are allowed to read a book, you are allowed to buy convenience foods uh when they're on sale. You are allowed to simplify meals, you are allowed to say no to things, and you are allowed to lower the bar. Maybe lowering the bar is actually what is going to allow you to enjoy your life more. Now, before we wrap up this final episode, which brought tears, which I didn't think it was going to, I just want to say again how grateful I really am for this community. This podcast has been a really sweet part of my year this year. I would absolutely love for you to binge any episode that you have missed uh this summer. Share them with friends, post them in your stories, tag me if you're listening uh well at the beach or folding laundry or on a drive. I would really, really love your feedback this summer for what episodes were your favorite? What topics did you feel you connected with the most? Do you want more practical motherhood systems, more faith conversations, more guests, more meal planning, more routines and rhythms? I don't know, but just please honestly tell me what do you want to see in season two? Because sometimes I generally wonder if I'm running out of things to talk about. So please send me DMs this summer or even text me if you have access like that, which I know many of you do, and tell me what you want to hear. And don't forget to grab everything in the show notes. So many freebies down there. So also because there's so many freebies, because there's so many good tips in this for moms to really enjoy summer, please, please, please, please, please, please share, share, share, share, share it on your Facebook, share it on your Instagram, share it in your stories. I would really like that because I have the summer rhythm schedule. I have a meal plan matrix, we have the bucket list idea, and I also have that summer to thrive worksheet, which you can complete in the next two weeks before our kids get off of school. And friend, I want to leave you with this. Your summer does not need to look Pinterest perfect to be meaningful. The towels, the crumbs, the sandy floors, the sticky popsicle hands, the piles of shoes, the wet bathing suits, that's life happening. That's your harvest. So lower the pressure, protect your peace, create rhythms that work for your family. Say yes to simple joys. Put down your phone sometimes, watch the sunset, eat so much ice cream, and make the memories. Thanks for being here for season one of Great Prayer and Protein. I love y'all so much. Bye.