Taking Time Tuesday~ Shopping and Sharing!

Today is our Tuesday, so instead of crafting today we headed out to the store to shop for the kids we picked off the giving tree at our church. Our church helps the needy families in our community by hanging up tags on the tree with the wish lists of the kids and parents who cant afford to buy gifts this season! So the girls and I picked a few tags off the tree on Sunday. Since the last few days were pretty rough around here I thought that getting out would be good for us! 😉 I also noticed that with Christmas being so close the girls are getting selfish and have wanted everything lately. I was hoping that taking time to think about what another child would like would help them as we walked through the store. It did! I always am trying to find way to help my kids learn to share with others and this was a fun way to do it! They did a great job and were able to find great stuff for all the kids. I think they had fun too! I have alot of my shopping done and I am hoping that it will make it possible to do other stuff during December! After we shopped I took the girls out to lunch. It was a good day. The only thing that made it a little tricky was the constant chilly rain and the wind (a blistering wind is what Bunny called it). In fact the parking lot of the one store had at least 6 inches of water sitting in it! I was lucky to find a parking spot on the high ground and pick our way little island by little island! 🙂 Do you do something special to help your kids learn how to give to others? I would love to hear what you do! I am always looking for new ideas!
 As always I have a picture of our day!

So as I ventured out with my little group I thought a bit about what makes a successful shopping trip with kids. For me here are a few tips to making it a bit of a success:

1: Make sure that you set the expectations clearly before entering each store! (What can they have or not have, what can do or touch, etc)
2: Make sure that there is a set form of discipline if they don’t meet expectations (no treat, or timeout, or whatever else works for you!)
3: Make sure that no one is hungry (Nothing is worse then hungry kids)
4: Make sure that everyone is well rested. (my mistake today, Pup was pretty tired)
5: Know what you are getting and enlist the kids help! (Spending too much time browsing is hard on kids)
6: Reward the kids at the end! ( I like to finish the day with a little treat of some kind. We will either get some food or share a candy bar, or something small like that)

Those are my thought and how I handle shopping with my kiddos! Now this is not always fool proof, but it does help! Its the holidays and we all are going to need to tackle the crowds and what not at some point. It may as well be as enjoyable as it can be! 🙂 How do you shop with your kiddos at this time of year? So stop by and leave me a comment! I LOVE to hear from you! Happy Shopping and Sharing!