What To Do in September

I love September so much. We usually still have beautiful sunshine weather during the day, but cool evenings to snuggle up with a blanket and cup of tea. And the back-to-school season feels like a fresh start almost as much as New Year’s. If you let your routines lapse in the summertime, September is a great opportunity to get back into regular structured activity. Here’s a plan for what to do in September.

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September Holiday List

It’s National Preparedness Month! Our family will talk through emergency scenarios such as what to do if there is a fire in our house. We’ll revisit memorizing important cell phone numbers (like parents and grandparents), along with how to call 911. This website, http://www.pollyklaas.org/safe/9-1-1-practice-for-children.html, has transcripts to help prepare your child for what to expect if they ever have to call 911. (Just make sure your phone is unplugged or the battery removed before you do any actual practice!) We keep extra water and non-perishable food on hand, but I plan to go through our emergency bags this month and make sure we have the supplies we need. The website, https://www.ready.gov/september, has a lot of resources to check out for emergency preparedness.

Fun Holidays

Labor Day is always the first Monday in September. We’ve already started back to school but I’m looking forward to a lovely warm last official weekend of summer!

Grandparent’s Day falls on the first Sunday after Labor Day. For 2021, this will be September 12th. I’ve been checking out Pinterest for fun ideas, and I like several of the ideas HERE from tipjunkie.com. The other thing I thought would be fun would be to make a small book with a current picture of each of my girls with their grandparents. They could list a few of their current favorite things, and write about a special memory of spending time with their grandparents. If I get it done, I’ll post pics!

Kids Take Over the Kitchen Day is always celebrated on September 13th. My kids have been working on their breakfast skills this summer, so I might get a delicious scrambled egg breakfast, but I’m quite curious about what I will be served for dinner! This is a fun one though – my kids love it!

Constitution Day is September 17th, and we will read some of our constitution together on that day. THIS website has lots of information you can use to learn more about our founding fathers and constitution.

This month also holds National Pepperoni Pizza Day on September 20th. Look for discounts from major chains.

National Punctuation Day is September 24th. Find ways to celebrate HERE.

Ancestor Appreciation Day is on September 27th. Learn something about your family history to celebrate.

Finally, Save Your Photos Day is the last Saturday in September, which is 9/26/20. I like to use this day as a reminder to organize all my summer photos. Delete all those duplicate pics that weren’t quite right, make sure everything is backed up, and create albums for easy searching.

Plan Ahead

Don’t let next month sneak up on you either. At some point in September, think ahead to October. October brings my wedding anniversary, along with a couple of family birthdays. Columbus Day is October 12th, and may be a school holiday in some districts.

I start asking my kids at the beginning of September what they want to be for Halloween. Ideally, I will have costumes planned, and sometimes purchased, in September, and I like to buy Halloween candy and think about our plans for trick-or-treating, or other activities ahead of time. Even if we don’t go trick-or-treating, my kids will want to dress up and I will plan a fun activity for them.

Free Printable List of Fun Holidays for September

Download a free printable list of fun holidays to celebrate in September!

Complete Set of Monthly Lists
Monthly Fun Holidays / Monthly Bucket Lists / Monthly Home Maintenance + more!

Check out my post “A Holiday a Day: 365+ Ways to Celebrate” for a whole year’s worth of unique holiday ideas to celebrate with your family.

What to Buy

There are tons of places online to find “what to buy when” lists. You can check out THIS one from www.cheapism.com for a run-thru of the whole year, but in September, you can still find summer apparel clearance. If you’ve got kiddos, this is a great time to buy flip-flops, swimsuits, and shorts for next summer. Mattresses and housewares often go on sale this month (Columbus Day sales). And, according to Lifehacker.com, September is the time to purchase your holiday plane tickets. Also try to fly on a Tuesday or Wednesday for the best deals. Not that many of us are flying right now.

Shop Ahead

At the beginning of every month, I scan the calendar for the couple of months ahead to see if there are any birthdays, anniversaries, holidays or other special occasions coming up. In October we celebrate our anniversary (16 years!), my aunt’s birthday, and my daughter’s birthday. We don’t usually exchange anniversary gifts, but I’ll start thinking about dinner plans and gift ideas for the upcoming birthdays.

Seasonal Happenings

I’m not a huge pumpkin spice fan, but I do like to treat myself to a pumpkin spice latte to celebrate the season. I also recently saw a recipe for apple cider mimosas that looks AMAZING! Perfect to enjoy the flavor of fall during our still-warm September. I’m definitely trying that one this month.

We have apple and pear trees on our property that need to be picked in September. My kids love applesauce, and are used to eating it without any sweetener, so I’ll have a canning marathon around the end of the month. We’ll probably make some fruit leather too. Try this fruit leather recipe from Simply Recipes that works for almost any type of fruit.

There is an annual chalk art festival and corn roast in our area that we like to attend in September. It’s a unique experience, and I cannot believe the impressive artwork some people can create with chalk.

Seasonal Decor

In past years, I used to do a lot more seasonal decorating, but I’ve become much more minimalist in the past few years…thanks Marie Kondo! I still have a few favorite things to make the house feel like fall. If I had to pick only one fall home decor item, it would be Bath and Body Works candles. My husband is a firefighter and really doesn’t like me burning candles, so I compromise by using their 3-wick candles that come in a glass jar and then put the jar inside a pretty metal candle holder. My favorite for fall is their Sweater Weather scent. So far, we’ve been safe. Although to be completely honest, I have started a fire in the microwave on two separate occasions (not involving a candle), so maybe he has some reason to be paranoid about me and fire!

September Fun List

In September I do put some thought into ways to enjoy fall. We are blessed to have distinct seasons here in the Northwest. I want my kids to create memories of traditions they can reminisce about with each other as they grow up. My fun list is not a checklist of to-dos, but a list of ideas to reference. I think it would be fun to have a candlelight dinner outside. And I want to do a hike to see the spectacular fall foliage up close.

During the winter months, we do lots of game nights, but September is still nice enough to do something outside. I’m thinking about volleyball, croquet, or cornhole for a family fun night to take advantage of our typically good weather this month.

Pick a Project

The other thing I plan to do in September is pick one home project to work on that has been hanging over my head and I just haven’t scheduled time to get done. So during September I am going to work on prepping my baseboards and trim for painting. I am blocking out one hour per week on Wednesdays to work on this project. I have realized that unless I put a task on the calendar, it just sits on a to-do list forever. I’m trying out the idea of having a project list and one by one actually scheduling time to complete them, a half hour or hour at a time.

Back-to-School

Homework Area and Systems

In September, there’s usually some sort of back-to-school or curriculum night to get information about the kids teachers and classes. I like to set up a homework area after school starts; it just seems wrong to be thinking about homework during summer vacation! This year it will be an entire homeschool area.

One thing that I found useful last year was providing each child with a clipboard. I used clear clipboards (since I already had them) and let them apply stickers to label their name. However, now after seeing how great they are, I think I want to get a clipboard with a storage section. My kids spend quite a bit of time waiting for one of their sisters at a class or event, and having a clipboard to grab makes working on homework so much easier. Sometimes really simple things make a big difference in how smoothly your life runs, you know?

School Lunch Plan

Another major thing I do in September is make some kind of plan for lunches. When my kids were in school, I would print the school “hot lunch” menu at the beginning of each month and let my kids pick a day or two to have school lunch. Packing lunches the night before makes mornings waaaayyy easier.

We will be homeschooling this fall, so our kids will be home (like a lot of other kids), but I still want a lunch plan to make life easier for all of us.

Mostly, I try to prepare individually packaged portions of lunch components on Sundays. I found some great little plastic containers at the Dollar Tree that I use to put nuts, dried fruit, or trail mix in. They also work well for small berries, olives, or garbanzo beans. (Some people think it’s weird that my kids eat beans, just plain beans, all by themselves.) I think the containers are intended for salad dressing, but they are the perfect size for tiny little foods. Best of all, they come in a 10-pack for ONE DOLLAR! I have dozens of them and keep them stocked in the cupboard and fridge ready to pop in a lunchbox. You can follow my Pinterest board for lots of school lunch ideas HERE.

Grab an editable cheat sheet to help your kids pack their own lunch

Prioritize What’s Important to You

With back-to-school bringing new schedules and routines, September is a great month for goal setting and prioritizing what is most important to you. Think about what your ideal week would look like. Maybe your current circumstances don’t allow you to create that perfect week, but there is probably something you wish you were doing that you can incorporate right now. It will never happen unless you make it happen. Choose something that is important and valuable to you, and block out time to do that thing.

I have to be intentional about scheduling time to spend with my husband, kids, and friends. It’s easy for me to let my to-do’s consume all my available time. Without putting date night on the calendar or a one-on-one outing with one of my daughters, or time to catch up with a friend, it rarely happens. I’m not rigid about scheduling one-on-one time with my three daughters every month, but I like to scan the calendar with an eye to see where I might be able to fit in a special time. Sometimes I can see that I’ve got two girls doing an activity at the same time, which makes it possible to take a walk, play a game, or get a treat with the other daughter. If you want some ideas for fun one-on-one activities with your child, read THIS post.

My sister was just here visiting from Florida with her family, and we decided that we need a plan for keeping our kids in touch since we live at opposite ends of the country. We are putting a weekly FaceTime chat on the calendar. Without tying my intention to a specific time, I know that weeks, if not months, will fly by with me thinking “I really need to have the girls FaceTime their cousins.”

My 12-month priority planning system

If you need a little help figuring out how to set priorities and plan out a year’s worth of activities that are important to you, I have a printable planning system available in my Etsy shop that can help.

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