Have you guys heard of a “Yes Day” for kids? It’s a day where parents/grownups agree to say “yes” to any kid requests (within reason, of course). Our kids naturally thought this concept was the coolest — our oldest requested a Yes Day a while back after a friend came to school raving about his — and we did our very first Yes Day this past Saturday. We don’t do graduation gifts or anything like that for our kids but when our youngest graduated from preschool it felt like a big milestone not only for Rhett but for our whole family. The preschool days are behind us (cue a million different emotions!) and we wanted to celebrate with something unique and extra special. A big family Yes Day fit the bill! How to Plan a Yes Day When we pitched a Yes Day to the boys they were all about it! The whole concept of a Yes Day when Mom and Dad would say “yes” to their favorite treats, extra special kid activities, fast food, video games, etc. blew their minds! When we first had the idea to do a Yes Day, I asked you guys to weigh in and share your experiences with planning a Yes Day for your kids. I took your advice and morphed bits and pieces into planning a day that would work well for our family. We spent the evening before our Yes Day talking the day through with our boys and brainstorming ideas in a number of categories. Our Yes Day categories looked like this: Breakfast Lunch Dinner Dessert Home Activities Paid Activities Free Activities Mom and Dad Surprises (Ryan and I didn’t tell them about this category but had a few ideas we talked about ahead of time that we included in our Yes Day plan as pop-up surprises for the boys.) Brainstorming ideas ahead of time worked really well for our family because we were able to come up with a Yes Day itinerary everyone agreed on that made sense logistically. It also served to get everyone super psyched before the day! Additionally, the boys’ requests in two of the categories (breakfast and dessert) required a grocery store run and since we didn’t want to spend any time on our Yes Day at the grocery store, we made a trip to Publix the night before so the boys could pick out a few of their Yes Day treats. They LOVED this and thought filling our grocery cart with food we usually say “no” to was really fun! Yes Day Rules We had a few rules and parameters for our Yes Day that Ryan and I explained to the boys before we started brainstorming our plans. A few more rules also popped up during Yes Day planning as they began thinking of ideas and making requests. (You may be able to guess which Yes Day rules were added because of our kids’ requests. Ha!) Our Yes Day rules: No double dipping: Once you’ve requested one thing and we’ve done it, you cannot ask for it again. No requesting pets, money or additional Yes Days  (Yep, this one was added because of the boys.) Two paid activities: We were willing to say “yes” to two fun kid activities that required us to buy tickets or pay for our family to participate. We also clarified that if the boys picked one really big paid activity (like going to Carowinds, our local amusement park), that would negate another paid activity. Unlimited free activities: Think flashlight frog hunts, blanket fort building, fishing, board games, bon-fires, cookie baking, etc. Activities must be within a 60-minute drive of our home   Mom and Dad get ultimate veto power Kids must work together to agree on Yes Day choices  Of course rules like “no requesting anything dangerous or destructive” are also a good idea but our kids didn’t push the boundaries on this so we didn’t feel the need to discuss it ahead of time. Our Yes Day from Start to Finish And now for our Yes Day!!! Our Yes Day began just after 6 a.m. when our two oldest boys were awake and acting like it was Christmas morning! If you want to quickly flip through our Yes Day on Instagram, I saved everything I shared to a highlight you may find here: Yes Day! Yes Day Breakfast Chase and Ryder were buzzing with excitement and channeled their energy into helping me make the special cinnamon rolls we made on Christmas morning for breakfast (one of their requests!) while we waited for Rhett to wake up. Just like we did on Christmas, we poured heavy cream over a can of cinnamon rolls before baking. This time we also sprinkled a little brown sugar and a few pats of butter on top of the rolls before baking as well and the end result was next-level delicious. We baked them for about 7 minutes longer than the canned directions and then added the icing on top. SO GOOD!!! We’ll 1,000% make them this way again! The boys also dug into a “fun cereal” aka Lucky Charms for breakfast once Rhett was up while we waited for the cinnamon rolls to bake. The kids’ first “Yes Day” request came in the middle of breakfast when they asked if they could play Ninja Turtles, aka the ’90s Super Nintendo video game Ryan’s mom was smart enough to save from his childhood. Video games at 7:15 a.m.!? YES!!! Yes Day Activity One Our first out-of-the-house Yes Day activity took us about 45 minutes from home to a place called Activate. The boys were dying to try out this place after Ryan showed them videos of it a while back. It’s essent...

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