What about seeking out some community projects to engage your kiddos with? I am in a serious rut now but a couple years ago I was very involved with the dcks, doing lots of local activities. My favorite was about a couple months before Christmas, I set a jar out and the parents(kids) could dump change into it. I also let them know we'd collect nonperishables and new wrapped toys for our local 'Santa Fund'. Then a couple weeks before the Santa Fund planned on delivering, all the dcfs and I made a trip to the fire department(a.k.a. Santa Fund), delivered all our collections. It was so much fun!! Bonus was they were able to climb inside the trucks and Santa was there to see in person.
I bet if you look around your local community there are tons of ways to reach out, volunteer, collect donations. Humane society? Even vets can use old blankets.
Another idea is to see if anyone would be interested in coming to your home and talk, such as a dental hygienist, firefighter/police, anyone at all. Someone could come in to teach a skill whether it's another parent or a professional.
I felt fulfilled doing some of these things and this time of year is definitely when things like activities at nursing homes, angel trees, etc. pop up.
I'm not sure if when you talk about an occupational rut and growth, if you just mean continued education or expanding your dc engagement and you, or what. But there are lots of ways to get out of a rut. (hmmm, maybe I need to reread this a few time and take my own advice)
When dc gets stale, try something new.
I also agree that new regs. didn't do much to inspire providers at all. With new regs., came more mandated trainings and we seem to have lost all our fun trainings that were so...well, fun. And inspiring! We'd go home with all kinds of fun ideas and now everything is humdrum, heard 100x over.