Magnetic Fishing Game – Indoor Fun

Our spring snows are here, and I know much of the county is experiencing rainy cold weather. Here’s a great indoor game for those restless-can’t-go-outside days. Magnetic fishing is a very easy game to make. As a bonus, it can be a great learning tool, and it helps with hand eye coordination. You will need a stick or pencil for your fishing rod. Tie a short string onto one end. On the other end of the string, tie a fairly strong magnet. Now, you just need something to catch. For fish, you can either draw simple fish shapes on construction … Continue reading →

In-Home Restaurant

My girl is at that age where she is excited and eager to help out and be involved in everything that is going on in and around the house. She wants to help pour the milk into her cereal bowl, throw dirty clothes into the washer, pull weeds in the garden or anything else we are working on – she wants to lend a hand with all of it! It is quite lovely and incredibly endearing. I sincerely hope she stays this enthusiastic about being a helper. One recent evening, when Grandmom and Grandpop were visiting, I decided to make … Continue reading →

Webkinz – Long Distance Relatives

I’m always looking for ways to stay in touch better with friends and family who are far away. My kids aren’t great about talking on the phone. And writing letters seems impossibly old-fashioned to them. So I was thrilled with a new way for them to get to know their grandmother and cousins better. A few weeks ago, my mother-in-law sent all of her young grandchildren some new stuffed animals. The animals were cute, but much more than stuffed toys. They are called Webkinz. They come with a secret code that gives the child a year’s membership to an online … Continue reading →

Family Talent Show

Impress your friends, dazzle your neighbors!!! Looking for something different to do tonight? Here is a fresh idea that should be perfect for any size family and for children of just about any age. Host a Talent Show! The talent show is the perfect forum for youngsters to display their singing ability, dancing prowess or chops on the bongos. Make sure there is film in the camera (or room on the memory card) and that the camcorder battery has some juice – because there are going to be some Kodak moments you will surely want to remember forever (or use … Continue reading →

Dinner Helpers

We started something new with the boys a couple of weeks ago. They alternate being “dinner helper”. In the past they’ve all spent hours on the kitchen, even sitting on the counters stirring mixes or adding in things like sugar or flour that I’d already measured. They loved helping. They loved cooking. But as they have got older they show up less in the kitchen. So now, twice a week, they each have a turn of being in the kitchen with me. It’s nice to have one on one time with my children. That’s particularly hard to do with twins. … Continue reading →

Games in the Dark

“Because the night belongs to us…” Okay, I am starting this post with a fairly cheesy song lyric but it seems to fit the theme here, which is essentially that there is much family fun to be had sans lighting and minus the sun. The good times definitely don’t need to come to a close just because the sun has decided to lay on the beach in Hawaii and pay a visit to Asia. Because the night offers so many unique and exclusive games, you may very well be tempted to close the blinds and vanquish the artificial light on … Continue reading →

You’ve Got Mail – Ideas and Games for Kids

When my twins were little they had a garden playhouse with a gate that opened and a mailbox. They loved the mailbox. It even had an old fashioned red flag to lift when there was mail inside. It didn’t take us much time to lose the plastic letters that came in the mailbox, but we came up with even better things to “mail”. If they got real mail from their grandparents, birthday or holiday cards or postcards from their travels, I put it in their mailbox and told them to go check it. Some days I even put a morning … Continue reading →

A Do Nothing Day

For Sunday we have planned a do nothing day. The five of us are all burnt out with school, homework, snow (but no snow days off), work, and a pile of other obligations. So Sunday, we aren’t going to do anything. We are going to have a do absolutely nothing day. Like most things with children involved, it’s going to take some planning. All the weekend errands are going to need to be covered on Saturday. Since we are off from work and school on Monday, we don’t have to do our normal get ready for the week on Sunday … Continue reading →

SNOW DAY FUN!

Is there anything better than a snow day? An unexpected day off from work spent with my family is tops in my book. We had a feeling that today would turn into a day at home when we pulled into our driveway yesterday only to be greeted by several inches of fresh powder. After a night of freezing rain we found that daycare had been closed so we promptly called out of work and crawled back into bed for another hour. I served waffles and sausage with syrup for my two beautiful girls and put out a plate of fresh … Continue reading →

Sleepover Fun!

A couple weekends ago we hosted a sleepover. The guest was my three-year old nephew. For his birthday a couple months earlier, we had given him the gift of our company! Pretty pompous, I know. The idea is to allow him and my daughter, the only kids in our family close to three years of age, to play unencumbered and uninterrupted by the older kids. They rarely get to sit down in front of a puzzle together or do just about anything as a duo. He lives an hour away and on the ride back home, both little ones fell … Continue reading →