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On this lovely Mother’s Day I wanted to say a few words to show my gratitude for all of the wonderful women in my life and around me everyday.
Beautiful women of the planet I see you.
To the older mother, I see you. I see you growing in wisdom and in years. I see you suffering with the affects of an aging body and struggling through disease and hardship and loss. I also see your heart, I see how much you love. I see the results of many years of service and care. I see the loneliness for days gone by. I see you waiting for your children and grandchildren to visit. I see you accomplished in many talents and skills eager and willing to share what you know. I see your example and am so grateful for the gift I was given to be taken care of by you. I see you and I love you.
To the single woman, I see you. I see you in your successes in your professions and with your families. I see you nurturing so many people around you. I see you taking care of your loved ones. I see you making family out of friends. I see you rescuing souls. My heart reaches out to you in your lonely moments. I see you and I love you.
To the childless mother, I see you. I see you in your willingness to sacrifice so much. I see your aching for something more, but still finding fulfillment in life in every way you can. I see you smile and bring joy to those around you. I see you taking great care. I see you and I love you.
To the single mother, I see you. I see you working overtime to provide for your family. I see you working overtime at home to be everything to your kids. I see the blood, sweat, and tears you give and sacrifice everyday to give your family a better life. I see how large your heart is. I see how tired you are. I see how much you could use a pat on the shoulder, some encouragement, and some love. You are so strong. I see you and I love you.
To the mother of small children, I see you. I see you give so much of yourself. I see you devote your everything to keeping them fed, clean, educated, and happy. I see your loneliness for adult attention and a little recognition. I see you feeling like you’ve lost so much of your individuality through the many needs of the little people around you. I see you trying your best but feeling underachieved. I think you have achieved more than you will ever know. You are growing your heart to be a solid source of love and no one can ever take that away from you. I see you and I love you.
To the mother of teenagers, I see you. I see you being drained of your emotional energy in teaching your kids to regulate their emotions. I see you worry for their choices and consequences. I see you spending a lifetime in the car going between various activities when you have so many things at home that need to be done. I see you feeding so many mouths as your kid’s friends come over so much. I see you aching for the child you used to cuddle, and now you are lucky to see them before bed at night. You are still your family’s everything. You are still the glue that binds them and gives them a foundation to stand on. I see you and I love you.
To the working mother, I see you. I see how much you give of your time to everyone. I see how organized and amazing you are. I see how much you can get done with so little time for everything. I see your jobs well done and your children well raised. I see how you long for some more time in a day. I see how much you can do and I am in awe. I see you and I love you.
To the mother of a large family, I see you. I see how you serve. I see how you spread your attention to so many people all at once. I see how you multitask. I see how big your heart is. I see how you struggle for “me” time. I see how much you are adored and appreciated. You are building a beautiful army for good. You are so good. I see you and I love you.
I have so many women in my life that fit into all of these categories and we all move through many of these categories. We are all so strong. We all do so much good. We all sacrifice and serve so much. We are the ones that can bring love to the world. We are the mothers that shape the future. Love is always needed. We can feel successful in the legacy of love we leave behind. I love to be a woman, and I love to be a mother.
Happy Mother’s Day!
That’s right folks, we made it to Florida! This was the first of many vacations by airfare, I hope. It was definitely a step in a whole new direction. I never thought a family of my size would be able to fly anywhere for a reasonable price, let alone find accommodations and be able to just handle the pure volume of stuff and people without losing anyone or anything. But, we did it and it was a success. I’m so excited to share some of my crazy tips and tricks for organizing such a success. We really had a wonderful time!
1) Travel tip 1… use google flights. If you haven’t learned about google flights yet, go to google today and look at their cool flights page. You can add any destination and relative date to get a calendar of the cheapest flights of all the airlines and move through the calendar to find dates that are even cheaper to travel. Last year my husband and I found tickets to visit some people in Spain for only $400/per round trip ticket. That price was insane! I haven’t found it again this year, but I am on the lookout. We decided this fall that we wanted to take the kids on a trip for their Christmas present this year. It is getting really hard to find more stuff we actually want. With a family this big we have almost every affordable toy from birthdays and Christmas presents over the years. So, we decided to spend the money on a trip instead. I scoured google flights for the most affordable flights this year. An airplane ride anywhere was what most of the kids were asking for. They had never been on an airplane and thought it was an experience they didn’t want to miss. So, I looked all over the states. Orlando was actually the cheapest airfare by far than most places from our home airport. I was ecstatic. The fare was just over $200/per round trip ticket. That’s more than my usual Christmas budget but combined with our vacation budget it made everything a bit more affordable. The best time to fly was over Spring Break. Win win. Only problem was patience, but we managed.
2) Travel tip 2…use a vacation rental site. We use homeaway.com, but I have heard great things about airbnb too. I’m just already an established member on homeaway. That means that I already have an account with them and get reviewed by the owners of the places we stay. We get great reviews from them, so when other owners look at my profile they are more willing to rent to us because other owners have had such a good experience with us. You can also leave reviews for the places you stay and read reviews of other people who have stayed there. Those reviews help me a lot to know what I am getting into, like is it clean and bug free, is it close to local attractions, does it keep a well stocked kitchen, etc. The vacation rentals available in Orlando are awesome and they are more affordable than hotels. A super big plus is most of them also have their own private pools because that is a popular accommodation in Florida. You also get your own kitchen, laundry room, family room, and several bedrooms. For a family with a lot of kids, there is no better way to travel. I love having all the space. It is also more affordable to cook a lot of meals in the kitchen and stock some snacks in the fridge. You can’t beat the convenience of getting some laundry done before returning home to real life. We stayed in a rental property owned by Roman Regal and Sascha Borst and they took great care of us.
3) Travel tip 3…pack light. We decided to get a carryon suitcase for everyone that was small enough that even the littlest could handle rolling it through the airport. I found the suitcases at Costco in the fall for only $25 each. They are not big enough to be their only suitcase for life, but they are sufficient for a week vacation! Shoes and jackets take up the majority of space in a suitcase so everyone wore their running shoes and packed sandals or flip flops. We also tied our sweatshirts around our waists. It saved a lot of room in the suitcase. Also, the airport security doesn’t make kids 12 and under take off their shoes so you don’t have to worry about trying to put the little one’s shoes back on after you get through security. Having laundry at the house was a definite perk to packing light. You only need about four pairs of pants/shorts and a few pajamas. I did make my kids pack shirts for everyday though. Those tend to get more stained and stinky than pants and jammies. Everyone also carried a backpack with electronic devices and toys and snacks for the ride. The younger ones were able to fit a special blanket or stuffy for comfort away from home and the older ones could fit a few extra clothes or books to read while we traveled. I also was able to buy a car seat strap on amazon for our car seat to strap to the adult roller suitcase which made walking through the airport with a car seat so much easier. The airline will check the stroller and car seat at the gate for you so you can take it with you all the way until entry onto the plane.
4) Travel tip 4…get matching shirts. You won’t believe how much easier it is to stick together and keep an eye out for the wanderers if you are in matching shirts. I like to look for bright but attractive colors. You won’t find a neon shirt on me let alone my teenagers. However, there still are nice colors that are easy to spot in a crowd. I like baby blue, purple, or red. They tend to stand out in a crowd. I ended up also purchasing grey just for the pure fact that I liked the color, but dark grey and black aren’t great colors for spotting in a crowd. There are many places online and in your local community that will screen print shirts for you if you want to have a saying or logo on it. Be warned that the majority of the cost for the screen printed shirts is in the set up of the colors of the pattern to put on the shirts. If you can keep it limited to one or two colors for your pattern you will save a lot of money. Also, the more shirts you order, the cheaper the whole order will be because you can separate the cost of the screen print set-up among more shirts. I wanted to have matching shirts specifically when we were at the amusement parks. If you are going to get your family more than one set it is definitely more affordable in the long run to buy them all at once and set up the screen print only one time.
5) Travel tip 5…break up the amusement park days. If you haven’t done Disneyland or Disney World or Universal before, you need to know to plan a break between days at the park. The day includes a lot of walking and standing and not having regular meals. You inevitably get extremely exhausted. As fun as the magic and rides are it is a long day for everyone. We clocked walking about ten miles each of our days at the park. It’s a ton. Your feet hurt, you back hurts, your legs hurt, and the whining is awesome. Is it worth it? Probably. The memories are still priceless and bringing imagination to life for a child is certainly magical. Anyway, you need a rest day in between days at the park. We usually choose the break day to be a fun day at the beach playing in the waves, building sand castles, and relaxing in the sun. Or we utilize the pool at the house and just stay in the rental house swimming, watching movies, drawing our favorite scenic spots from vacation, or playing board games. These days are just as priceless as the expensive park days. My kids love the quality time we have together even if we are doing things we could be doing at home. Do me a favor and turn off all the electronic devices during these times and you will be surprised at the bonding that happens in your family.
6) Travel tip 6…HYDRATE! You will all be a lot happier if you are not thirsty on these busy fun days. You ought to start drinking lots of extra fluids in the few days leading up to your travel. It will help with swelling feet and uncomfortable tummies while flying. As for the days at the park and at the beach you are bound to be very thirsty. Rather than carrying a bunch of heavy water bottles for everyone around everywhere, we opted to just carry around two that we refilled. Everyone drank out of the bottle using the waterfall method so as not to share germs. We also used crystal light flavor packets to keep the drink interesting for everyone including the littles. Water tends to have a bit of a different flavor in each state as well, which might be a problem among your picky eaters. The crystal light masked that perfectly. We also stocked up on some crystal light with caffeine for when we were at the parks. It is a great solution for that child that can’t take one more step when it is only eleven o’clock in the morning. We have found it to be a miracle cure for our tired kiddos to add a little caffeine on those tough park days. They don’t normally get caffeine at home so the crystal light is just enough of a pick me up for them. Stop at the drinking fountains when you see them and pack those couple of water bottles. In the parks we took one back pack with the water, diapers and wipes, and lots of snacks. It was the perfect amount of stuff to be lugging around everywhere. You do not want more stuff than that. In the past I have tried to get a little drawstring back pack for everyone to carry their water and snacks in for themselves, but by the end of the day I found that I was holding all of the bags while kids did different rides or got tired of carrying it. It was not a good solution. Having one bag for the whole family to share worked much better. I also carried my money and identification in a little belt around my waist (that runners use), so if we left the back pack with the stroller while we all went on rides I wasn’t worried about any valuables. Plus it comes in handy after the trip when we women are wearing those pants without pockets. It can be a struggle to find a good place to set your phone when your arms are full of babies!
7) Travel tip 7…swimsuits with sleeves. Nothing can kill a vacation faster than sunburns. The easiest places my kids get burned is on their shoulders and necks. I just carry a little container of sunscreen for everyone’s faces/necks and then we use swimming suits at the beach with sleeves. It saves the hassle of remembering to buy sunscreen in big bottles when you arrive (because you can’t carry a big container of it in a carry on bag at the airport). Also make sure you save a little room in your bags to bring home a few shells. The kids will have fun finding a few great ones. I try to limit it to just a few per kid and when we get home we try to find a place for them. My favorite place to store collected seashells is in jars on the bathroom counters. It makes a perfect decoration piece for your bathroom! Just get creative and see how you can help your kids keep a memento of their trip to the beach, but hopefully that memento isn’t a sunburn.
8) Travel tip 8…have fun. We like to joke in my family that plan A never works, and sometimes plan B fails, and plan C…sometimes we end up with plan F. So, we commit to each other before we leave that there are no expectations. We will have fun and be grateful to take a trip together even if things don’t quite go the way we planned. Traveling with such a big group is all about flexibility. For this trip we planned some time in our schedule to rearrange park days if weather was bad or something else came up, and I’m glad we did. Nothing catastrophic happened, but we decided to change our last day at the park to our other day so that I could use that last day there to rest, do laundry, pack and be ready for our flight the next day. It made all the difference in how smoothly the trip went from start to finish. Other things didn’t go great. Eating out at expensive parks is hard with a big family. We tried to avoid it as much as possible by eating a big breakfast, taking a ton of protein bars, crackers, and sandwiches in our backpack, and planning to eat a little at the parks with a dinner waiting at home. It tended to lead to a lot of late late dinners and we nicknamed this vacation the starvation vacation because of all of our irregular meals. We’ve nicknamed all of our other vacations as well, but that is a post for another day. The long story short, is be flexible. Choose to have fun even if things turn out a little differently than you planned. I can assure you will look back on the vacation with fondness whether it was perfect or not. I am not saying not to make a plan though. The better planned and prepared you are for your vacation, the better able you are to be flexible and creative when you have to. Make sure you have in order passports, tickets, addresses, accommodations, rides, and a general list of ideas you want to do before you leave. You will be happy going into things organized even if you feel like it is all in disarray by the time you are halfway through. Enjoy your time with your family and be grateful to have this time with each other. Choose to be happy and have fun. It is only up to you how you feel about each day on vacation and for the rest of your life.
If you know me very well you know that I love to decorate one room in my house at Christmas to be my Jesus room. I have all the nativities I have collected over the years displayed in here. I also have a tree that is decorated with symbols of Christ and pictures from his life. My sister-in-law made me a beautiful felt nativity scene that has 25 pieces to count down to the holiday and by the last day the scene is complete. All of these are favorites at my house at Christmas time. Of course, another room has stockings and snowmen and village sets and a Christmas tree decorated with all the fun ornaments we have collected over the years or our children have made. I love both rooms; but, today I wanted to focus on this new item that was added to my Jesus room and the new tradition that goes with it.
http://www.christwaslove.etsy.com
My good friend, Kristina, has done all the leg work for me. She has commissioned new art and found a scripture to go with 25 days counting up to Christmas. I thought about many different ways I could use this. I could use it teaching a lesson at church or during Family Home Evening and just shoot them all at the same time. I could just use it as a decoration and flip the cards over as we counted down. Or I could try to incorporate it into something my family is already doing. I decided to try and incorporate it into something my family is already doing and I’m really hoping it will help bring the spirit of the true meaning of Christmas into our whole month of December.
For several years now, my family does a nightly devotional. It is more than just family prayer. Each night we each take a turn to tell everyone something happy from our day and something sad. It is a great conversation point and helps us all to be deeply invested in each other’s lives. We also get an insight into the emotional state of our children and in general what is happening with them at school. It is a good practice for everyone to do a quick review of the day. I think we appreciate the days we are given more when we take a moment to reflect on all that happened in 24 hours. We also have more gratitude as we are forced to think of something good that happened even on bad days. And we gain empathy for each other when we see that everyone has to deal with something from the day that didn’t go quite right. It is one of my favorite parts of the day.
Next, we read or memorize scriptures. With such a young family we usually have a scripture for the week that we work on memorizing. If we have more time or as the kids get older we can incorporate more time into family scripture study. Of course, this doesn’t replace personal scripture study. It’s fun to see the kids hear scriptures in church, during a talk or something, and then they will look over at me with wide eyes and knowing looks. They’ve heard that one before, and they recognize it. Their little brains are being formed with God’s word and there is nothing better to influence them. We then end with a family prayer.
For Christmas time, with my new scripture advent calendar, we will use the scriptures on the back of each card for our nightly scripture. I’m so excited about this because I really think it will help my kids focus on the true meaning of Christmas nightly before they go to bed. We can pass around the card with the picture on it and quickly discuss what the picture and scripture are about. We are already in a good habit of doing a verse or two every night so it won’t be a huge strain to add this in and make it consistent. I didn’t have to put much time and effort into figuring out what would best go next and finding art to keep the kids interested. The best part is it does make a good decoration for my Jesus room and it is something that can last for many years as a tradition while my kids are growing. It seems like it would make a great gift for my kids as they go off to live on their own. A tradition that can be handed down to their children. We will keep Christ in our hearts and at Christmas. What better way to bring your children up right, then to bring them up as stewards of our Savior? I can’t wait for Kristina to do all the work for me again and make an Easter advent calendar!
What traditions does your family do?
As Halloween approaches I wanted to give you a fun song to sing with your kids. I know a lot of us are planning parties at the school, at church, or at home. There are tons of games and craft ideas out there, but the songs are limited. A few years ago, my husband and I came up with this fun Halloween song set to the tune of “Popcorn Popping” from the LDS Childrens Songbook. It is a perfect Halloween song to use with preschool kids on up through elementary school aged kids. We have used it many times in a pinch to entertain little ones. Enjoy!
The lyrics in printed form are this:
I looked out the window and what did I see?
Two beady eyes staring back at me.
Halloween has brought me such a nice surprise,
Ghosts and goblins right before my eyes.
I can come to your house to Trick or Treat,
And get some candy that’s good to eat.
If you want to scare me,
Then you will have to be,
A ghost or a goblin hiding behind a tree.
Boo!
Family game night is a favorite at our house. We love to play all kinds of games. Whether it’s bowling, billiards, ping pong, obstacle courses, scavenger hunts, card games, or board games; we will play it! We often get new games for Christmas so we have a fun activity to do with each other while we are home that day. We like to find an excuse to just play with our kids. Usually we play board games on Sunday afternoons, but we also play them a lot when we are vacationing or camping. They also help pass the time on long weekends or rainy days. I love games, but I usually deal with babies while daddy plays with the kids. It is a good bonding opportunity for all of them. I wanted to give a list of fun games my family enjoys and your family might enjoy as well. This list is not meant to be comprehensive. I wanted to give you and your family a few unique ideas that you might not think of often. Again, I am making a link to these games on Amazon for your convenience. If you use my links it will help to keep my account active with Amazon so that I can continue to link things in my blog posts. I may also make a very small fee, but I am not trying to sell you anything.
- Scavanger Hunt. My kids and husband love to play the game where you take a picture of a small detail in your house and the kids have to find that object or area of the house. It’s really fun. We also do little treasure hunts with clues when we want to give them something exciting. They love it.
- Hide and Go Seek. We love to play all variations of this game. Sometimes everyone hides and the dog finds you. Sometimes we face time our phones together and someone goes and hides using only what you see on the phone as your clue to find the hider. Another great variation on this game we call Hide and Go Clean Up. Essentially while the person is counting they have to clean up ten items and then still hide, so it has to be done quickly. My kids prefer to clean this way and I get a mess cleaned up while they play a favorite game. Win Win.
- Face Painting. We love to pull out the face paints for parties and Halloween, but it’s also fun to do on a regular old day. We recently did face paints while we were watching conference. It was a quiet, fun activity for the kids. It also beats standing in lines at different carnivals and events. There are a lot of tutorials and pictures online to help you get creative.
4. Obstacle Courses. 
5. Bop It. You would not believe the fun we can have with this game. It can be played individually or as a small or big group. All ages can play. The kids like playing this with their friends and cousins as well.
6. Elf Storyteller Grab n Gab game by Hallmark. This has seriously been fun for all ages and alone, in small, or big groups. I don’t think it is as expensive through Hallmark, but it’s been years since we got it, so I don’t know if they still make it. The game asks you questions (like name something sweet), which you answer. Then it takes all of your answers and makes a quirky story inserting your voice (made to sound like an elf) at different places in the story. It’s hilarious.
7. Settlers: Cities and Knights of Catan. This is a really fun strategy game that works best with kids eight and older.
8. Ticket to Ride. This game is also a strategy game for slightly older kids. It teaches geography while you play too which is an added bonus.
9. Play Nine. This game is fun for all ages and easy to get the hang of. We love taking it with us to family reunions. I think kids 5 and up can understand how to play this game fairly easily.
10. Farkle. This is a dice game that is really easy for the kids to understand. It also helps with math skills which is the added bonus.
11. Spoons. This game is played with a regular deck of cards and spoons in the middle of the table. There is one less spoon than players. You pass out four cards to each player, then the dealer passes one card around the circle at a time. The players decide whether to keep the card passed to them or not discarding a card every time they receive a card (so they always keep four) to the next player in the circle. As soon as one player gets four of kind they grab a spoon. The other players that see this grab a spoon too. The last person won’t get a spoon and they are out. It is fun for all ages.
12. Pictionary and Charades. Everyone loves these classic games and you don’t need an official game board to play. It is not too hard to come up with a list of things to put in your game. The kids always love this one.
13. Hilarium. We love this game as a great ice breaker for any party or a way to get a quick laugh with your family. Basically everyone does charades simultaneously. Each action has a match and player has four cards that they begin acting out looking for someone that is acting out the same thing. It’s really fun for the whole family.
14. Pie Face. Now this is not my favorite game of all time but my preteens love playing this one, especially with their friends. And the bonus is it’s tasty.
15. Badmitton/Volleyball. This game is fairly cheap to buy and really fun to play. It is light weight and can be set up on even tiny pieces of grass. There are also fun games like water balloon volleyball that can be played with the net. It is a game I like having on hand.
16. One Night Ultimate Werewolf. This game is a little scary for littles but an absolute favorite of the bigger kids and adults. It also works well as a teenage date night.
Of course there are all kinds of games that we all love to play. Some classics that come to mind are Monopoly, Phase Ten, CandyLand, and Scrabble. I was hoping to help you find a few things that help you reach outside the box a little bit. I would love your comments about other games your family loves. I need a few new ideas myself.
As Christmas is looming in the near future I have begun to think about Christmas presents for my family. It is hard to buy more stuff every year. When you have a lot of children, you tend to have a lot of toys. There isn’t a whole lot of room to store the toys either. My kids have so many toys they forget what they have. Every year I pull them all out to dejunk and organize them. It is one of their favorite days of the year because they rediscover everything and play all day. Of course, they don’t like to say good-bye to broken toys or the chosen toys to go to charity. But they quickly forget about what is missing when the toys all get put back away. Then it’s time to add more toys to our ever growing collection each December. I really love the idea of the gift of time instead of the gift of things. We try to find gift ideas that give us memories to do together. But, I’m a little old fashioned and still like to see their faces light up when they open a present. I still like to have the magic of Santa Clause and receiving a gift from the jolly old man. So, as in all things there is a balance, and I still need to come up with a few things to purchase them. I have serious months of thinking time and creative brain power to figure out how to get my kids engaged with new purchases. I don’t like to buy the latest electronic gadgets because my kids lose serious brain power if they spend too much time with them. I don’t like to replace motorized toys for toys that help them move their bodies (like an electric scooter vs a plain old scooter). I don’t like cheap plastic or tiny toys that my toddlers can choke on either. I imagine this is a problem with moms everywhere. But what are some good quality toys that last a long time and get used frequently? I know every child is different in their tastes and abilities. Since I have a lot of different personalities to choose from, I thought I would compile a list of our favorite toys so far. These are not just fad toys that kids want because of commercials. These are toys my kids all love and play with constantly. Some of the items are more expensive and we usually gave them to all the kids as a group gift if that was the case. Most of them give them lots of imaginative play hours and they play with each other because they fit many ages. It is a growing list, but these classic toys won’t steer you wrong. Trust me. I do receive a few cents if you use my link to purchase anything, but I’m not trying to make money. I use affiliate links to simplify your life. It would help me a lot if you could use these links just to keep my affiliate account active with Amazon. I am not trying to sell you anything.
1. Magnet Tiles – My kids old and young enjoy building with these. I like them even better than building blocks. Their spatial reasoning skills are also greatly improving.
2. Plasma Car – There are knock off products on this brand that still work great. However, I love the original plasma car. If any parts break, you can contact the company with your product number and they will send replacement parts. These are rated for up to 200 lbs and for ages 1-99. My toddlers love them, my big kids love them, and I think they are quite fun as well. If you get more than one for racing, it’s even more fun.
3. Child’s sofa bed – Our kids use these all the time to play school and house. They also like to watch TV on them. They come in really handy for sleepovers at Grandma’s or in hotel rooms for our toddlers. Visiting toddlers like to use these to have a place to sleep next to their parents.
4. Fort kit – The amount of imaginative play my husband and kids use this for is endless. They love it and all of their friends, young and old, like to build things with this. Every kid and kid at heart likes a fort.
5. Karaoke Machine – My kids love to sing their favorite songs. I used to think it was a pain to get the music for these machines, but now I have found that YouTube has karaoke music for almost anything your kids want to sing. If you just want to get a speaker and mic that works too. But the karaoke machine is a nice bundled package.
6. Head Microphones – We got our oldest daughter her own head microphones last Christmas and it has been a favorite of everyone. Everyone likes to pretend they are a rock star and you really feel like one with these. They can hook up to the speaker I mentioned above.
7. Roller shoes – We tried traditional Heely shoes, which my kids loved, but they grew out of them too fast. This option is the same idea but can grow with you which I love. The kids just strap them onto their feet. It’s fun.
8. SnoCone Maker – Hot summer days are more fun with snow cones. Don’t forget to get some syrups and special cups and straws to make the experience even more fun. It’s also a great way to jazz up that lemonade stand and make a little money.
9. Easy-Bake Oven – The Girl’s Scout Oven is very similar and just as good, so get whichever one you love. I fought this one for a long time because I wasn’t excited about the tiny treats. I even bought a little toaster oven to cook in instead, but my kids didn’t like how hot it got. They all want to bake, all the time. This makes that possible for them and they have had a lot of fun with it.
10. Rainbow Loom – This creative art helps kids start learning how to weave with a loom in a fun new way. Even my older son likes to try to make animals and other things with this. There are great tutorials on YouTube.
11. Melt Beads – My toddlers can’t get enough of creating with these. The parts are little so they need to be kept out of reach of tiny kids, but they are so little they won’t choke on them either. It is great for their fine motor skills too.
12. Globe or Atlas – My kids are very curious about our world and have questions all the time about where things are. I love having a globe to reference.
13. Whittling Kit – Camping and trips to the cabin got so much more fun with these whittling knives. I also got a little book as a guide but my son doesn’t really use it. I think google is a resource he likes better. They love to carve soap and sticks they find in the back yard. It uses a lot of creative time and I love that.
14. Camping Gear – Sleeping bags, camping chairs – Part of playing house is playing at sleeping outdoors. We also do take these things camping with us sometimes, but mostly they are used indoors as the kids set up different worlds that need seating and sleeping arrangements.
15. Puppet Theater with Puppets – My kids love to perform for us all the time. Whether it is a show with the microphones or a story they have created with puppets, these toys have led to a lot of great story creating in my house.
16. Kitchen Set and dishes – I can’t say this toy benefits the older kids much, but every child under the age of 7 loves to play with this at our house. It is perfect for playing house too!
17. Hopper Ball – This toy is perfect for getting out their wiggles in a safe way. It also makes fun for racing if you have more than one, and can double as an exercise ball for you.
18. Doctor Kit – My kids love to pretend to fix me up. Everyone needs this classic toy!
19. Hammock – This has been our absolute favorite camping toy and back yard toy. The kids not only relax in it but swing in it too. You will probably need more than one!
20. Trampoline – Every kid loves to jump on the bed and the couch. It drives me crazy. I love being able to say, “You don’t need to jump on the couch, we have a trampoline for that.”
21. Dress Ups – The absolute best dress ups that are affordable with a huge variety comes from the Little Adventures company. I love everything I have gotten from them. We own all the princess dresses and super hero costumes. We also have a full nativity set for the kids to act out the nativity at Christmas time. We love it.
22. Gel Pens/Adult Coloring Books – If my kids ever complain about being bored, I tell them to get out the gel pens and coloring book. It is an automatic stop to boredom. We use it everywhere: camping, family reunions, quiet time at home, and with friends. It is fun for all ages.
23. Remote Control Cars and Quadcopters – These classic toys are a must have around here. My son loves his quadcopter and loves watching the recordings after the flight. We haven’t tested it outdoors yet, but so far we have had fun with these.
24. Video Camera – Kids like to make movies. They spend a lot of time reading stories, watching stories, and making up stories. They don’t have phones to just record stuff on them. This is a fun solution for them to finally get themselves on screen.
25. Knitting kit – My kids love making their own beanies and are perfecting their skills so they can make hats for others. It makes a perfect gift and the time spent is good creative energy. The loom is really easy to use and the finished product is impressive.
I hope this gave you some ideas for your Christmas coming up! I would love comments on some of your favorite toys for my readers and I to add to our collections.
I used to think I wasn’t a camper. I didn’t like sleeping outside and being cold and uncomfortable. I’m a creature of comfort. I convinced my husband to buy a tent trailer a few years ago thinking I might finally be willing to go camping if I was a little more comfortable. Up to this point we have taken the trailer out for a single night here and there and I did ok. I wasn’t completely comfortable but it wasn’t terrible. I liked the idea of camping… no media, bonding time, and seeing the beauty around us. Not to mention I am on a mission to toughen up my kids, who by definition of our wealthy culture, aren’t used to roughing it. But it still seemed like a daunting task to sleep away from home for so long with so many babies. However, thanks to my assignment with the youth group in our local church, I experienced girls camp and a pioneer trek this summer. I finally knew I was capable. I mean I have done those things when I was a kid, but not with an older body that doesn’t handle things as well. I did it, and I knew if I could do it for a church assignment, I could do it for my family. So, with a little hope and ambition we planned a three night camping trip to a place my husband and I haven’t visited yet; Bear Lake.
It was incredible!
We camped at Rendezvous beach, which is on the south part of the Lake right on the beach. It had a pavilion, electricity and water hookups, flushing toilets, and even showers. I loved it. We put the showers to good use and definitely liked the running water. 
The camping site wasn’t as beautiful as some spots we have found in the mountains, but you only had to walk about 20 steps to get to the lake, and that was beautiful. The water was so clear and a brilliant color of turquoise. We enjoyed watching the sunset and sunrise over the lake too. There was plenty of room for the kids to run and play. We set up some hammocks on the pavilion and the kids would swing and relax in those constantly.
We went to the beach often. The kids played in the sand or in the water. We brought our inflatable raft and they drifted out a little bit further. We also met up with some friends there which helped entertain the kids. 
But we didn’t just stick to the camp site. I love to see the sites of places we visit and enjoy the tourist attractions. Our first full day there we went to visit the Minnetonka caves. It is a short walk to one of the biggest caves I have ever seen. There are 444 steps taking you through the mountain and then you have to come back the 444 steps to get back out. Luckily the steps weren’t all down on the way in and all up on the way out. It was a mixture, and the tour guide took lots of stops to tell us about things so we could rest. There are incredible rock formations and fun stories about people in the caves in the past. I am so glad we did it. We learned a lot and all of my family felt so accomplished about walking all of those steps! We also were reading a book together in the car on the way there all about a city built inside a mountain. It really made the book come to life for the kids. The book is called “Cove” but Jeffrey Savage. We have really been enjoying it as a family. (We found a microphone app for our phones that hooks into our car stereo. I read to the kids over the microphone and the whole family enjoys the story together. We can all hear well, and it passes the time in the car quickly!)
The next day of camping, when we weren’t at the beach, was spent in town trying the famous raspberry shakes that Bear Lake is known for. We heard a lot of different opinions about the place to get the best shakes. I didn’t try them all so I’ll have to give you an update about that sometime in the future. Or maybe, one of you can leave a comment with your top picks. We ended up at the Chevron (Really, the gas station was recommended as the best!). The shakes were really good. The kids thought they tasted like the homemade ice cream we make at home with the freshly picked raspberries from our garden. Not bad at all!
Cooking for nine people while camping can be a big task, but it worked out great. I love crockpot cooking. Since we had electricity hook ups I just brought my crockpot and did a few meals in it. We had chili, and egg and hash brown casserole, and cobbler. If you don’t have hookups, all crockpot recipes work in a dutch oven and that was our back up plan. We also did some pizza pockets in foil in the fire and steak and hot dogs over the grill in the fire. We certainly didn’t go hungry. I have a lot of ideas for cooking while you are camping. Feel free to comment and ask for more info. There will be a post coming with some great ideas for cooking while camping for a large family.
We certainly loved our time together. We wore out the kids and they really enjoyed each other’s company.
We would all do it again in a heartbeat. We are already planning our next camping vacation for next year. I think this old lady is morphing into a camper!
We like to celebrate around here. It makes life interesting and fun. It helps our kids to stay motivated. They set and achieve more goals when they have something that celebrates them to look forward to. It all started when my oldest was learning to ride a bike. It felt like such a big deal when he finally figured out how to balance and zoom down the culdesac all on his own. Learning to ride a bike was hard for me. I was eight years old. It took me a while to get up the guts because I was terrified of falling and we lived on a hill at the time. My dad finally convinced me to give it a try in the flat church parking lot. I did pretty good until I fell into a thorny bush on the side because I couldn’t figure out how to stop. Bike riding still makes me a little nervous. Luckily driving lessons went better for me!
Anyway, when my oldest learned how to ride a bike at age five I was pretty excited. He was by far doing it better than I did. His sister is only a year younger and was determined to keep up with her older brother in everything. She wanted to learn to ride her bike too…at age four! And of course the three year old didn’t want to be left out. So, a new tradition was born. I wanted my son to be proud of himself for all of his hard work to ride a bike. He was about to be outdone by his younger sister after all. So, we called grandma and asked her to join us at the ice cream parlor for a “party” to celebrate my son learning to ride his bike. Afterwards he could show off his new skills. Of course, grandma oohed and awed in all the right places and our little ice cream party was a hit. A few weeks later we celebrated again at a different ice cream parlor for the four year old sister. And not long after that we celebrated the three year old finally being potty trained.
You really don’t have to put much effort into impressing kids. Its all in the magic of the title and making sure they know it’s all about them. If they feel noticed and appreciated, they blossom. Let’s face it, that’s a universal rule. All of us want to feel noticed and appreciated, and it really is the thought that counts!
Some of these following milestones have been really successful with a motivating party to look forward to…
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- Potty training. Potty training kids can be a nightmare. I have tried so many different things. At first, it really is about little rewards to get your kids excited about “trying.” We have used candies, stickers, and dinky dollar store toys. But it takes a while for them to actually figure it out. Once they figure out how to do it, it is about controlling it and stopping it. I consider them trained if they stay dry and accident free during daytime hours for three to seven days depending on the child and the situation. Then we have a party. They still have occasional accidents and I give them a little leeway for bedtime, so after party time there is still a little work to do. But, if you wait too long, they lose interest. My most recent potty trained child does not like ice cream and chose a pizza party instead. Whatever works for your kids, still works!
- Learning to read. Reading is a hard thing to teach and takes a lot of patience. There are many steps involved. Of course you start with your letters and sounds and then learn how to put them together. It takes several years until kids are reading comfortably on their own. It is also a life skill that will bring great happiness and success to them. Therefore, it is something we party about. I want my kids to feel excited about reading and stay motivated to do well in school. I usually let the kids take their time learning their letters through preschool and then the summer before Kindergarten I really focus on teaching them to read. I love Bob books for teaching early reading. It uses phonics words they can figure out from their letter sounds. Sight words come later. They are short, which is a huge bonus because reading long books with a new reader can become very tedious. It takes a few sets for the kids to start to get the hang of it. You can tell when it clicks too. Putting the sounds together gets easier. After a while we start trying to read Go Dog Go. When they can read the book by themselves, they earn a party. They love finishing that book by themselves for the first time. It’s fun to watch their excitement!
- Riding a bike. Like I mentioned earlier, learning to ride a bike is a huge life skill. We wait until they are ready to try which is usually around four or five years old. We take off their training wheels and do the typical run behind them thing. I know many people that have had luck with those strider bikes to teach their kids the balance of riding a bike without a parent holding on for dear life. I never wanted to spend that kind of money but if you are all about your kid learning to ride all by themselves, then more power to you! We set a certain distance away, then they have to turn around and come back, and they have to start and stop on their own. Once they do those things, they have earned their party and they love to get there. We also love that they get there!
- Performances or Grades. When our kids work hard to achieve something and do a stellar job, it often involves ice cream! They deserve to be recognized for all of their hard work!
- Puberty. I know, it’s embarrassing that I threw that out there. But bear with me; many cultures celebrate the entrance into adulthood, except ours. It is so uncomfortable for most people to talk about it. It is so uncomfortable for us to discuss anything related to our bodies and our future marriage relationships. This is backwards. In our society they have so much false and derogatory information thrown at them from the public domain and almost nothing from the private sector. It’s time to take it back into our own hands and teach kids about the miracles of our bodies and the miracle of life and how to be respectful and positive about it. When my kids hit puberty it is a time to celebrate them growing up a little and welcome them into our worlds. And yes, I have “the talk” with them long before puberty. It isn’t just one talk though. It’s an ongoing conversation whenever new questions and situations come up and we are respectful about everything they need to know. So, take that girl out to ice cream and pedicures. Take that boy out for basketball and sodas. They will remember that time with you in a positive way and know who to come to when they run into problems.
- My list is ongoing. My kids are still young. I have a lot of mothering left to do. I am taking things as they come. I’m not really sure what else we will be celebrating in the coming years, but I know we will be celebrating. Life is about living in the moment and enjoying the blessings of today. The younger kids look forward to their ice cream parties, bike riding parties, reading parties, and so forth. The older kids look forward to initiating them into the next phase of childhood. I look forward to watching them grow into wonderful, capable humans. I just hate that it is all happening so fast and I am really going to miss these little humans when they aren’t so little anymore. But that is another milestone in my future that we will have to celebrate!
- Potty training. Potty training kids can be a nightmare. I have tried so many different things. At first, it really is about little rewards to get your kids excited about “trying.” We have used candies, stickers, and dinky dollar store toys. But it takes a while for them to actually figure it out. Once they figure out how to do it, it is about controlling it and stopping it. I consider them trained if they stay dry and accident free during daytime hours for three to seven days depending on the child and the situation. Then we have a party. They still have occasional accidents and I give them a little leeway for bedtime, so after party time there is still a little work to do. But, if you wait too long, they lose interest. My most recent potty trained child does not like ice cream and chose a pizza party instead. Whatever works for your kids, still works!
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I grew up with parents that taught me to be a very responsible and dependable person. I’ll always be grateful for that. I hardly ever took a sick day and I even walked through two feet of snow to school because we couldn’t get out of our driveway. True story. That snowy day of course was a joke at school because most people couldn’t get out of their driveways and there were only about 1/4 of the student body there. My mother and I laugh about it now. But it has taken years of me getting some perspective to see that even though some things like school are absolutely important, it isn’t the reason for our whole existence. There must definitely be a balance.
Fast forward a few years. I didn’t have kids yet, but I had a friend with several children. We were visiting one day and she said that she hadn’t gotten anything done that day because her kids were home from school. I asked her if they were sick or something. She said, “Oh no, we just haven’t seen much of each other lately so I let them stay home with me.” Wow. That was different than what I was used to.
Fast forward a few more years to after I had my first couple of children. I was signed up at a local gym and took the kids to the day care there. Normally drop off was fairly simple. I was only gone for less than an hour after all. I knew from being a preschool teacher for several years that when kids are having a hard time with drop off that it was better for the parent to just give a kiss and leave, rather than linger. The kids escalated less without the parent there. One day, my two year old was not happy about the drop off. I knew in my head that I should just leave him, and the teachers there were prepared to take him with his tears. However, a sweet spirit whispered to me that today was different. For whatever reason, my child needed me more that day than my workout needed me. Against my previous notions I decided to cancel my visit to the day care gym that day and just take the kids home and spend some time together. I continued to go to the gym after that and the tears never happened again. I’m glad I decided to take that day off.
Fast forward a few more years to 2017. I now have four kids in school. The kids really enjoy school for the most part and are rarely sick. So far, they get almost perfect attendance unless we take a day early for a vacation or someone is puking. One of my younger kids has always had a harder time going to school because she is such a mommy’s girl, but we have had a lot of success overcoming some of her fears. She is in first grade this year. Toward the beginning of the year she had a little “accident” at school. I promptly went over to the school with a change of clothes. She was fine, but feeling a little clingy. She wanted to just go home rather than stay at school the rest of the day. I had a problem. I knew that I needed to be firm with her going to school because of some issues we have had in the past with convincing her to get out of the car and walk into the school. I had two schools of thought warring within my head. Make her tough it out. Give her some TLC. What to do?
And this is where a new tradition was born. Once again, with some help from inspiration from above I realized that I could be tough and give her some TLC. I told her that every kid deserves one slough day a year; a day they can take off even if they aren’t sick or have an appointment. They need a day for when they are feeling sad or just need a break. She could take her day then or save it for later in the year just in case. What did she want to do? Of course, like most impatient first graders she wanted to use it that day. But I knew that if something like this came up again that I could kindly remind her that she already used her personal day and she had to wait until second grade for another. It was her choice and not me being uncaring. She had a great day that day playing with her younger siblings, eating lunch with mom, and watching a little extra tv.
So, to be fair, this new tradition was now opened to all of the children starting now until the end of our schooling days. We all love it that much. The other kids were given the chance to be more careful at choosing their personal day. The picture above is me taking one of my oldest to the Beauty and the Beast movie the day it came out during school. It was just the two of us. It was a treasured date with her. Another day during the year, my second grader seemed especially stressed as the kids left for school. I had a feeling as I was dropping off my preschooler a little later that morning that she needed her personal day that day. I don’t really know why, but I listened and went straight back to the school to check her out. She and I had a great day together.
I love the balance this provides for me with both of my schools of thinking. On the one hand, the kids learn to be responsible and go to school with no excuses. On the other hand, offering one day a year gives them a chance to feel loved and respected when life is just plain rough. Justice versus mercy. Not a new concept. It’s a beautiful thing.
How can you find this balance in your life with your family? Comment below and give us some of your fabulous ideas.
In the busy world we live in it is hard to find the balance of chores, homework, extra-curricular activities, and free time to just play. I believe chores do make children more responsible and less entitled. But, it is not as common for children to be raised on a farm where they have to work in order to eat. So many of their friends are not held to much expectation except maybe to go to school. Some families are so over scheduled they aren’t home to do chores anyway. There can be a lot of whining from kids that parents just don’t want to deal with. Sometimes it is easier for mom to just do it herself. What’s the answer? I don’t have all the answers but I can offer a few ideas that have worked for us over the years.
There are many chore charts and reward systems out there to explore. I encourage you to explore them all! I have found that I have to change it up often for my kids. It helps to motivate them to do chores for me again.
We started with simple things when they were young. Melissa and Doug make a fun little magnetic chore chart that you might like with little pictures and simple tasks.
My younger kids also really enjoyed a bead jar. We picked up some aquarium rocks that people put in vases because I wanted something heavy enough not to tip the container over easily but also big enough that kids wouldn’t be swallowing them. I also wanted them big enough to fill a jar fairly quickly because a toddler has a hard time waiting very long for a reward for chores. Every time they obeyed or did a chore they got to put a bead in the jar. When the jar was full we did a family activity together. This encouraged the kids to work together for a family goal and was useful for toddlers that don’t understand money yet and already have too many toys.
As they got older and enjoyed the computer more we loved using http://myjobchart.com/. This free website lets you set up chores for your kids and assign a point value. Your kids can go online or use the free app on their device or yours to mark that they have completed a task. Once they reach the points you have assigned for the week you have the option of rewarding them with different things, including linking to your amazon account to help them buy a toy, with your permission of course! We really enjoyed using this method before a trip to Disneyland several years ago. We agreed that we would buy them a souvenir at the park according to how many points they earned. It worked like a charm.
In recent years, my friend introduced me to plexiglass. Not only can it be used like a white board, but it can easily blend in with your walls and is lightweight to hang with command strips. If you use white board markers, it wipes right off. If you use permanent markers you can go over the writing with a white board marker and then it will come off too. This made a handy way to have a cute decoration on the wall that was actually a useful chore chart.
When school started for my kids we invented the term mini chore. They hated doing chores everyday and there really are some household chores (like cleaning a bathroom) that only need to be done by the kids once a week. Still, it helped to have the routine of them doing daily chores, but they were overwhelmed with homework and the amount of time away from home at school. So we told them they only had to do small things durning the week and called them mini chores. It’s stuff that can be done in two minutes or less, like emptying the garbage or rotating laundry. They know they are quick and don’t mind doing them to earn their media time.
Most recently my kids have been interested in earning money. I don’t think kids should earn an allowance just for existing. That is not how real life works. Kids should work to earn money. Learning to earn and save money is definitely an important life skill. So I decided to add money earning chores to our regular chores. Saturday chores and mini chores as well as keeping up their personal space are all requirements for living in our home and getting certain privileges. But, there are some extras that can earn them money. I decided to keep track of their earnings with a tally chart so I only had to pay out when they have earned enough to make it worth running to the bank for cash. Each tally is worth a quarter and the chores have money assignments. They aren’t required to earn money. It is up to them.
We used this method for our most recent Spring break and it really helped our staycation be fabulous!
It will be interesting to see where our chore adventure takes us as the kids become teenagers. Do you have some great ideas that have worked for your family? Please comment below and let us know!
