We’re back from our trip to Nebraska. Some friends are worth traveling great distances to see regularly! I have suitcases to unpack, laundry to do and a house that seems to have been ransacked by wild goats while we were gone. We also have no heat for the time being, which is making for a very chilly time here in Minnesota! Ah well, it keeps us tough. 😉
Enough yapping, let’s get to a Monday morning list, shall we? Here’s a few ways to make some magical moments this week with your sweetie pies……
1. Do some pumpkin pounding. It’s that time of year again, and few things are as fun as pounding pumpkins. Gather up some golf tees and a mallet (or a hammer and nails for older kids), and let each child pound the tees into a pumpkin. Push the tees or nails in a bit to get them started, so the kids don’t have to hold them and risk pounding fingers (you can also hold them in place with a clothespin instead of fingers). They can do patterns or just pound randomly. This is a fabulously satisfying sensory integration activity for toddlers to teens. It’s silly fun!
2. Visit an older friend or relative to learn something. Bring the kids to Grandma’s to learn how to do canning. Ask the marvelous Czechoslovakian lady down the hall if she’ll show you how she cooks her next batch of klotchkes. Ask Great Uncle Edward to show you the secrets behind one or two of his magic tricks…
3. Take part in an Unplug Your Kids challenge.
4. Take a drive to view some fantastic fall colors together. Better yet, hike or walk!
5. Find a wacky nearby museum to tour. My friend Tiffany only recently found out that she’s near both the national roller skating museum and the telephone museum. We’re within an hour or two of the Spam museum and my husband swears that someday we’re making the trek to see the biggest ball of twine in Minnesota. Yes, just like the Weird Al song. 😉
6. Give your kids some snazzy manicures with painted bees or dragonflies or fun and easy little ladybug nails.
7. Mix up some bath paint (just add food coloring to little dishes of clear shampoo and stir in a little corn starch if you like to make it more opaque) and have the kids make masterpieces on the bathtub wall.
8. Invite one or two fun mama friends and their kids over for a mom-and-child sleepover. Have everybody cozy up in sleeping bags in the living room and have popcorn, videos and other goodies that please all ages.
9. Draw little faces on some small rocks and leave them in public places to give someone an unexpected smile.
10. Start working on homemade holiday presents together, one day a week. Whether it’s cookie mixes in jars, shaped crayons, or any of the zillions of ideas out there on the web, there’s lots of fun crafts you can do together to make something special, save some money and have some fun together.
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Have a magical week! Don’t forget to take care of you!
~Alicia
Biggest Twine Ball
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daZtLf6TceU , if you’d like to hear it. And we WILL be going there someday.