Last Minute New Years Ideas

Happy New Years Eve!
In case you are looking for a few last minute New Years ideas, I thought I would post a few simple but fun ideas for your family!

• Game Night - Pull out all those old board games and the kids will love it!
• Festive Hats - Get all the craft supplies out and make hats! You can use up your bits of Christmas wrapping paper for this idea too!
• New Years Pancakes - use your regular pancake mix but shape them into numbers for 2008!

Have a wonderful New Years Eve!

Family Movie Night

Every Sunday night my family gets together for "Family Movie Night." If you have been looking for an inexpensive family tradition to start this may be your answer. For us, family movie night means taking turns picking out family friendly movies, watching them over at our grandparents' house in the basement theater, and eating lots of popcorn and candy!

Here's the scoop on starting a move night tradition...

1) Pick a location and time - maybe this could be monthly or weekly like us.

2) Start a rotation so everyone gets to choose a movie from time to time.

3) To make sure all movies are appropriate lay out the requirements first.

4) Decide on treats - we don't normally eat a big dinner on Sunday nights, we just have popcorn and other snacks!

Family movie night is a great way to make sure you spend time with your family each week and is fun for all ages!

Trip to the Library

When all else fails for fun, try the local library!

Today Luke and I were home alone as the rest of the family was downtown at a museum! We didn't go to the museum because it would have just interfered too much with nap schedules! So not wanting to just sit home all day while everyone else was out I decided we needed a trip to the library. I love to take Luke to the library as it is free and there is lots for Mom and baby to enjoy!

Here is what we did at the library:

1) Enjoyed looking at the fish tank full of pretty fish

2) Worked on a simple puzzle

3) Read one simple signing book

4) Interacted with some other kids

5) Checked out two DVDs for free!


And then to top it all off we watched part of one of the videos when we got home. The DVD we checked out shows babies signing. Since we are trying to teach Luke some simple signs I decided I would let him watch part of it. He lost interest quickly but it was fun while it lasted!

Ugly Sweater Party

At my annual family Christmas party I heard of a new trend in parties ....yes you did read the title of this post correctly....the Ugly Sweater Party!

The idea here is that you send everyone an invitation and direct them to wear their oldest and ugliest sweater to your party! This, of course, sounds like quite a bit of fun to me. Prizes could be awarded for ugliest sweater, prettiest ugly sweater, most seasonal ugly sweater, and on and on!

This would be such a unique and inexpensive theme for your next party, maybe even for New Years! I think that if you were feeling really creative you could use all of your ugly old sweaters for decorations! Just hang them through the house and there you go! Your decorating is finished! Even better, if anyone dared to come not wearing an ugly sweater - you will have one waiting for them!

I guess there just might be a reason to hang onto that not so great sweater you got for Christmas this year!

About the Author

Well I thought you might want to know a bit about the author before you continue to read further...so here you go!

I am married to my wonderful husband Mark and a new mother to my son Luke. I am a stay at home mom and an occasional substitute for a company who helps adults with disabilities live in the community. I come from a great big fun family and have a new great big fun family of in-laws thanks to my husband. I hope to have a fun family myself and want to share our fun activities throughout the years for others to try as well. Currently my son is 10 months old so we are in the baby stage but I hope to share activities, books, music, movies, recipes, and much more for all ages!

- Jamie

Welcome!

Thank you for visiting my new blog! This blog is dedicated to my fun and fabulous family. I hope to make this blog a place where visitors can come to find fun, family friendly ideas for their own families! Please feel free to share your fun, family centered ideas with me too!