{ green ME }

Like last year, a little leprechaun came to our house and left the kiddos little green suitcases filled with green treats (healthy snacks, garden seeds, art supplies, etc.) For breakfast I made the kids a rainbow fruit plate which they gobbled up and green juice and Samme got a leprechaun sandwich & rainbow fruits & veggies for lunch along with a chocolate gold coin for a treat! Afterschool we will make rainbows with Henry (he loves gluing things). This is also a cute St. Patrick's Day Rainbow craft that we've made before. Dinner will be green pasta, spinach, peas, salad with all green veggies and green tea icecream for dessert. If I didn't have to work today (which I do & should be doing right now instead of blogging, I'd bake this cake for dessert!)

As they say in Ireland, "Go mbeire muid beo aran am seo aris!" May we all be alive and well, this time next year!

{ family fun - circus }

So, the circus (which I dislike very much in general, but which kids adore) and the fair are in town, so this week's family fun theme is THE CIRCUS.
Here's our plan this week:
We are of course going to the circus (after of course a long talk about the inhumane treatment of most circus animals)
Ride the teacups & ferris wheel at the fair.
Take funny photobooth pictures with clown wigs, red noses & silly glasses.
Read circus themed and animal books from the library
Watch Dumbo for family movie night while eating popcorn in cirus bags
Sing this song
Make clown paper plate faces
Make snowcones (with organic fruit juice as the topping)
Water balloon fight
Homemade ring toss (beer bottles & swimming rings)
Whipcream pie in the face (Will has graciously volunteered to be on the receiving end of this)
Raffle tickets passed out all week for little treats
Taped line on floor to pretend to walk the tightrope
Healthy snacks (veggie clown faces, animal crackers, etc.) in cute circus treat bags
Circus coloring pages
Icecream clown sundaes for a special treat at the end of the week!

For even more ideas visit here.

image via here.

{ family fun - Olympics week }

We love the Olympics! This week (and next) we are going to watch some of the competitions, make streamers, olympic torches, and other Olympic themed crafts, lessons, have a family Olympics competition, go skiing, go iceskating, read books about the Olympics, watch some Olympic themed movies and more! Here is a link to some great family olympic celebration crafts and printables.

{ family fun - LOVE week }

The family fun theme this week is LOVE. We started this weekend by making valentines for Sam's classmates and homemade granola for her teachers. This week we are are going to have heart shaped snacks (watermelon, cheese, sandwiches, etc.), make glitter hearts, make pink playdough, do some valentine's learning activities (counting heart shaped candies) & coloring pages and deliver some heart shaped brownies to our neighbors (spreading love). On Valentine's Day we will have heart shaped pancakes for breakfast and make heart shaped individual pizzas for dinner. The kids will get little pink & red suitcases filled with crafts & games. {ps - Love these 40 ways to show your child LOVE.}

{ organize ME - family fun }

I've written about this before....how I try to plan a fun family activity, lesson or outing once a day and schedule into my momme planner....sometimes this is as simple as a craft project after school, sometimes its an outing to the rec center and sometimes its something that requires a bit more planning, like a family olympics. We also just reinstated our family rule of no TV or computer games during the school week. So after school it has helped having something planned for in advance so Samme doesn't ask to watch a movie or play a computer game because she's "bored." {I'll post more about the no TV rule soon.} Anyway, I gather up all of the goodies on Friday and put them all in a bin on the table so we are ready to go each day.


This delightful site that I posted about last week inspired me to plan some of this family fun around a weekly {theme}. I like this idea and think it will help me plan our weeks a bit better.
For any given theme you can have the kids do crafts, read books, cook food, enjoy imaginary play, listen to and play music, sing songs, make art, go on field trips and all sorts of other activities that help them absorb and enjoy the information about the weekly theme.

So this weekend we started the {Snow} theme. Here are some ideas for building some family fun into the week around the theme of {Snow} - build a snowman, make felt snowman, create marshmallow snowman, make snowman pancakes for breakfast, make glitter snowflakes to hang from the window, read books about snow, etc.

Next week we are starting the {Love} theme and on the weekend we'll make valentines cards for classmates, valentines bracelets for grandmas, afterschool we'll make glitter hearts, have heart shaped snacks, decorate the windows with hearts, make a heart mobile, make heart pancakes for breakfast, read love books from library, learn about the heart, spread some love, etc.

The following week or two will be an {Olympics} theme to coincide with the start of the winter Olympics - we'll have a family olympics (sledding competition, go skiing together, snowshoeing, swimming, etc.), make olympic ceremonial torches and paint olympic flags, mark on a map where the different countries are, watch olympics competitions together at night, etc.