One Hundred Dollars a Month

Since it is one of my goals this year to spend every Sunday doing a family activity, I’ve had to come up with some creative ways to make it fun {rather than “painful” as others sometimes find it}.  Some of these we’ve tried, some don’t really fit my age of kids–but in the interest of providing some cool ideas for my peeps, here you go:

1. Game night.  I know, this is kind of a no-brainer go to activity, but seriously, if you pick the right game, you can totally learn a lot about your kids {the way they think, the funny things they say, etc.}
2. Movie night.  This gets particularly fun when your kids get a little older.  Alternate who gets to pick the movie {you can rent or go to the movies, your call}.  That way, you can pick some classics that they would never even know to pick on their own, and they will go along with it, because they know that they’ll get to pick the next week.
3. Visit a museum.  We tried out the LeMay Car Museum and it made the boys giddy.  Be a tourist in your own city–I bet if you look, there are a couple of museums you didn’t even know existed.
4. Go out to dinner.  Try something new–choose a different theme:  Mexican, Italian, Japanese.  It’s a chance to expose the kids to different foods without having to prepare them yourself.  Wahoo.
5. Kids cook.  If your kids are old enough, let them pick a recipe out of one of your cookbooks.  Get all of the ingredients and let them make the dinner.  Then, enjoy it together as a family.  It might change their perspective to be on the other side of the table after preparing the meal.
6. “Date night.”  If you have more than one kid, try dividing and conquering.  It will allow each kid some one on one time.  Take them to dinner or even just ice cream–but make it just about that one child.  Your spouse can take one of the kids too.  {It may require a sitter for the other kids, but they’ll get their turn eventually too.}
7. Volunteer.  Choose a cause as a family that you can volunteer all together.  Maybe one night a month you all serve dinner at a soup kitchen, walk the dogs at the humane society, or stock the shelves of a food pantry?  It will teach them the importance of charity and give you valuable time together.
8. Go to a concert.  Depending on your city, there could be a ton of cheap/free concerts going on.  It may not be a headliner, but it might give them an appreciation for live, unaltered music.
9. Teaching night.  Pick a skill that you have that you have never really focused on teaching them before, maybe it’s baking bread from scratch or changing the oil in the car.  Either way, you spend time and you impart you finite wisdom.
10. Look at photo albums or watch home videos.  I mean, seriously, unless you schedule a time to sit down and look at them, they just collect dust.  Looking at or watching them together will bring up some pretty funny commentary.

Now go make some memories,

~Mavis