Day 66 - Visiting Great Grandpa & Great Aunts

After spending a week camping with the Vaughn's, we want to see even more family! We called up Grandma's dad and sisters to see if we could join them for church while we're in town.

Two other families ended up joining us all and we have a great time attending church together, then having a picnic at the park. My kids are so lucky to have such great Great Aunts and a great Great Grandpa.

Veterans Memorial Park in West Jordan, Utah is pretty cool. There are multiple playgrounds and ball fields. We were there in the late afternoon and the east side of the park was the shadiest so we picnicked there. It also had the coolest playground. In addition to the typical slides and jungle gym playground, there was a huge wooden playground. It was an old west theme with giant forts the kids could run and climb in and then slide down. The wooden playground was also fenced so it was a bit easier to keep track of kids.

Day 52 - Family Game Night

Grandma and Cousin joined us for dinner tonight and stayed for some game time.

I posted previously about how we like to play games with the older kids after the little ones go to bed. Well, tonight we tried letting them join in. Well...Kid Five sat in her high chair eating blueberries but she was at the table with us. We tried to include Kid Four, but he kept pulling the pieces off the board. We eventually just let him play with the pieces and played Cranium without pieces going around the board.

Day 45 - Missionaries to Dinner & Evening Walk

You may not know this, but Arizona gets hot in the summer. The locals like to escape the heat whenever they can. Fourth of July weekend gets pretty empty at church. At our church we take turns hosting the missionaries for dinner. Since we happened to be in town this week when no one else was, we decided to take a turn.

Having the missionaries over for dinner is great for the family. The kids get to see these young men who gave up a couple years of their life to teach people about Christ. They also always leave us with a message. Today it was about how we can be perfected in Christ.

The weather after the missionaries left was a cool 89 degrees. There was a nice breeze. We had to take advantage and go for an evening walk.

Day 38 - Fun & Games with the Family

Lots of family time on Sunday. Extra fun this week with an extra aunt and some cousins in town.

The kids have been really into making movies lately. Kid One made a funny movie today called "what to do if" and Kid Two directed a movie based on the shirt he was wearing called "A Dog Ate My Homework." It's fun to watch them come up with ideas and get the younger siblings to participate. 

Games with the whole family can be a challenge. When the little ones are tired, we put them to bed a little early and play games with the 5 and up crowd. They enjoy Cranium and Sorry the most. Today we played Book of Mormon Pictionary. 

For more Sunday ideas check out this post.

Day 10 - Heart Attacking

We are super lucky to have great extended family living close by. The only problem is, our schedules have been off for a while now. We haven't been able to hang out with them for a bit so we wanted to let them know we still love them and miss seeing them. So today, we decided to give them a heart attack.

Heart attacking someone is the best because it combines showing someone they are loved with the fun equivalent to toilet papering someone's house. You get to be sneaky and sort of a vandal, but you know whoever your victim is will love it.

How to give someone you love a heart attack

The simplest way is just cut out a bunch of hearts and use them to decorate someone's yard. Throw them across the lawn and stick them around with tape. We like to get a little more creative, though.

• Use chalk. Decorate the driveway and sidewalk with drawn hearts and sweet messages.
• Decorate with streamers. It's almost toilet papering, except it's decorating so it's cute. 
• Use plastic forks. This is the coolest trick. Stick plastic forks in the lawn, prong side up. Then you can use the prongs to hold things up; decorated paper plates, cut out hearts, nice notes, balloons, etc.
• Use pictures. You can cut out pictures of things your "victim" likes out of magazines (in heart shapes of course). Today, we printed pictures of the kids cousins in black and white, then colored them in silly ways.
  
• Write nice messages. Today we wrote something we liked about each member on the family on the back of their pictures.
• Leave a treat. Make cookies or brownies and leave them on the doorstep. Sweets are the best way to show love, right?

Day 3 - Cookies and Cards

In our religion, we try to keep the Sabbath Day holy. That means something a little different for every family. For us, it means less active activities and a break from video games and television (except for the occasional Veggie Tales). We try to do things that bring us closer as a family or bring us closer to our Savior. One of our activities today was making chocolate chips cookies together.  We then made cards together for people we thought might want one and delivered them with the cookies. We talked about how we were showing love for others like Jesus did.

Sunday Activity Ideas

We sometime struggle with Sabbath Day activities. Like everything else, it helps to plan ahead. Here is my list of simple Sunday family activities:

• Write letters to friends and family
• Read stories together and write our own stories to share with each other
• Play board games
• Print pictures and make scrapbooks
• Write in journals about what we did that week
• Visit the temple grounds (or a peaceful garden)
• Watch a video about the life of Christ or other scripture stories
• Go for a nature walk
• Visit a retirement home
• Sing at a hospital 
• Find a service project on justserve.org
• Visit extended family
• Make a meal together to bring to a family in need (maybe a freezer meal)

There is a great list with more ideas here. What are your favorite Sunday activities?