Family

Tips for Carefree Family Fun

4 · Aug 9, 2017 · 1 Comment

With Summer in full swing, it’s prime time for family get togethers. Come learn how we create carefree family fun with our family and friends!

• I’ve partnered with Carnival Cruise Line to create this post! Enjoy! •

When Summer rolls in it’s time for family fun in the sun, playing at the pool and of course family reunions. Our family is actually at our annual family reunion right now in Idaho and we are having a ball! With our family, one of the challenges that we face is coming up with activities and get togethers that are fun for all ages.

We have struggled in the past with the various ages that need to be entertained in our family. Our family has all ages… Elementary age, Middle School, High School & College age kiddos. Yeah, we know how to spread them out! Then, if you include the extended family, we have a whole other crew of infants through pre-school as well. Looking at the other end of the spectrum, we have young adults, middle aged and seniors as well. We pretty much have the whole rainbow of ages in our family. How on earth do you entertain a crew like this?

Well, let me tell ya… It can be a challenge. Here are some of our tips for carefree family fun!

Tips for Carefree Family Fun

Keep things simple
Plan healthy, energy promoting yet simple meals
Create activities that can be entertaining for all ages
Schedule down time
Keep things relaxed and fun, don’t let your expectations get out of control

Keep Things Simple

When dealing with all ages, the more simple the activity the better. Plan activities that the whole family will enjoy. You really don’t need to over schedule yourself to say that you’ve had fun. Right now we are having a ball hanging out in my parents back yard and playing games with the kids. One of these years we are going to make things even more simple and plan a family cruise with Carnival Cruise Line. Carnival is all about fun for all. They have become the masters at finding ways to help the whole family enjoy simple and carefree family fun!

Carnival believes everyone deserves a place to play, where they can jump in on the fun without a second thought. The possibilities for play abound on a Carnival cruise — at any one moment, you may be laughing until your sides ache, singing and dancing your heart out, taking in amazing sights, or savoring mouthwatering bites – all with the help of your crew – the ultimate fun facilitators. You can’t get more simple than that! They handle all the hard stuff and your only job is to have FUN together!

Plan Heathy Meals

Nothing weighs a group down more than poor meal planning. One cannot live on burgers and hot dogs alone. Plan meals that are easy to prepare ahead of time and help to give everyone healthy energy. Here are some of my favorite go-to recipes that would be perfect for a carefree family get together.

• Overnight French Toast + a PERFECT prep-ahead breakfast that everyone will love •

• Breakfast Power Bowls + This is a simple breakfast that is easy to customize to everyone’s taste •

• The BEST Chicken Salad Recipe + Perfect to make ahead of time! •

• Onion and Poppy Seed Salad + Another crowd pleaser •

And that’s just a few of our favorites! Checkout my Pinterest board for other great WhipperBerry recipes.

Now, if you aren’t into cooking and want someone else to take the helm in that area, … man oh man, Carnival is the way to go. The Carnival Chef’s know how to tickle the taste buds and please every palette in your family!

Create Activities that can be Entertaining for all Ages

Here’s where the fun never ends… It can be hard to find activities that everyone will love. We’ve found that yard games tend to be a huge hit with the littles all the way up to the oldies. There is just something about the novelty of the games. What’s fun is that they are easy to DIY so that you don’t have to spend and arm and a leg for them.

We’ve created a set of medium sized yard dominos and some small dice that everyone LOVES to play with.

Now I’ve seen dominos that are super big that you play all over your yard and they are super fun. I wanted a smaller set that is easy to store and transport. I cut some 1 x 4 planks into 6 1/2 inch blocks and used a wood burning tool to create the dots. Everyone loves them!

They even love building towers with them.

Who says only little kiddos love to play with toys!

As inspiration from Carnival Cruise Line’s live game show, where you can team up with your friends and family to play some of the most classic games, we also created some dice for Yard Yahtzee! We had a blast and you can easily re-use your homemade pieces for your own favorite dice game.

Again, I used my wood burning tool and cut some 2 x 2 blocks to create the dice. If you are a Yahtzee fan, here is a printable score card that you can download.

• Download Yahtzee Score Card HERE •

If you would rather have someone else be the cruise director, sail with Carnival the fun ship! They have a ship full of all kinds of fun activities for all ages.

Create a Chance for Relaxation

With all of this fun, you need to keep in mind that all of your age groups will need some rest. Create some opportunities for down time. Don’t forget to create a safe space for the teenagers to be teenagers. They like to stay up late and sleep-in.

The more rest you have, the more fun you can have together without a whole bunch of grumps. You know that Carnival also excels in this area. And for adults, don’t forget to check out all of their SPA options!

Also, don’t forget to keep your expectations in check. We all want a magical time together but, the bottom line is… The little ones will get cranky and won’t want to go along with the schedule or, someone will get sick. Personality types are put to the test and that’s alright. Everyone needs to just step back, relax and go with the flow. Remember, this is the time to make memories that will last a lifetime!

9 Great Printable Drink Notes for Back-To-School

10 · Sep 7, 2016 · 1 Comment

I’ve partnered with Huhtamaki Inc. for the Chinet® brand to create this post! Enjoy!

I don’t know about you, but I’m always looking for ways to help my kiddos feel extra special. Especially now that they have gone back to school, and the daily grind is starting to get to them a bit. The magic of summer is over, and they need a little pick me up in the mornings.

I’ve always been a fan of the good printable ol’ lunchbox note, but I thought it would be fun to change things up a bit and create some morning drink notes that you can wrap around a Comfort Cup® by Chinet® cup for a little boost at the beginning of the day!

We aren’t coffee drinkers at our house, but we LOVE hot chocolate, Choffy, flavored milk steamers, herbal tea… all kinds of tasty treats. The Comfort Cup® by Chinet® insulated hot cup is perfect for keeping your hot drink hot, and it’s specially designed to keep your hands comfortable with a special three layer system that keeps the cup insulated.

They aren’t just for hot drinks either! They’re perfect for taking your colds drinks on-the-go as well. My kiddos are always wanting to take drinks with them to school or other activities, and I’m always getting frustrated with them leaving their drink containers places. The amount of drink containers that they’ve left for the universe makes my head spin. When I use the Comfort Cup® by Chinet® insulated hot cups I know I won’t have to worry about that. Plus, who doesn’t love to walk around with a cute cup while on the way to school or other activities?

You pair them with my fun printable drink sleeves with a cute little note, your kiddos are going to adore them! I’ve created a set for the younger, elementary age kiddos and then a couple that the teenagers might like (well, teen girls anyway. The boys maybe not so much.)

They are simple to use, you can download the files HERE. Then print them out on card stock paper and cut them out with scissors. Super easy… No need for a fancy cutting machine!

Wrap them around your Comfort Cup® by Chinet® insulated hot cups, and affix with tape or glue dots. It’s that simple.

What a simple way to help your kiddos feel extra special!

Dreamy Backyard Summer Birthday Party

2 · Jun 1, 2016 · Leave a Comment

There is nothing more magical than a summer birthday party when you’re turning 12…

Ok, well maybe 16 and 18… Oh well, you get the idea. Birthdays are pretty special. We’re big fans at our house.

I’m not one of those Mom’s that throws over the top parties every year for each child. We like to alternate years. Some years we do something special with the just family and other years we like to create a simple yet fun party for friends.

This months Michael’s Makers Challenge was timed absolutely perfect! The challenge is…

…And my sweet Emily just happened to turn 12!

We are a family of summer birthdays so it seems like summer is always the time that we party the most. The cool thing is, with Michaels… Parties are a snap!

My first stop was at the Michael’s Party section where we found the perfect little accessories for our event. Some canvas flags to make a banner. Some gold letters that would go with Emily’s color choice; black, white & gold. They had the cute berry baskets that are perfect for party favors and black and white straws that were perfect to add to the color of the night.

The center piece was our favorite Heidi Swapp Light Box that is perfect to add a little pizzaz to you summer party.

Another little Heidi Swapp gem… Her fun Light Star Lanterns that you can find at Michaels.

We bought a few of these guys and placed them throughout the tree to add a little dreamy air to the night.

We scoured the store and found all kinds of fun goodies in gold and black to add to our favor baskets. They turned out so cute. We have some notebooks, some Heidi Swapp stickers, cute pencils, some washi tape, little clipboards. They were perfect!

The girls had a ball playing with another Michaels gem, our Fujifilm Instax™ Mini 8 Camera

I grabbed some film and let the girls go nuts taking photos…

Duck Lips anyone? A must at a 12 year old’s birthday!

It was so fun to place the photos on the buffet to add to the memories of the night.

I even found these great Happy Birthday balloons at Michaels along with the ever popular tassels AND the helium tank to blow them up! SCORE!!

So many fun ways to dress up your backyard and turn it into a dreamy scene, perfect for a fabulous party! I have a few more details that I’ll share tomorrow.

For now… Here are even more amazing ideas from the rest of the Michael’s Makers.

An InLinkz Link-up

Disclosure // I am a member of the Michaels Makers Crew and receive product in order to complete my challenge assignment.

Family Planner | Free Printable

17 · Jun 7, 2012 · 19 Comments

I wanted to share a guest post that I created for my sweet friend Lara from Less Cake {More Frosting} last week while she is recovering from surgery. It's a stylish & practical family planner for those times when you need a little help around the house.

I know how crazy and scary this time can be for a family. Back in March I had to have unplanned surgery and it boy, can that throw the family into chaos. My husband and I headed off to the emergency room and left my fourteen year old in charge. My husband wasn't able to get back to the house until the following day. By that time, I had been admitted to the hospital and was getting prepared for surgery. We didn't have time to line-up child care, to go grocery shopping, to make a list of all the important numbers that one would need to make sure our family continued to function in my absence. I had wonderful friends that jumped in to help, but again… they don't have all the information like school information, health information and such in order to make sure our family stayed on track.

Now that's an extreme example, but think about it… wouldn't it be nice to have a central location to keep all of that kind of information handy? Not just for when you may need to be rushed off to surgery, but when you and your honey would like to go out of town and Grandma comes to help take care of the kiddos, or maybe you are headed out of town and Dad needs all this basic family information close at hand, or you are having another baby, so many times we need to make sure our family is organized well, and we usually we just don't' have time to do it properly.

To address this dilemma, I've created a fantastic tool for your family to use just in case you find yourself in a situation where Mom is out of commission or you need to go out of town. It's a printable Family Planner with all of the information that another caregiver will need when taking care of your family. All you need to do is print out these basic forms, fill them out, put them in a binder and you are set.

school schedule

First we have the school schedule page with all of the important school information Dad, Grandma or whom ever will be watching your kiddos will need to to make sure everyone stays on track for school while you are gone. School contact information, School start and end times, bus information. All the basic information that we as Moms have stored in our heads.

An additional idea is to add a folder for each child behind this page to store homework or important notes that come home while you are gone. You can also add more information, like when homework is due, when they have their specials {i.e. gym, music, library, ect.} and any other information that will help your kiddos have a positive school experience while you are not there managing the ship. I even added a Post-it pocket on the back of the previous sheet to place small items like lunch money and such that they will need while you are away.

child care

I know that when I had my surgery in March my little guy whet to a different friends home each day, and that schedule can be hard to keep up with. Here is a handy form to fill out for your husband or caregiver, so that they know exactly what will be happening as far as child care is concerned each day.

enrichment activities

If you have kiddos these days, you know that with them comes all kinds of activities. Piano, soccer, dance, you name it… they are busy all the time. Here is a handy sheet to help your temporary caregiver stay organized and know exactly where and when to go each day. You can print one out for each child and you are good to go!

medical information

Again, you can print one of these sheets for the whole crew or one for each kiddo. Write down all of their important medical information just in case something happens while you are away. This way there won't be any panic if someone needs to see the Doctor while you are gone. Not only that, you can list all of their allergies and medications as well.

I also added a Post-it pocket to this page as well to keep all of the kiddos insurance cards close at hand, just in case.

meal planning

Now we have a meal planning section to help your families caregiver take care of their food needs. If your family is anything like mine, everyone has their likes and dislikes. I don't cater to my kiddos, but I do know what really sends them over the edge and try to avoid it if possible. This is especially a good idea when they may already have a higher stress level because Mom is gone. It's better to take the food anxiety out of the equation. Plus, you can help your caregiver by planning everything out for them so they don't have to worry about meals if you have some time to prepare before hand. Here is another section where I added the Post-it Pockets. You can put cash or a pre-paid grocery card just in case they need to run to the store for anything. You can also stack it with gift cards from your families favorite local restaurants for Grandma {or who ever is watching the kiddies} to take them for a special treat without having to dip into their budget.

Now all you have to do is print all of these forms to fill out, find a cute binder {I found my lovely chevron binder at Target} and place each sheet into the binder in a sheet protector. You could even laminate each sheet and use dry-erase markers to fill everything out so that when things change it will be easy to update. Add several sheets of notebook paper to the binder for other notes and you will have your family plan at hand. Keep it up to date and even if you have a unexpected emergency like my family did, you are good to go!

I created these printables using Rhonna Designs Chevron Tool Kit, isn't it just delish?! If you would like to print out the full sheets of prints to help decorate your binder like I did, you can visit Rhonna's site to purchase and download the kit to have access to all of these fun digital elements.

Here are all of the fun FREE printable planner pages for you to use…

Click on the arrow at the top right of each page and the download will automatically start. This printable if for WhipperBerry followers {please follow via Facebook, Twitter, Feeburner, Email, Pinterest or Instagram} and is for personal use only.

I pray that you only have to use this planner for when you go out of town for a fabulous trip to Hawaii, but at least you know you're covered for other things as well!