fun ideas-

for my birthday, my friend Julie (who currenty lives in Italy, but is coming back to the states SOON!) gave me a subscription to "Family Fun" magazine. a lot of the ideas and articles are for older kids, but there are some things we can try now-- and lots of things I can store away in my (pretty poor) memory bank for future activities.

here are a few of the ideas I thought sounded really cool:

- celebrate 1/2 birthdays by having half of a birthday cake!

- "behavior of the day" -- every day (or the days you remember to do this!) the parent picks a certain behavior as the mystery behavior, like saying please or washing your hands or sharing, etc. the kids don't know what it is, but when the parent sees the child do the desired behavior-- a special word is said like "Cha-Ching!" and a reward is given. rewards examples they gave were a nickel, gumball, tootsie roll, extra minute of tuck-in time, etc. I think the fun part is that the kids have to try to figure out what the mystery behavior is-- so they have to try ALL different good behaviors until they find the one that is the mystery behavior of the day.

- Party in a Box: when extended family starts getting really large and its hard to keep track of everyone's birthdays and remember to send birthday cards to everyone!, you can send each household a "Family Birthday Party Box." in the box you send everything you would need to throw an impromtu birthday party-- cake mix, frosting, candles, decorations, and a small gift for each family member. then the family can decide to celebrate as soon as the box arrives or save it for a rainy day. the family never knows just when the box will arrive in the mail.I thought this sounded really cute!

- a perpetual calendar: the idea the magazine gave was to have a perpetual Nature calendar, but I think you could do it with everyday events. keep a stack of 365 index cards, write a day of the year on each card, and make little notes of the activities or observations of the day. so, for example, you would end up with a card for June 15 with notes of what you did or saw in 2007:, 2008:, etc.
it's kinda like the baby calendar we have to keep track of events of Jason's first year of life.




--and for your Jason-fix of the day: hanging out with Dad!