We love our conversation starters in our family so we decided to come up with some holiday themed ones for St Patrick’s Day. We had a blast sitting our the dinner table one evening coming up with these and answering them as we went and we now look forward to re-answering them with grandparents tomorrow on the 17th!
I printed ours on green paper but it would also be fun to let kids color them if you have little ones. There are 2 blank ones you can fill in with your own questions if you’d like.
So you want to do some fun, special things for your family for Valentine’s Day but you don’t want to be a “pinterest mom” and go to the extreme with extravagant treats, surprises, goodies and games. Well, you don’t have to! This is your friendly reminder that you don’t have to go to either extreme, you can do some fun stuff but keep it simple so more time is spent WITH your family than spent preparing stuff FOR your family.
I love getting the kids involved with our festivities whenever possible so they help do the dipping. We keep it real simple and use the container of chocolate dip you can find in the produce section of Walmart. For the white chocolate we just used a bag of white chocolate that we microwaved for 20 seconds at a time until it was melted all the way.
We used Nilla Wafers, Rice Krispy treats (make homemade or buy them pre-made and cut in half), pretzels, Oreos, vanilla & chocolate Wafers, strawberries and graham crackers. I also bought these cute large heart sprinkles from Amazon that we topped each treat with.
Arrange them on a cute platter after they have hardened (doesn’t take long, 10-15 minutes was it for us) and serve! So yummy, so fun and so little time!
The older kids had too much fun trying to make a tipee with the extra wafers.
Whatever keeps them having fun and wanting to spend time with us! 🤷🏼♀️
Another great, easy treat is the classic Muddy Buddies. Add some pink and red M&Ms to go better with the theme and add a little color.
More than important than anything though just remember that what people really want on Valentine’s Day more than anything else is to feel noticed and loved. Have fun with it and never pass up a chance to let someone you love know just how much you love them!
Our kids are good about treating the sabbath day different from the rest of the week. They don’t ask to do activities they know we avoid on Sundays, they have a great attitude and enjoy their day. With that being said, we felt like we could all use a sabbath day revamp. Something that would really help us refocus on what is more important and use the day to our greatest advantage. Enter our new Sunday Activities program.
Each Sunday they have to do at least 3 things on the “Top Priority” list before moving on to the “2nd Best” side. They can choose to take their time or do the bare minimum, totally up to them. Once they are on the “2nd Best” side we ask them to do at least 4 things. We are hoping this encourages them to broaden their horizons and work on developing new talents.
We’ve only done this one Sunday so far but it was a very successful first attempt. We spent even more time together as a family and the Spirit was extra strong as we continued to stay focused on what is most important throughout the day. I’ll have to do an update in the months to come on how this pans out long term.
Here is a downloadable version if you want to print it for your family. Or come up with your own “Top Priorities” and “2nd Best” activities based on your family’s wants/needs.
When I made the commitment to start being more intentional with how I was using my time I knew that one thing I REALLY wanted to get back to was crafting with our kids, especially the younger ones. I realized I had gotten out of the habit of doing fun crafts with the kids (especially during the holidays which is when we always did the most) due to our busier schedule and although I wasn’t willing to remove things from our to do list to make time for it I knew if I moved things around and made it a priority I could find time for it again.
So crafting has been reestablished in our household and what better time to get back in the habit then at the beginning of a bunch of holidays coming up?! Zoey and I decided to start with a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow in a fun new way and one that she could hang from the hook on her bedroom door (we use to make wreaths regularly for the kids to hang on their doors…simple craft ones that we throw away after each holiday). We started by find a pot of gold that I could print online. This is the one we used.
Zoey didn’t last too long coloring hers but she sure looked cute while doing it!
Next you have to cut some strips of paper the colors of the rainbow. (a red sheet cut into strips, an orange sheet etc)
Then, I took our colored pots and cut a slit right along where the gold ended and rim started so we could start threading the strips to make our rainbow.
We slid the pink strip through first and then Zoey taped it together (you could also staple) before moving on to purple and continuing up the rainbow. Zoey loved the taping part. I don’t know what it is about tape but each of our kids are obsessed and love an excuse to use it.
We had fun talking about each color and all the things of that color that we love as we added each new strip on. Zoey was so proud of her finished product and couldn’t wait to show Rylee when she got home from school (they share a room) Parker and Taylor have mine hanging from their door and Cambryn and Andi asked when they got to do a craft again. 😄 Looks like we all missed crafting.
I’ll have many more kid-friendly crafts coming to the blog so follow along if you want some more ideas to add to your compilation of craft ideas to do with your kiddos 🤗 Also, Happy St Patricks Day! 🌈🍀
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