Question: Are you the fun parent?
I am not.
Question: Are you the fun parent?
I am not.
Reading Time: < 1 minute
This morning my teenagers are peeling themselves out of bed for that oh-so-exciting first school day after Spring Break. And for all us types with less liturgy in our lives, it might actually be easy to let Holy Week slide into that sludgy pile of Great Things I Really Meant to Focus On.
So I’m tossing both of us a low ball here.
For FamilyLife.com, I’ve created a list of Prayers for Holy Week and Easter for Families, complete with a short Scripture passage for each day. Mine’s printed off and tucked beside the kitchen lamp so I actually remember to pray them.
They’re totally doable for reading as your kids pour milk over the Honey Nut Cheerios, while you peck them with goodnight kisses, or while all of you hope for a few more minutes after dinner before loading the dishwasher.
May your very real family, and mine, too, keep first things first in such a meaningful week.
Holiday Rerun: 14 Great Paradoxes of Jesus’ Death [printable INFOGRAPHIC]
Reading Time: < 1 minute
For some of you–Valentine’s Day is not a fluffy pink cloud, studded with chocolates. For some of you, Valentine’s Day is hard.
We stayed married another day. Three cheers.
People are celebrating the ones they love, spewing poetry and love songs. And that only accentuates the fact you’re bruised; you’re with someone you’re tolerating, maybe for the sake of the kids.
If this is you–I’m writing to you today over at FamilyLife.com, “What about Valentine’s Day when marriage is hard?”
I’m hoping you feel seen. And I’m hoping you feel hope.
P.S. I found a typo in last week’s Valentine’s Day Bingo (left over from Thanksgiving Bingo, in case you wondered why I was asking about the pilgrims?). Find a correction here.
What to Do About the Person You Thought You’d Marry
Christian, Married–and Attracted Elsewhere
12 Ideas to Bring Back that Lovin’ Feeling
Guest post: 9 Ways to Pray for Your Marriage in Tough Times
Reading Time: 3 minutes
Valentine’s Day for kids: I 100% get the dilemma.
How can you make it special, make them feel loved–when you’re just trying to get kids to eat mashed potatoes with a fork, or get their shoes on the right feet?
I’m piling in here a few easy ideas to make Valentine’s Day for kids pop–without a lot of extra effort.
Remember: Moments like these are about communicating your affection to kids, and creating memories together that say, I see you. You’re special to me.
When you look at it that way, the rose-colored glasses from every Pinterest activity can slide off.
That priority helps me sift out the activities that could steal my joy or expend energy I don’t have, leading to the kind of Valentine’s Day I hope they don’t remember. (Yikes.)
Take a page from Romans 12:3, and look at yourself, and your schedule, with sober judgment. What can you really do, and still be able to “love sincerely” (Romans 12:9)?
Don’t look on Insta at what your friends are doing for their kids. Lay down your heart-shaped super-parent cape. And feel free to order absolutely nothing pink last-minute from Target.
And just be the parent your kids need, who shows them God’s smile.
Hopefully, this can hand your kids a few ideas to love on other people.
Milkshakes, cake pops at Starbucks, bowling, mini-golf if you live in a place warmer than I do. Don’t overthink it or overspend it; I’m not saying you need to blow your wad at Build-A-Bear.
The goal here is memories together, feeling loved.
…or a coupon for the date above. Grab an easy fill-in-the blank/circle-all-that-apply printable template here to keep it fun, easy, and hopefully meaningful.
You could
You see where I’m going here. Think, Hey, I could do this.
Don’t miss this: My kids don’t need more. They need just a few gestures of kindness.
And it’s great if they can be the givers of those gestures, too.
Spring Break Kids’ Activity: The Newlywed Game (FREE PRINTABLE)
Ideas for Kids on Holiday Break (& Teens, Too)
The “Fun Parent”: Why (& How) to Get Weird with Your Kids
Reading Time: 4 minutes
So–a lot of women I know are in that window of life where one’s body starts needing repair from growing, then expelling a human.
If you’re not there? Hey, super-fun stuff.
I’ve been reminded wombs, too, bear both the weight of joy and of the curse on this world. And maybe this carries a big exclamation point as I raise four teenagers.
Sometimes I think, Wow. I love this job. My heart could burst with how much I love these people, and how excited I am with the people they’re becoming.
And sometimes I think, Wow. Parenting really, really hurts.
I mean, parenthood can kind of sweep you into unspeakable joy in a single moment–and sweep away dignity with it, too, from the point that you start peeing on a stick.
Later you’re wearing a hospital gown that’s never stitched up the back, or kind of resigned to strangers seeing all you have to offer (but in one of the hardest, best moments of your life). Or you’re painfully paperwork-pregnant for an adoption.
Then, your toddler threw blocks at another kid in the nursery, but looks enraptured when they see your face.
Or you get a call (the good kind, then the bad kind) from a teacher.
Or your teen says “You’re the best!” and then decides to wear that to school.
When God says “In pain you shall bring forth children”?
Um. Yes. This, I feel.
(Interestingly, psychiatrist and author Curt Thompson makes a case that when God states the curse on Adam and Eve, he’s simply the only one still telling the true story. Thompson suggests that rather than God’s emphasis resting on punishment, God is telling how things will be, must be, because of sin and its shame. The death he told them would come has already begun.)
This part doesn’t really make the index cards of advice they hand out at all those pastel-colored baby showers: Sleep when he sleeps. It’s easy to make your own baby food!
This is going to gut you like a fish.
I’ve thought about all this, though, as I think on Mary, who I may want to grab a latte with in heaven. Man, does that woman have a story.
Even with her carrying and delivering a perfect child, Simeon addresses her poetically, tragically in the temple: And a sword will pierce your own soul, too (Luke 2:35).
A few pages before, she’s hailed as blessed. Favored. It was exclaimed over Mary, too, “Blessed are you among women!” You are favored by God!
And throughout time, she’ll be remembered that way.
Yet sometimes my view of God’s favor. of being “#blessed!” can be very prescriptive. In fact, sometimes it’s a thinly veiled version of the American Dream. Maybe we wouldn’t expect this from her life.
As in,
In parenthood, and like nearly every righteous biblical character, Mary is both blessed and pierced.
Author Scott Erickson writes of her annunciation in Honest Advent (a book I’m currently loving and reading to my teens), “In any divine annunciation, you receive revelation as a gift, yet at the same time you receive notice that all that you had planned is ending. It’s all over. Everything will change–most of all you.”
Erickson continues,
Revelation is a hard gift to receive. You must give up everything else to receive it–like finding a treasure in a field and selling everything you have so you can get that treasure.
But then again, she who is willing to accept the cost of revelation finds herself in the deepest of stories. Stories that are so mysterious, divine, and human that we still tell them today.
May you receive the light of divine annunciation in the flames of your best-laid plans.
But also, this: In raising children, perhaps especially in raising teens, I understand what God’s parenthood is like; what it is like for an infinite, perfect God to bear children. We hear both his exclamations of love, singing songs over his people–and his poetry of loss.
(God compares himself to women and mothers many times in Scripture, like in Isaiah 42:14, when he likens himself to a woman in labor.)
For God to create mankind was to invite on himself deep pain and sorrow. The metaphor of Mary’s life, and ours, are shadows of God’s own pain in loving and bringing forth life.
Think of the entire book of Hosea, where God tells Hosea to marry a prostitute. It’s a metaphor for God’s people turning from him.
Remember Jesus weeping over Jerusalem, who he wanted to gather under his wings like a hen, “but you were not willing (Matthew 23:37).
Or consider Jesus’ parable of the Prodigal Son; the waiting father there is an image of God.
God knows what it’s like to have children, to have them rip you apart (or perhaps pierce your hands and feet)–and to reiterate over and over again with your love, You are so worth it.
This Christmas, in those moments you’re elated or disappointed in your kids or even in palpable delight or pain–walk with me into worship.
God’s entrance into the world through a woman’s groaning, straining body reminds us his love goes that far; farther.
He appeared, and the soul felt its worth.
Reading Time: 8 minutes
Random avatars of sugar and carbohydrates currently sprawl across my table, and I recently did the Sam’s Club pickup with holiday snacks to feed four teenagers.
Which is to say, never, ever enough. And I need price-club-sized tubs of things like salsa and cheese dip.
I’ve been noodling on ideas for kids on holiday break for years, people. But picky teenagers really up the ante, y’know?
But my Marine, aka oldest son, made it home last Wednesday, people, which is cause for sheer celebration–particularly when coupled with the birth of the Savior of the World.
And yet, after finals week and fast-food jobs and boot camp for my kids, coupled with the sheer pace of life for my husband and me, some family knuckles are dragging the ground this year.
That is to say, we want to somehow create some well-warranted sparkle, but without a lot of additional chaos. (Is that a thing?)
Note: You are not the cruise director/court jester/general fun planner for your home. There are great benefits to kids being bored– and there are even dangers to our kids having the expectation they will always be entertained.
My kids will have some extra chores over break (trust me; there will be extra mess.) And it’s important they not think their world is about them.
But it’s great to have up your sleeve a few ideas for kids on holiday break–to create lifetime memories, stir up some creativity, serve others (the first list has printable thank you notes, too!), soak up childhood (for them and you), and kindle some meaningful quality time together.
All you overachievers–just pick a couple. Or have your kids pick a couple. The idea is fun, not peppermint-flavored burnout.
When we tried this with my kids and their cousins, I was delighted to hear my mom–who was admittedly a little skeptical of the potential mess–remark that this was a lot easier, cleaner, and faster than she thought. That’s a win, folks.
We used a Vinegar Taffy Recipe, but you might also enjoy adding those leftover red and green sprinkles, as suggested in this recipe. If you’ve never been to a taffy pull, this video will help!
During one school break, I picked up 101 Coolest Simple Science Experiments: Awesome Things to Do with Your Parents, Babysitters, and Other Adults.
The book sat on our counter, and my kids thumbed through it every few days to try something new: the CD hovercraft, the paper airplane launcher, DIY pulley system, Pencil Arrows, Marshmallow Molecules.
Bonus: Most of the stuff was in our junk drawer.
Also from the book above: T-shirts colored with permanent ink (like a pack of colored Sharpies), then sprayed with 70% rubbing alcohol. This dissolves the ink, and the colors morph into a colorful explosion.
In case it’s not obvious, I get a kick out of my kids thinking in crazy new ways–like this rollercoaster for ping-pong balls, constructed out of straws.
Try newspaper rolled up into spears and connected with masking tape to make a tepee or fort; popsicle sticks (my kids like building bridges and buildings!); pasta (like lasagna, fettucine, and wagon wheels); your recycling bin.
My son built a boat out of foil and recyclables–and delightfully surprised me when it floated. If you dig this kind of stuff, search on the internet or Pinterest for makerspace for kids.
A classic at our house over break has typically involved building a fort with pillows, blankets, cushions, and furniture to spend the night in front of the Christmas tree.
With teenagers, this now looks like pulling out the sofa bed. And I’m just fine with that.
Yes, my teens also still dig snow ice cream, made even better with all those leftover Christmas sprinkles.
No snow? Check out this easy recipe for DIY ice-cream in a Ziploc–with ingredients you probably already have! (We used regular salt, and replaced the milk with half-and-half.)
When it comes to ideas for kids on holiday break, don’t forget your city or town’s online calendar for what’s going on in your area that’s free or low-cost.
A lot of libraries, in particular, populate their schedules with crazy-fun stuff you don’t have to prep–like making gingerbread houses, a movie afternoon complete with popcorn, or a Lego night.
Seize the downtime to have your kids send out thank-you notes for Christmas gifts.
For younger kids, here’s a simple printable thank-you note (help them circle the adjectives they want)! Print it FREE here. (I’ll post it on the Freebies page, too.)Older kids probably like to pick out their own notes at the store or make their own. (For me, buying thank-you notes they get even a little excited about is worth the expense.)
You can make a template for them, with a goal of, say, one note per day (or the option to bang ’em all out at once). A sample template…suitable even for gifts kids aren’t thrilled about:
Dear _____,
I wanted to thank you for the (great/cool/huge) _____ you gave me. It was really (thoughtful/generous/kind/sweet) of you! I (can’t wait to use it at ___/have already used it to ____/think of you every time I see it). I’m grateful.
Hope you have a happy New Year!
(Sincerely/Love/Your __(granddaughter/grandson/niece/friend…etc.),
[name]
We’re talking thirty minutes or less from start to glorious finish–and you’ll get a handful of treats to schlepp over to the neighbors or leave out for the postman (post-person?) and sanitation workers. A few of my faves:
It can be a lot easier than you think! Grab 25 low-prep ideas–like tying a fleece blanket for Project Linus or a kid you know in the hospital. (Pro tip: Let your kids pick the fabric.)
Or consider baking something from the ideas above for a lonely neighbor.
(Know anyone who might not be able to share Christmas with family this year?)
With a budget per child that you communicate, traipse over to the used bookstore or library to encourage books they naturally gravitate toward. Libraries also have audiobooks, obviously, or even jigsaw puzzles and board games to check out.
You might even let them pick out a Christmas chapter book to read aloud together with cocoa by the tree at night.
When Christmas break hits this year, I’ll let my kids open a (wrapped, if I get time?) box of books–including at least one specifically curated for each of my kids’ interests. My favorite site for used books is still Abebooks.com.
Pop up a card table and allow family members to mill around a puzzle, or a game to ensue that normally you wouldn’t have time for (Monopoly, Axis and Allies, Risk, Settlers of Catan).
If you’ve got the cash, consider letting your kids pick out a new game–or give one as a family gift at the beginning of break.
Don’t forget the s’mores. (Side story: We constructed more than one pseudo-smore roast during our years in Uganda. I loved our Ugandan friend’s expression when he first tried one: “These are AMAZING!”)
My sister brought these to a family gathering one year.
Print your own iron-ons using printer papers found at lots of big-box stores in the craft aisle. Or Michaels.com has some fun ones with sloths, mermaids, donuts, sushi…
Even better, teens can design their own using sites like Canva.
With a fabric medium like this, you can add the medium to any color acrylic paint–and it automatically becomes a fabric paint.
This is how I created a Charlie Brown t-shirt for my son (the yellow one with the black zigzag at the bottom. Can you hear “Christmas Time is Here” playing?). My daughter also has experimented with some feather stencils.
Maybe it’s grandma’s cinnamon rolls, like in my family. Have fun making a heritage recipe this year.
School nights get a little crazy over here. But we recently finished Hatchet during bedtime reading (or at least started it; my kids got too anxious and finished it on their own. Not a bad thing!). This is a great plan for kids who struggle to settle down after a long day.
To have on hand for the panhandlers in your city, create an assembly line of items from a list like this, packing them in resealable bags. (Bonus: It helps your kids see the homeless in your community and treat them with dignity and care.)
I come from a family full of great ideas! My sisters have more than once planned a massive scavenger hunt for gifts for our nieces and nephews.
All of us dressed in Christmas gear–the hats and headbands, the striped pants. Through clues on strips of paper and vehicles at the ready, we led them to different locales around the city: Listening to a story read by Grandma in the children’s area of the bookstore. Getting cake pops at Starbucks. Singing Christmas carols to the pets at the pet store. The kids L-O-V-E-D it, and we now have great memories around their small gifts from last year. It’s the perfect coup d’etat when it comes to ideas for kids on holiday break.
…for teachers and neighbors. Here’s a good recipe! We used Christmas colors for the sugars, and tied directions onto the jars with twine.
My sister-in-law had the fabulous idea on New Year’s Eve to play “Minute to Win It” for small prizes. Even teens like this one, folks–especially with a few well-chosen prizes.
Grab 30 ideas for your competition here.
Bring flashlights, a phone to take photos of their best discovery, and hot chocolate in thermoses.
For a small reward, see which child can memorize the most Scripture verses over break. You can help them with easy ideas to memorize, like music and memory cards from Seeds Family Worship, free printable adult coloring pages, or Scripture Typer.
In addition to these ideas for bored tweens and teens, grab ideas for the whole family that may include (a little) less eye-rolling.
Create your own pub trivia night, using online trivia, a game like Pub Trivia, or trivia books from the library. This one’s great if you have braniacs.
Look up simple mocktail ideas on Pinterest and slide over some bowls of pretzels and peanuts.
I loved these templates for ideas! Amp up the mood a little with goofy holiday hats or headbands.
Use those phones for something a little more valuable. Print out a template like this one!
Grab some candy canes, make your own peppermint syrup, and set out whipped cream, ice cream syrups, marshmallows, and sprinkles.
…And you don’t need a fondue set, BTW. We usually make a cheese recipe and a chocolate recipe, with assorted fruits, bread, veggies, marshmallows, and cookies or graham crackers for dipping. (This is great to make a night special, like New Year’s Eve.)
Reading Time: 2 minutes
Happy (American) almost-Thanksgiving!
It’s great timing. Again. My family needs a day of gratitude.
I’m hoping for more than a quick, compulsory burst of gratitude tending to last four minutes, muttered over some cranberry sauce.
(Maybe this just feels so hard, like it does for so many of us. If it helps, check out How Can I Be Thankful When My World’s a Wreck?)
I’m thinking about how to make lifestyle of Thank you, God–over and over, thank you for us as a family. Because naturally over here, we lean toward patting ourselves on the back.
(Find more you-can-totally-do-this gratitude ideas for worn-out families in this post.)
For me, sometimes posting gratitude Scripture art around is a way to tip my eyes upward again, even while I’m scrounging for leftovers from the fridge.
So the gratitude Scripture art here is just as much for me needs a thankful reminder when complaining seems far more natural.
My family needs Thanksgiving this year. We need the constant twisting of our internal zoom lens to the gifts God keeps handing us.
We need the reminder of his presence. His enough-ness. His still-so-good-ness.
Have fun celebrating with your family over a carb-fest, noisy offspring, maybe that wild-card guest you didn’t expect. In the comments section, I’d love to hear what you’re especially thankful for this year. (Grab Thanksgiving printables for the kiddos here.)
Happy Thanksgiving!
Reading Time: 3 minutes
My husband was Mufasa from the Lion King; my oldest has always born a resemblance to Cars’ Lightning McQueen, while my second son makes us laugh like Tow Mater (and happens to be going through a Duck Dynasty phase? I digress.) I may have had some references to Mary Poppins, or Ms. Potts from Beauty and the Beast. (Sigh.) The jury’s still out on my daughter (maybe Belle, maybe Lilo).
But my youngest son is a whole lot like Dash from The Incredibles–often seen merely in a blur. Friends have likened him to a cartoon character before, so this isn’t new. He’s also my two-sports-at-a-time kid nearly every season.
Allow me to compare:
That said, I’ll give you a free guess on which of my kids is the hardest to entertain.
Like, since he was born.
As a toddler, he busied himself unscrewing the tops of the bottles in the tub (so one might dump three months’ worth of conditioner into one’s hand).
He unloaded my appliance cupboard twice a day to assemble all the parts (I had long since removed the blades).
And while I was in the bathroom, pulled up a stool to the toaster oven, where I’d set drink packets. He punched them open with his teeth and sprinkled them around the first floor like fairy dust. (Woe to the mother who takes a bathroom break with this child.)
Now, he just wrestles with run-of-the-mill summer boredom.
After the church’s hot-dog picnic lunch in the park on Sunday–where he rode his bike, mingled for two hours, introduced his puppy, and messed around on the playground–he slammed the door, ran upstairs, and fell on the bed. “I’m bored.”
Oh, help.
So today, we landed on a summer-boredom solution.
I’ll give you two versions of this game: mine, and a make-your-own version.
If you’re interested in creating your own:
Complete a brain dump of activities.
Mix up fun activities with those that are educational, spiritual, or requiring some discipline or service. On our list
Grab more ideas at
Here’s one premade.
Write in your own activities in the white spaces, or have your kids write in their favorite activities. Ask that at least one challenging or less-fun activity show up in each row.
If you’re that kind of parent–as I shamelessly am–consider light incentives for each row, then for completion of the whole sheet. Are there better incentives for the more rows your child completes?
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