Fun Activities For A Family Night In

Family time is a sought after experience these days, with busy work schedules, oodles of homework, and a lot of us needing some more naps in our lives. Yet before bed time rolls around, you should do something together as a family to have the maximum amount of fun together when you can. It can ramp us up for the next day or tire us out to get some fitful sleep. Below are some ideas on what you can do to have a lot of fun, (with a little bit of learning thrown in) with family activities!

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Play Some Association or Word Games

This is a game you can make up on the spot that doesn’t require any equipment or proper knowhow. However, if you really want to brush up on your english skills because you’re a very competitive person, you can check out sites such as the Effortless English Blog to find the best ways to improve your speaking and thinking states.

You can also develop your own little hacks to make sure you win the night. This can usually be done by writing everything down beforehand and finding ways to incorporate it in the activity. So clever, and this extra sneaky element is great to learn now and use later!

Have A Nice Late Evening BBQ

BBQs are always something to get excited about. Loads of good food on offer that you can always smell, and there’s something so novelty about hanging out in the back yard with smoky flavored buns and family. Yet, even though summer has left us, there’s nothing to say you can’t still have a good barbeque!

With the days coming to a close a lot earlier, it can be quite a magical scene. Hang up some fairly lights and put on a friendly tune and you’re guaranteed to have everyone enjoying themselves.

Throw Some Balloons Around

Not only is it fun to blow up a balloon and let it off without tying, it’s also fun watching people turn red as they try to use their own breath. Yet keeping the balloon off the floor is an age old activity that still keeps people riveted for a good while. Balloons are cheap and can be found in every good craft store, so pick up a packet on your way home and go wild with them scattered across the floor.

It also means you can make your own puppet theatre with a little bit of grafting and papier mache. This lets the younger ones really hone their creativity, and the older ones can try out their stand up routines. Make sure you’re ready for all the puns about to come your way!

Family time together can be anything, as long as it’s fun for all the family. It can be board games, making things up, even cracking out the old game console to have multiplayer teams. Consider a family night in when you next have some free time, and go the extra mile with participation.

4 Ways to Protect Your Family

If you are raising a young family, it is likely that you will give a lot of thought to the future. When you are living the free and single life, it is much easier to ignore the demands of tomorrow. However, once you take on the huge responsibility of having children, it is important to always think ahead. Although it is horrible to imagine anything happening to your family, being prepared is the best way to keep your loved ones safe. You need to consider all of the risks that you are facing in order to come up with suitable solutions. If you are wondering where to start, you will need to read on. Below are four ways for you to protect your family.

Prepare a medical kit

In order to be prepared for an emergency situation, it is a good idea to put together a medical kit. You should have one for your home, and another in your car. It should be filled with all of the essential equipment that you might need. Nine times out of ten, you will just require a Band-aid and some antiseptic wipes. However, you should also be prepared for more extreme emergencies. If your children have any specific conditions, you should use your medical kit as a safe space to store their equipment. For instance, if your child struggles with asthma, storing their inhaler in a safe place is the best way to ensure that you always know where it is. Don't forget to make sure the air in your home is safe ... this is a great site for air purifier reviews!

Here are some Best Hepa Air Purifier For Mold and Mildew Reviews

Know the Law

In order to protect your family’s rights, you need to know your family’s rights. There are all sorts of different situations that you could find yourself up against in the long run. Knowing what type of lawyer to call to help you - for example, a Criminal Lawyer - will ensure you can get the help you need as quickly as you can. This allows for better results!

Protect your technology

When your children get to the age that they can use technology, it is important to take simple measures in order to keep them safe. You should use protective software that blocks certain sites. Some devices even allow you to set up passcodes so that you can visit areas of the internet that your children cannot. Don’t underestimate the threat that your family faces when using technology. It is always better to be safe than sorry.

Invest in insurance

If you want to protect your family’s future, you need to consider your insurance. Don’t just settle for the first policy that you come across. Turn to Change Insurer, as they will help you to find honest, independent advice that you can depend on. Selecting the right insurance policy is the best way to achieve peace of mind. Instead of being caught out by life’s twists and turns, you will be prepared for every eventuality. This doesn’t just apply to insurance - being prepared saves you money; from knowing a reliable emergency plumber to being able to find a good dog bite lawyer in case of accidents, it all helps. If you want to protect your finances, and secure your children’s future, it is vital that you have a clear plan in place.

Secure your home

Your home should be a safe place for you, and your family, to relax in. Don’t allow your safe haven to be compromised. Make sure that your household security is extremely efficient. You should think hard about the ways in which your property is vulnerable. Then, you should work to find suitable solutions. Luckily, securing your home doesn’t have to come at a great expense. Instead, there are lots of simple, and cheap, ways to keep your household safe. 

A New Location That The Whole Family Will Love

If you are thinking of moving home, there is likely to be plenty that you have on your plate. This is especially true if you are moving from one location to a quite distinct one, as there is often more to consider in such circumstances. One of your main concerns is likely to be ensuring that everyone is as happy as possible with the new location which you intend to move to. But finding such a place can take a lot of time, effort and sometimes a fair share of worry. In this post, we are going to share some advice on how to find the ideal location for all of the family.

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Consider Every Member Of The Family

One of the most common causes of consternation when families move to another location is that someone - or a couple of people, in some cases - was not considered fully or properly. You need to do whatever you can to really consider every member of the family during the move. If you are going to be taking your kids’ grandparents with you, you might need to find nursing homes, or else look for a home which can support them sufficiently as well as the family. If you have children, you will need to think about whether the new location is suitable for them - have you looked into schools, local parks and so on? It is only by thinking carefully about everyone who is involved that you can hope that everyone will be happy.

Don’t Rush Into It

If you find that there is something of a tendency to rush into things in your family, this could be one occasion when you really benefit from slowing things down a little. Over-rushing in such a case can easily lead to more stress than is necessary, and it is even possible that your children will over-act as a result of this. When this happens, it becomes difficult to tell what expressed opinion is genuine and which is just a spur of the moment response to the stressful situation. Avoid this stress, and its related worries, by simply giving yourself plenty of time to make the whole process. The more time you have, the better it will be for everyone.

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Is A Family A Democracy?

If you think it will help for your family, you might want to think about holding some kind of a vote as to where to live. This is best done when you already have a few options to choose between, of course - and you probably don’t want to do this if your children are too young to really understand what they are voting for or against. But in the right circumstances, this can actually be one of the better ways to move home while keeping a family close-knit throughout.

Looking for the right location can always be a little stressful. However, as long as you approach it sensibly, you should find that you are able to find the ideal spot without too much worry. Then it’s just a matter of the actual move itself.

We Have Found Our Dream House in Peculiar, Missouri!!! #PeculiarMO

Welcome to Professor McLoughlin's Home for Peculiar Children. We are moving to Peculiar, MO, population under 5,000, from Overland Park, KS, population around 190,000... and we could not be happier!

Things we can have in Peculiar that we could not have in stuffy OP:

1. Chickens
2. Fireworks
3. Fun on things like ATVs and lawnmowers
4. Peace and quiet
5. Stars

No, really, this is my place now. I still can't believe it. We move in right before Halloween!

Here are some pictures so you can check out our new home as of October 17. The searching for it for over 2 years was the EASY part. The getting our 1966 home ready to sell has been the CRAZY part for the last 6-plus days since we found out our offer was accepted.

First of all, the house came to my email inbox Sunday before Labor Day. One week after my grandma died. I was chilling by my aunt's pool, which we ADORE and thinking how much it stunk that pools always close on Labor Day and how great would it be to have your own pool?! And my husband was joking about how fun to have a bar ... like my aunt and her husband have ... just a fun place to entertain.

We went to see it on Labor Day. We were the first to see it! Then people started coming in droves! And making offers! And our amazing realtor, Jacqueline Elbert, stood in the front yard with us and prayed about the house. And we just kept praying. And waiting for what seemed like forever but really ... it was not long. Wednesday night after coop we got a text from Jacqui saying to order the POD. Aron was at work and I was wrangling kids and I saw the text and started crying happy tears. I felt like Miss America or a lottery winner.

Turns out the plan is to HOMESCHOOL at the bar and out by the cement pond. The Beverly Hillbillies and Green Acres are coming to mind for me here.

Digressing. Sorry about that. I'm shocked my brain works at all anymore and that I have found five minutes to post this. Things like hygiene and eating and sleeping have gone by the wayside.

So I'm just going to write later about all the cool signs that pointed toward this place being ours and how disappointed I would have been had it not worked out and how excited we are to meet everyone who lives around there, including TEENAGERS!

So here are some photos from today when we went for the inspection. The owner was there AND I LOVE HER ... she reminds me of my Aunt Cathy so much. Yes, the one with the pool. And her grandkids called her husband POPPY ... don't get me started on the Poppy sign (my dad and my grandpa).

Michael and Sam singing songs while scrubbing up old carpet glue.

I spent part of the morning with a paintbrush and Goof Off trying to get years-old paint off the wood floor from someone who painted the trim without taping the floor and then put carpet down. BAD KARMA upon you. I have half a mind to look you up in city records and read you the riot act.

See that? Yeah, that's our SALTWATER pool that the owner herself told the kids they could test out. Cheaper and better for your skin. And HEATED. And possibly open late October. Stay tuned.

Is this a dream?

How many homeschooled kids can say they were schooled at the bar?

Gotta have drinks for the schooling. What would Pink Floyd serve? Toaster oven and you're all set.

Downstairs living space

The boys' bedroom is hugemongous! This is one end of it.

And this is the other end of it.

Plenty of space for all our homeschool books and supplies.

So many great family photos are gonna happen right here.

Okay, gotta get back to the Goof Offing white paint thing and then more carpet glue scraping and mopping floors and staging. Half our stuff is in a SAM (store and move). They went out of biz but Fry Wagner here in town got their storage units so I was surprised to see this and it was so funny!

We had some AMAZING helpers and the PROCESS of getting a house ready to show was torturous and I don't recommend it. People tried to warn me but I didn't listen. I like to learn things the hard way :-)

UPDATE: Pre-Review of "The Queen of Distraction: How Women with ADHD Can Conquer Chaos, Find Focus, and Get More Done"

Scroll to bottom for update if you've already read this post!

So as I was doing my morning walk today I realized I was all done listening to "The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up" by Marie Kondo on Audible and was ready for something new. It's hard for me to find time to sit down and read a book, plus I get distracted easily and just can't focus on the words anymore. Audiobooks while I walk are the perfect solution for me ... exercise and knowledge in one = perfection!

When I was at the library recently I saw on a shelf nearby someone had put this book on hold:



I'm like, why are they writing a book about ME????

I put it on hold at the library for the print copy but realized that is laughable since I can't focus on reading it so I'm using my own affiliate link to get it on audiobook!

I listened to a sample on Audible and was nodding my head like an idiot while I was walking. Stacks of papers? Yes. No clue how to prioritize the sorting of them? That's me. I'm sure that explains a lot of people who don't necessarily have ADHD but the way I procrastinate and can't stick with boring things and constantly run after new, shiny things drives me nuts about myself! And when I get focused on something I enjoy, time passes so quickly and then I'm late for things ... often rushing the kids around to get out the door late for something because *I* can't get my crap together.

This is a 6-hour, 18-minute audiobook so give me until November 15 to post my review, please! I can only fit in about 30 minutes of walking a day and only then if the weather is 48 degrees or above!

Women and me like me who might have adult ADHD ... there might be help for us. Also, I see these traits in one of my daughters, so it would be AWESOME to be able to help her while she's not even 8 years old yet!

If you want to buy the book now because I have you all excited, please use my affiliate link above! If you want to wait for the review, that's also cool! Oh, and it will try to make you get the paperback by default. I just clicked on the item name from my shopping cart and went back to the options and clicked Audible and used my credit :-)

Happy November!

**Update September 10, 2017: I never finished this book, which is typical of women with ADD. I have to laugh!