Family Activity Ideas?

We're starting to scrape the bottom of the barrel for "family day" activities. What do you like to do?

The boys love to explore anything....however at 21m they aren't good listeners/hand holders yet.

 

I know that this is going to sound silly, but we took the kids to IKEA in the afternoon. They love to play in the kid area and explore all the kid rooms. It was great because even in the rainy PNW winters it was still something that we could do.

Also, have you taken them to the Children's Museum in Seattle? They have a neat little toddler area that is gated in.

 

We've started taking them along on our errands. IKEA would be great if we had one (sigh). We took ours to the hardware store recently, which they loved. I think they would have liked it at any time of year, but it was especially great because they had a model train setup right in the middle of the store. They also like Home Depot, the grocery store, and most especially Costco.

Mine are not great hand holders either, but you gotta practice somewhere -- you might as well get your errands done too! (And if you normally have to do those things during the week on your own, just think how much easier it will be with DH there. )

We also go to the Children's Museum, the zoo, the pumpkin farm (when it was pumpkin season), and hiking.

 

Library
Zoo
museums, art or science
Airport (my husbands a pilot, and they love to watch the planes)
parks
Ikea (they have family projects for free once a month at ours, so if we have something to buy we try and plan on getting it that day)
The home Depot or Lowes (they also have projects like that for when they get older around 3 or 5 I think?)

good luck,

 

We are regulars at the LA Zoo and the Aquarium of the Pacific. With DH these are both doable and have been for quite some time. We also have a few indoor play places if you and dh are willing to climb through tubes, etc. Other than that, I love our Costco runs! I even find one or two items from the samples that A&K will eat! I've found that they don't need as much variety as we seem to think. They have their favorite things to do/see and we let them take turns choosing (of course mine are a little older). I think its just a plus for them to have both mom and dad time. No matter what you do, just have fun!!

I can't wait to see more responses so that we can get a few new ideas too! Thanks for posting this

 

Families DO stuff together? :umm: Didn't get that memo! :laughing:

Just kidding!! We really just pretty much run errands since hubby is gone all week and he needs a FULL day to recouperate after his travels. Otherwise, we go to the zoo and mostly when DH is home and the weather is permitting, we go to the park. They love nothing better.

On vacation we went to Sea World! That was a great Family Day!!

 

we do big kid things but with little kid timing. For instance, bowling. We go about 1 hour before the league bowlers when the place is empty, take up the last lane and just let them roll the ball with the help of the little ramp thing. After the 7th frame we let DS 1 finish out the frames and we leave.

Saturday afternoon 1-4 skate session. We go at 2:45. Get skates on the carpet and take turns rolling the boys around the rink. We spend the last 30 minutes in the center of the ring with all three boys and usually end up taking their skates off there.

I second the errand running thing. Our book store and mall have a huge play area. Just aim to not be anywhere for more than an hour. They don't get ridiculous, I feel more inclined to actually go knowing I will be home in a little while with tired babies, and with just one hour exposure no one screams when they see us coming or calls the police.

 

Thanks, ladies.

I guess I felt like the family day outings had to be 'fun'...but you're right, I should capitalize on the fact that to them a trip to Home Depot is fun!

We'll save the 'big stuff' for the rare occassions when all the errands are done.

 

Our weekends usually look like this:

Saturday - Me, A&B, and my mom go to Gymboree Class (oh yeah, you can earn Gymbucks this way too ) after breakfast. This is DH's "me" time, he doodles around the house and does whatever. Kids and I come home around 1:00. They usually fall asleep in the car, so I grab a book or the laptop and go sit in the car with them till they wake up. In the afternoon, DH gives me a little "me" time and he plays with them. Then we usually go out to dinner.

Sunday - Ainsley gets to pick out her weird outfit for the week because we usually stay home that day, sometimes we go to Panera for breakfast. Then we trade off taking care of the kids and doing our respective chores.

Sometimes we do go out and do a real activity, but there's not a whole lot close by.

 

These days we are desperate for indoor activities out of the house. Like the previous posters, we do a lot of the errand and Ikea thing. We love outings which not only entertain the girs and keep them up until their nap at 12 or 1, but which also get some food into them.

If we go to the grocery store, we put them in the carts (we go to a place that has a two-kid cart) and grab a muffin or baguette and feed them that through the whole trip. I went one time when we didn't have much to buy, so we took them through the pet food aisle and looked at the pictures of animals on all the food and then went to the flower area and saw all the plants.

At Ikea, the girls aren't big enough for the kid play area yet, but they will play for a while in the children's furniture area then we get lunch at the cafeteria. (I've never seen them eat as much of anything as they ate of the Ikea Mac & Cheese!) After lunch we can grab whatever we are buying (if anything), then on the way home, I sit in the back of the car and try to keep them awake until we can get home for their nap.

We haven't yet tried any museums, but they will probably be ready for that soon.