Family Fun Archives - Page 2 of 4

Inexpensive Backyard Play with Rain Gutters and Drain Pipe

This weekend, we had some fun with a trip to Home Depot and some back yard projects!

We bought a 10 ft. length of black plastic drain pipe for $5.95 and used zip ties to attach it to our play set:

I saw this idea in Family Fun magazine (many issues ago – can’t remember which one!). The boys thought it was great! They put balls down it and watched them come out the other end. They talked through it and banged on it – it makes really interesting sounds. They also tried pouring water down the tube with

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Family Backyard Summer Olympics

In honor of the upcoming Olympic Games in London, we had our own backyard Olympics this morning!

We did four events: sprint, long jump, baseball throw, and nerf gun shooting.

Since my boys are fairly far apart in age and ability (almost 9, 5 1/2, and 3), and since they struggle with sibling fighting so much anyway, they did not compete against each other. Instead, I made each of them a name tag with our four events on it. Then, I wrote down their time or distance as we completed each event.

Long jump was

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Do Something Unexpected! (Your kids will love it!)

I am a fairly color-in-the-lines type of person, and my kids are often, uh, not so much. Why walk down the stairs when you can jump? Why go around the puddles when you can splash through them? Every now and then, it’s fun to do something totally crazy, just to keep them on their toes!

Here are some ideas of ways to do something unexpected for your kids:

Read a book backwards. Start at the front of the book, but on each page, start with the last word and read your way to the first. See

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Thunderbirds Air Show

Last weekend, my husband and oldest two boys were able to go with some friends to an air show to see Thunderbirds perform tricks. They were also able to sit in a few different military planes and helicopters! The air show is very near our house. In fact, it’s so near that every year when they are practicing it sounds like we are being attacked by fighter jets! They also time it so that practice falls during nap time each day for a week. But I digress…

Jordan took my camera and had a lot of fun taking picture –

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Pet Show Themed Birthday Party

Gresham is 5 years old! At our house, we do the first “real” party with invitations and friends at age 5. Gresham loves dogs, and we came up with the idea several months ago to do a dog show party. Gresham wanted everyone to bring their real dog, but I was able to talk him into stuffed dogs! We widened it to “pet show” instead of “dog show” since some of our guests may not like dogs!

In the invitation, we asked the guests to bring their favorite stuffed or toy animal to show. Between the pet show and a

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