Trip to Paris!

Last night we packed our bags for a fun impromptu trip to Paris, France! The girls dressed up in their most colorful outfits, and fanciest …. .sunglasses..?? We left from Washington, D.C., and we didn’t have any delays, problems with airport security, or any turbulence. A very smooth flight! Well…. the pilot may have taken a […]

No Mess Marbled Painting

This no-mess version of marbled painting was quick, easy, and inexpensive to make! Plus, it kept the girls occupied all morning while we experimented with different paint color combinations! Both of the girls loved the way they could move the paint and swirl the colors all around without getting their hands dirty! To make your […]

Tripping the Lights Fantastic

For a fun time, crank up some dance music on your stereo. Grab some flashlights, and in a dark room….. get your groove on!! Be sure to set your camera to keep the shutter open for a few seconds, and snap some super-fun photos!! Dance, dance, dance!! Awwwwwww…. yeeeaaaaahhhhh!!!! Weeeeeeeeee!!! Added bonus — tuckered out […]

Easy Fishing Game

We went fishing in our foyer this afternoon — it was so much fun! I made up some fish out of pipe cleaners, attached a magnet to the end of the string on the fishing pole (a stick from our backyard), and we had an instant fishing game! Merlin wanted to play too! For the […]

Elevator Fun

We did a bit of tidying up that involved several trips up and down the stairs. So we installed an elevator in our foyer! Problem solved! Added bonus — the buttons on the inside of the elevator helped with Clara’s number recognition. Suddenly, I had no shortage of helpers to make the trips up and […]

Nature Study Kit from Recyclables

This afternoon the girls and I went around the house collecting recyclables and put together a Nature Study Kit to enjoy some educational outdoor fun! There were lots of interesting containers to collect specimens — a baby food jar, a tea tin, a mint tin, and a leftover mesh bag from a sack of lemons. […]

Summer Favorites

This week I visited NBC’s The 10! Show studio to showcase some of our favorite outdoor Summer activities — it was totally awesome! I had far too much fun helping Lu Ann to express her inner-child! We had a BLAST!! In case you missed the show, here’s the clip: Here is a list of the […]

Super-Easy Cool Comets

Faced with yet another hot afternoon, we made up some comets, dipped them in a bucket of water, and the girls had a blast hurling them at each other until they were soaked! It started off innocently enough with Emily tossing a comet at Clara….. ….but Clara wasn’t about to take that sitting down. Once […]

Sunday Snapshot — You MUST Try This!

If you do only ONE thing this Summer, you MUST do this!! Everything we needed to make the bubble wands came from the hardware store — eye hooks, wooden dowels, butcher’s twine, and a washer. That’s it!! A game of bubble tag just never gets old! Here’s a short video showing how to make mega […]

Fun with Music — Ribbon Dancing!

We had rain all day, and the girls needed to burn off some energy. So we tied some ribbon onto some canning lids, cranked up some Latin music, and had a DANCING fiesta in our living room!! Woo hoo!! Both of the girls had so much fun!!! Weeeeeeeeee!!! You know I can’t resist an excuse […]

Solar-Powered Lunch!

We had a scorcher of an afternoon today — prime conditions to make our own solar oven! We recycled a pizza box and a clear plastic lid from a disposable cake pan. Add a little aluminum foil, and voilá… a super eco-friendly and frugal solar oven!! We even made our own sun tea, just to […]

Cheap Thrills — Airplane Racers

For a fun time, make up some paper airplanes (Emily has a slight obsession with making these lately), attach some bent paper clips and tie a long piece of string. Race your airplanes!!! Emily thought this was so much fun, and Clara was quick to pick up on the racing fun too! Since Clara isn’t […]

Cheap Thrills — Simple Bean Bag Game

For a fun time, sew up a few easy bean bags. Then take them to your driveway for a test run with some targets drawn with sidewalk chalk! It’s so much fun, and a great way to practice addition by keeping score! It’s not solely about the execution…. bonus points for style! Extra bonus points […]

Pretend Play on a Dime — Garden Center

Emily loves to pretend that she works at a garden center. She can spend hours arranging and re-arranging the flowers (as seen here), planting pretend seeds, and caring for her pretend plants. So Mark and I put together a little store front for her about a year ago, and she has been playing with it […]

Repurposing Toys — Peter and the Wolf Play Set

Last weekend, our family went to see Prokofiev’s “Peter and the Wolf” (Thank you, Aunt Julia!) We all really enjoyed the ballet and music! So much so that Emily wanted a play set so she could re-enact the story. I thought that was a fabulous idea, so I sent her on a scavenger hunt to […]

LIVE and in HD… It’s FFFB!

I was interviewed for two segments LIVE this morning on 69 News at Sunrise to share some of my ideas for family fun on rainy days! In case you missed today’s show, here are the clips: Next, Eve Tannery and I had LOTS of fun gettin’ crafty! Special thanks to Eve and the crew over […]

Fun Fossil Dig

Mark and I took the girls to a local park for a fun “fossil” dig! Since there are no beaches near us, we settled for the park’s outdoor sand volleyball court. The girls love to dig in the sand! Our “fossils” were made up of small toys (i.e. Happy Meal toys, game pieces, toys from […]

Weekend Rewind — Make Kites, Not Friends

It’s time for another fun post from the archives. Here’s an activity we plan to do again this weekend! The kites were A LOT of fun! The snooty moms at the playground, not so much, but it made for an interesting story. Wishing you and your family a wonderful Easter weekend! Today’s post was going […]