Giving Tuesday

Did you know some of the thrift stores give out vouchers to families in need to pick out gifts in their store for free?

If you can't afford to make a monetary donation this Giving Tuesday, we all have good quality stuff we can donate to charitable thrift stores.  These donations might become Christmas gifts for struggling families and others in need.

Don't forget to check and make sure you are donating to non profit thrift stores where all the proceeds go to charity.

If you keep stuff you aren't using and don't need, you are denying someone that item who could really use it.  Ask yourself if you've worn that outfit or used that item in the last six months, if not it's time to go.  Decluttering is also very therapeutic to your well-being and health.

For other family friendly volunteer ideas from our blog click below:
Volunteer Ideas

Letters to Jesus

One year I was teaching a church youth group around 8 years of age. 

The girls in my group kept talking about writing Santa Claus letters, and what Santa was going to bring them.  Being a church activity, we talked about Santa but how Christmas is really about Christ.  So, the next activity I put together a lesson on the true meaning of Christmas.

Part of the lesson included writing letters to Jesus.

I gave each girl an envelope and a blank piece of card-stock.

I told them Christmas was about the birth of Christ and how special that was.  We talked about some of the important things Christ did for us, and why it was important for him to be born.  I let the kids fill in the reasons, but helped them out when they got stuck.

I told them instead of writing letters to Santa, we were going to write letters to Jesus Christ.

These letters might include:

A thank you, or appreciation for the things Christ has done for us.

A Birthday Message

What Christmas Means to the Child

A Drawing of Christmas

A Testimony of Christ

Here are a few my girls did when they were ages 3-8, with some details kept private.

I told the girls to seal the envelope and leave it on their Christmas tree.

I didn't make them show me their cards, because their individual testimony of Christ is theirs.  Some girls were excited to show off their cards and some wanted to keep what they wrote private.

Would be fun to collect a new letter every year and read them when the kids are older.

If you liked this post you might also like:

I Spy the meaning of Christmas

Keeping Christ in CHRISTmas

Personalized Pumpkins

We love, love, love Halloween at our house.  Our house goes from crazy Halloween decorations filling our house to a few small items for Thanksgiving.  I wanted to make Thanksgiving a little more special.  I found these fake pumpkins and tried to think how I could make them special.

I decided to personalized them.

I decorated this huge pumpkin with my Last name and year I was married.

Then, I made these smaller pumpkins and put mine and my husbands first names.  Of course, my kids were like "Where's our pumpkins?"  Not all decorations have to be about the kids.  My whole house has the kid's pictures and artwork all over it.  I just wanted these pumpkins to be about me and my husband.  However, if you want the whole family included you can make even smaller pumpkins for the kiddos. 

The Awesome thing about these pumpkins is that you can decorate both sides of the pumpkins for the different holidays.

I used my Silhouette Cameo to design and cut Oracal 651 gold vinyl.

I played around with different fonts and ways of writing our names.  My sister in law wanted one that said "Give Thanks."  I made one for a friend that had her address number on it for her porch.

I put our Last name on a large 9 inch white pumpkin, sorry no pictures.

I put our first names, address number and "Give Thanks" on 5.5" orange carvable faux pumpkins.

Cut out the design and add the transfer paper.

Measure out on your pumpkin where you would like it placed.

I set the pumpkin on the table and used a ruler to measure it out.  With my pencil I marked where to place the bottom of the vinyl. I like to use a pencil, because it is erasable.

You do have to be a bit careful when applying the vinyl.  The pumpkin is bumpy and curved, making the vinyl a little trickier to apply.  Which is why I don't have a picture applying the vinyl.  I folded the vinyl almost in half on the non sticky side.  You don't want to crease it.  Then I carefully rolled the vinyl over the pumpkin, pushing the vinyl into the grooves as I went.  I removed the transfer paper, and rubbed the vinyl to help adhere it to the pumpkin.  If you have bumps and the vinyl looks a little off, you can use a blow dryer to heat up the vinyl and push it down in the problem areas.  Be careful not to get it too hot though, the pumpkin is Styrofoam and will melt or off gas.

And you have a beautiful pumpkin!

If you liked this post, you might also like:

22 mini pumpkin games

Zentangle Pumpkins

Halloween Games

Corn Husk Dolls

Everything Halloween

Thanksgiving Party Games

Pudding Eating Contest with a Twist

We were planning on playing Pudding Pictionay
for family night, and wanted to finish with a big bang. 



I was searching Pinterest for some ideas and came across this post, that was perfect.  It's a pudding eating contest with nylons over the contestants heads. Crazy right!  They also had a some other great ideas, check out the site youthdownloads.com.

Nylon Pudding Eating Contest:

you need a cheap pair of knee high nylons

a pudding packet for each person flavor doesn't matter.

Open the pudding cup, leaving the pudding in the cup.  Pull the Nylons over your heads.  Take some before and after pictures, because it's so funny.  I promised I wouldn't post the after pictures, sorry!  They were pretty hilarious! (maybe embarrassing)

I thought I was going to get a lot of "I'm not doing that" but even my husband was eager to play.  It was so much fun, we had a great laugh afterwards.

We placed one pudding cup in front of each person, and called go.  Each person  ate the pudding from the cup, through the nylons.  We crushed the cups with our faces, making it easier to get the pudding during the contest.  We tried not to laugh to hard. 

***Caution, I was laughing so hard I almost choked on the pudding.  The pudding sticks to the nylon, and when I was laughing it went up my nose a little.  After playing I could see how you might inhale the pudding.  I would only play with people capable of not aspirating on the pudding, and taking all safety precautions.  Play at your own risk.  I am not sure if the nylons were food safe or not.

So sad, the video didn't record well!

Have fun and be safe!

For more games like this, check out our ultimate party games here

Pudding Pictionary


Who's the Dude?

Pudding Pictionary

We are always looking for fun games to play.  My kids have played this at school and church, so we decided to play it for family night.  It was so easy with very little preparation.  I used a four pack of  chocolate pudding packs.  I dumped out two on each side of the table.  You smooth it out with a spatula and use your fingers to draw or the back of a wooden spoon.   We grabbed our Pictionary game down from the game closet.

But really it's funner to make up your own. You can have each person come up with ten, and mix them up and draw one out. 

We split into two teams.

The drawer picks three cards from the pile.  From these cards they picked one to draw.  We drew three so that there would be one that would be easy enough to draw with your finger in pudding.  We have an older version and some are really hard.

keep drawing an see how many you can get your team to guess before the timer goes out.  If your team did not guess the last card, the other team can guess and earn the points.  We played to ten.

It was a blast.  It's fun to get your hands a little dirty, show your kids your not too old to be silly.

After the game we had a pudding eating contest in a very unusual way, it was too funny.  Click here for more details.

If you liked this post, you might also like:
Party Games For all Occasions

Hershey Kiss Game on our blog.

Hershey Kiss Tongs Party Game on our blog.

Candy Bar Party Game on our blog.

Root Beer Pong Party Game with a Twist on our blog.

Rubber Chicken Games on our blog.

Shaving Cream Fight on our blog

Watch Ya Mouth/ Speak Out/ Mouth Guard Challenge Amazon links

Mouth Guard Karaoke

Sing Karaoke while wearing mouth retractors. Watching some one sing a song like "Sexy Back" by Justin Timberlake with a mouth guard/retractor while the are drooling and slurring is hilarious. It's fun for Christmas caroling too.

Amazon Link for mouth retractors

Extreme Spoons

Instead of placing the sons in the middle of the table,  put them all over the room in challenging places.   You have to run and get them. Careful on where you put them,  things will be broken and fought over.

Amazon link to Spoons game 

Amazon link to Giant Spoons game

Poop The Potato on our blog.

Really the possibilities are endless on replacing the Potato with a different object. 

Pudding Eating Contest on our blog.

Pudding Eating Contest With a Twist on our blog.

Candy Tape Ball Game on our blog.

Beanboozled Amazon link

Pringle Ringle on our blog.

Yardzee & Yarkle 

Divergent Party on our blog.

Swamp Fishing on our blog.

Beard Game on our blog.

(fun for Bachelor Party, Baby Shower, Father's Day, Christmas, New Year's Eve)

Flour Game

Who's the Dude Amazon link
It's charades with a fully dresses blow up doll. There were a few inappropriate cards that I found.  And several that are not inappropriate,  but you could easily make them inappropriate if you tried.  So,  depending on your group you may need to make a G-rated rule. 

Pie Face