12 Fun Family Experiences To Do This Year

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Is one of your resolutions in 2016 to spend more quality time and have more family experiences?

January is an inspiring month: the excitement of a blank calendar, new beginnings, and a chance to start fresh are so enticing after a year that maybe didn’t go quite like you wanted it to.

My One Word for 2016 is delight. I am very excited to intentionally find delight with my family.

As my kids have gotten older and into more activities, it’s been harder to find quality family time. For 2016, we’re intentionally going to connect as a family once a month when all 7 of us are available to have some quality family time and make memories together!

Don’t get me wrong, we eat our evening and weekend meals together, and spend quality time together, but this will be time blocked out on the calendar only for our family to make special memories together.

Sounds good, doesn’t it?

Here are 12 fun family experiences to do this year:

January:

January is a long cold month in Nebraska.

In order to capture all the delight we’ll be experiencing, we will be creating a memory jar for the year. Throughout the year we can add experiences that brought us delight and read through them on 12/31/16!

February:

February is a finicky weather month in Nebraska so I have 2 experiences and we will decide based on the weather.

If we get some good snow, our experience will be sledding and making snow ice cream. The kids are all big enough that sledding is fun and they can handle the walk back up the hill! After they have warmed up, snow ice cream is a fun tradition they love to make every year!

If we don’t get the snow, our family experience will be to enjoy our local Children’s Museum. My family loves visiting the Children’s Museum and it’s a fun way to combat cold weather with fun!

March:

March is a strange month in Nebraska. It can be nice and warm or be a blizzard!

Our family experience will be to curl up for a family fun night at home.

We will start by making DIY homemade pizzas, play some of our favorite board games, drink hot chocolate and watch a movie!

April:

April on the farm is crazy chaos! There are baby calves, my husband is busy in the field, and the kids are so happy winter is over!

I’ve wanted to experiment with starting some of our garden from seeds.

We usually go to the greenhouse and buy plants but this year our April family experience will be to start several of our plants from seed.

If the experiment fails, there will still be lots of time to get plants, right?!

May:

My kids love to fly kites so our family experience for May will be to fly kites.

June:

June is our busiest month of the year because my kids have softball and baseball games at least 4 nights a week.

Our June family experience will be to have a picnic and make smores! Simple and easy during busy times are so important!

July:

Our family experience for July will be to take a small vacation as a family.

Our county fair is in July and the kids show animals and projects. It’s a wonderful experience, but by the time fair is over, we are exhausted.

This year, I’m hoping for a retreat type of vacation where everyone can relax, read, swim, and enjoy being together.

August:

Our family experience for August will be a barbecue with friends. I think it’s important to teach kids hospitality and hosting others in your home is a great way to do it!

September:

Our family experience for September is getting family pictures taken. It’s never a fun thing to do with 7 people but I love having the pictures!

October:

A simple family experience to do in October is carving pumpkins and making squash “people”. (My Grandma always had too many squash leftover in the fall so she’d let us take fabric, paint and markers and make them into people.)

November:

Our experience will be to adopt a family for Christmas and buy gifts together as a family

My goal with this is to find a family similar to our own so the kids can relate and it will be extra meaningful.

December:

Complete a 2016 year in review together as a family with highlights of 2016 and goals for 2017.

We will make this fun with appetizers, New Years poppers, going through our memory jar we made in January and having a family game night!

I will be updating our progress on my blog if you’d like to join in!

What experiences do you want to have with your family?

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12 things to do this year family fun

Jenny

Hi! I’m Jenny! I grew up on a farm in between the 2 small towns of North Loup and Scotia, Nebraska. I spent my childhood chasing cattle, laying out irrigation pipe, bottle feeding bucket calves and racing turtles at Popcorn Days. My husband, Jason and I live on a farm south of Kearney and I am blessed to be a stay at home mom to 5 energetic kids and wife to my favorite farmer! Our oldest daughter is 11, our boy/girl twins are 7, our son is 5 and youngest daughter is 3. I created my blog, Women With Intention (http://womenwithintention.com) where you will find tools for living your purpose, managing your home, saving money, simplifying, growing your faith, loving your family and relationships, and embracing the season of life you are in. I believe that each woman can have it all, but not necessarily have it all at the same time! I'd love to connect at my blog, Facebook (http://facebook.com/womenwithintention1), Pinterest (pinterest.com/womenwithintent) or Twitter (@womenwithintent).

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12 Fun Family Experiences To Do This Year

Here are 12 fun family experiences to do this year:

January:

February:

March:

April:

May:

June:

July:

August:

September:

October:

November:

December:

If you liked this, you'll love our book, SO GOD MADE A MOTHER available now!

Check out our new Keepsake Companion Journal that pairs with our So God Made a Mother book!

Her View Shop

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