Linking up with Call Her Happy again today!
How about a gift post? It's that time of year when everyone's trying to come up with the "perfect" gift for everyone on their list, and I thought I'd throw some suggestions out there. All of these gifts below can be used (in my opinion) over multiple age groups and would make a great "family" gift. Sharing our favourite five gifts over the years.....
1.
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| cardboard bricks |
We got these many moons ago when our oldest was turning 2. He's now ten, and they're still going strong. They're just now starting to lose their shape and we just now starting to consider replacing them, but it's not necessary. Our kids play HARD with them, using them almost daily and doing crazy things like STANDING on them, and they've held up incredibly well. Definitely one of my favourite gifts.
2.
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| Snow Fort building kit |
This one might be a bit geographically based, but we love this thing. It comes with us to the beach all summer, and then is outside in the snow all winter. The kids have spent MANY hours (cough cough not just the kids cough cough) building snow forts and having snow ball fights with this set. I highly recommend it!
3.
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| State Parks |
This one's a bit pricey, and obviously geographically based, but if you have something similar in your state, I highly recommend you checking it out as a family gift! We buy the vehicle state park pass every year, and it provides ALMOST ALL of our outdoor entertainment, year-round. For $70, our entire family can get into any state park and many historic sites throughout the state, and we plan our day trips and camping trips accordingly. Each year, the boys and I get one of these state park passports from the parks department, and we try to beat our record for visiting more and more state parks and historic sites in a year. (Current record for us is 32 state parks/historic sites in one year). It provides literally months of fun for the whole family.
4.
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| Amazon link |
We gave this to Graham one year for Christmas, as a way to help him with his reading skills. He LOVED helping in the kitchen, but hated reading aloud when I'd ask him to. When we were cooking together, though, he'd read me the directions and not even realize that he was reading to me. It's turned into a huge hit for all of the kids, and the whole family. The recipes that we've tried have been very yummy, very reliable/forgiving, and the step-by-step instructions (with pictures!!) means that my older two kids can do the entire meal with very little "help." (I'm in the kitchen, watching, but don't have to actually do much myself). Our favourite part is that the recipes are not "kid food." We're not talking things like pancakes, chicken nuggets, and mac and cheese. There are *some* of those recipes in here, but then there are delicious breakfast smoothies, homemade bread, and Indian-style curries. It's wonderful! This book and a couple of kid-sized kitchen tools would be an awesome gift for a family with kids.
5.
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| Lego.com |
Now, if you want to splurge, and you want a gift that will cover LOTS of ages and likes/dislikes, this is by far my FAVOURITE purchase for our children. All of the bigger kids love it and it provides literally HOURS of play time (and quiet time for mom). At first, the fact that every brick was white made me worry that they'd be bored by it, but it's provided a TON of flexibility as to what they can use those bricks for! My boys have built skyscrapers, cathedrals, entire cities, and Joseph even built the Christ the Redeemer statue when we were watching the World Youth Day events from Rio and seeing it all of the time on TV/the computer. If you have the money to splurge on this, I would highly recommend it!
Alright, those are my top five gifts for kids or groups of kids or entire families who happen to have kids. What would you add to my list?
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