Three Things : Weekdays + Creative Family Giveaway

My favorite family memory is when we all sit around the dinner table and share our day, our thoughts, our beliefs. Love doing that now,and always!

We spend a lot of time here at home playing board games and cooking together. We also love to read together as a family. We call it DEAR time (Drop Everything And Read). We each read for 20-30 minutes and then discuss our various books with each other. We started doing this when my daughter was beginning to read on her own and have kept up this great family tradition for 5 years now. Sometimes we all read the same book and take turns reading aloud. We really enjoy spending this quiet time together every day. The best part is that the book discussion usually leads to other discussions about what is going on in our lives. Can't beat that!
Thanks for the chance to win this great book. My sister just had a baby and I would love to share it with them.

We have a 6-yr-old and 18-mo-old. We love to go to Tanaka Farms for the farm tour and in the spring we pick strawberries and in the fall we pick pumpkins. At home we eat dinner together and discuss our day. We always ask each other, "What was the best thing that happened to you today?". Our 18-mo-old can't answer yet but someone always answers for him and shares what he/she thinks he enjoyed the most that day.

My kids are older, 20 and 22. The one constant since they were little is ice-cream. We have celebrated every milestone with a trip to Dairy Queen, or maybe even McDonalds for a cone. The first day of school, the last, good grades, new jobs, just about anything. Recently we celebrated an engagement, and a new baby. Ice-cream is timeless, ageless, and really good. I can easily see my kids passing on this tradition to thier families.

I enjoy baking and coloring with my son. He likes to sit on the counter and dump the ingredients in for me. Coloring is so relaxing! It's also the perfect time to ask him questions. I love hearing how he thinks and the things he comes up with!

what an exciting book - I'm definitely interested in checking it out. I have many wonderful memories of the time I spent with my family growing up, and like many are saying, it's not the BIG stuff/trips that stick in my mind, but it's the little things that were just part of everyday life....dinner as a family, watching a tv show together, playing a game, working outside..... Now that I have my own little family, I hope to help create those kinds of moments for us. Right now I'm really cherishing our walks together as a family - gives my husband and I time to talk, and we enjoying helping Graham discover the world around him.

We do lots of things together that are enjoyable, but the one thing that we ALL (even ME) love is going on four-wheeler rides. We live on a farm and own a small pond with 80 acres that is 1 mile from our home. When the weather is right, we pack snacks, fishing equipment and the camera and take a ride to the pond. We also ride to a near-by bridge and walk underneath in the creek and talk to the cows. Very relaxing.
I know that these rides will end soon since my kids are getting bigger by the minute, so I cherish them. I hope that we will find something else that we LOVE to do together when the time comes.

Hi Ali,
Again, I love the simplicity of your layout! I'm all about keepin' it simple these days... "simple" is my word.
When our first child arrived as a baby from Korea (through the miracle of adoption), we decided not to do the 'family bed' thing, however tempting it was at times. We now have three children -ages 5, 4 and 3- and although all of our children sleep in their own bedrooms, we love snuggling, sharing stories, watching movies and sometimes rough-housing a bit in our "big" (double) bed. There's nothing like a jammie-clad family making a bunch of happy noise!
Thanks for all of your great inspiration... your give-aways! Wink.
Paula

My favorite thing to do as a family together is cuddle in our master bed and I read books to them. Right now we are going through the Chronicles of Narnia and the kids (7 and 5) absolutely love it. I totally get into character and read with different voices and even my husband seems entertained!

In my family we play board games. Usually our favorite to play is sequence. Another activity is watching soccer games. We love just being together and screaming at the screen. Also running and chasing our dog Samson brings us tons of funny family moments. Thanks:)

We do lots of things together as a family but the two that we make a point of doing on a regular basis are dinner together as a family and a family walk after dinner. It's important to me that we establish that unity while they are little.

Hi Ali-
Our favorite thing/time is the end of the day. Everybody is settled down and we read books, say prayers, put on soft music and than off to sleep. It is so simple yet so important. My girls love this time!
We also do Friday Pizza/Movie nights- it is fun to set aside time that we know is just for the family.
Thanks for the inspiration you give!

We too do the dinner thing, but lately we have been cheering on our favorite NBA team - The San Antonio Spurs! Dinner early, bath early and it's time to cheer on the Spurs!
-alice.
GO Spurs GO!

Thanks for the opportunity, Ali! Something we love to do together is just go for a walk in the woods. i've had to let go of my "mileage goals" and just enjoy my 3 year old discovering nature. i'll get back to the mileage later. My husband is a park ranger, so it's really important to us for our son to be comfortable outside. -Amy

Love SouleMama! Right now our favorite family activities are board games. But we also recently went to one of those "paint your own ceramic" place and it was great!
LOVE your new LO too~

Fantastic giveaway Ali. I have had that book title written out and pinned on my noticeboard for over a month! Have yet to locate it somewhere in NZ...mind you the time to track it down isn't plentiful as I have two beautiful children under three keeping me pretty much fully occupied. PS My three year old wears her pink chef's hat almost as much as Simon wears his mask. Favourite things are so cute...And provide great photo ops!

We just finished our basement, so my fam's fave thing to do that brings us closer is play down there. With 4 little girlswe see a lot of dancing,etc., but we do manage to get some "tackle time" in for daddy.
This looks like a wonderful book. I had seen it somewhere before and would love to have it in our family library.
Thanks for the giveaway!

Our favorite thing is to go for a bike ride to the park! My boys are 6 and 2 and boy do they keep me busy and let me say that book sounds great. The book sounds great - I think every family could use that kind of inspiration.

One of our favorite family times is definitely walks to a nearby pond to try to spot the beavers, frogs, or even a snake. Mom and dad can actually have a conversation while the kids are searching for nature!

Last summer after school got out we started having "Family Night" once a week. The kids took turns being "in charge" which meant they got to choose what we ate, where, and what activity we would do as a family. The deal was that if they choose to eat out, then we did an activity that was free like go on a bike ride or go to the park or library. If they chose a meal to eat at home, we could do an activity that cost a little money like go to a movie or to the museum or zoo. The kids had fun making all of the choices and we did a lot of fun things together as a family. They're already looking forward to family nights this summer.