Category Archives: Family Fun

Celebrate Spirit of Valentine’s Day Year Round

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23032783_SYes, Valentine’s Day is over for another year, but don’t let that stop you from letting the people you care about know how you value and appreciate them. Here are a few small ways to spread the spirit of Valentine’s Day all year long.

Little notes: In a lunchbox for your kids, in a suitcase for a traveling family member, or even snuck into a jacket pocket, send a little note of appreciation along with your loved ones.

It can be specific such as “I really appreciated you clearing the table last night without being asked. I can see that you’re growing up.” Or you could just generally say, “I’m happy to be in your life,” or simply “I love you.” If you feel shy about doing this, how about just drawing a heart?

Say it: If you’re happy to see someone who’s been gone, say so. If you’re going to miss someone, say so. If you appreciate someone taking out the garbage, say so. So many times we let those chances go by without remark, but there’s power and kindness in showing your appreciation and caring.

Do it: Maybe you know your spouse is going to be really tired after a long day at work, so you have dinner waiting along with a favorite dessert. There might be a tough test hitting today, so you make pancakes for breakfast to start your kid off feeling good. Saying you appreciate someone is wonderful, but showing it can be even better.

Give it: Does someone in your life love licorice? How about picking up a surprise box? Is red your daughter’s favorite color – would she like some hair ribbons or a red t-shirt? Does your son go through socks like crazy? How about buying 10 pair and dropping them on top of his chest of drawers? You don’t have to spend a fortune – just the fact that you’re thinking of someone can make them feel special.

If you take this approach year round – no one will be upset if you don’t go overboard on Valentine’s Day next year – although fresh flowers are always a crowd-pleaser!

 

Warm up Your Home for Winter

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5899210_SWhat a cozy scene. The soft shaggy rug, a fringed wool throw, and a linen-covered throw pillow set the picture. Add a cup that used to hold hot tea and a good book and you’re set to enjoy a chilly afternoon – wrapping up with a nap.

It’s easy to create this type of winter mood in your home. Try these additions to your normal décor.

Soft rugs: The bare wood and tile floors that are so cool and inviting in the summer feel chilly when winter comes. Adding some area rugs – preferably thick and inviting to your toes – warms up the look as well as the feel of a space.

Throws: Bring a wool or knitted throw into your living room, family room or bedroom. Displayed casually in a basket or tossed across the arm of a sofa, a throw says cozy comfort. Those with fringe and in plaids or heather tones look especially comfy. If you have a large family you may need more than one to avoid arguments on cold evenings.

24439134_SPillows: Look for knitted covers or natural textures that fit well with your throw or throws. Think of the feel and look of a pile of sweaters lying on your couch. If you sew, consider picking up a sweater or two at the local thrift shop and cutting them down into pillow covers. Knitted cables, leather or wooden buttons just add to the winter personality.

Hot drinks: Soup in a mug, hot tea or coffee, and the always inspiring hot cocoa – with marshmallows – will warm up any room. include a few cookies or cheese and crackers – read a favorite book or put an old movie on your television and make the most of the winter days!

Plan a Progressive Neighborhood Party for New Year’s Eve

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MP900309664While it’s fun to go out for New Year’s Eve, too many partiers make the roads dangerous. So consider a fun option instead – a progressive party in your neighborhood to recognize the year’s change.

Living in Arizona we actually have two time choices to celebrate the transition: we can stick with midnight or take advantage of the ball dropping in Times Square at 10 p.m. our time to wrap up the evening early. This is particularly useful if you are including children.

To plan the evening, recruit hosts that live close by. Include your street or cul-de-sac and maybe one or two other adjoining blocks. For the event itself, if you’re wrapping up at 10, you could start at 7 p.m. Plan to stay at each house about 45 minutes. The first two homes with times of 7 to 7:45 p.m. and 7:45 to 8:30 p.m. could each offer a signature appetizer and beverage. 8:30 to 9:45 might be dessert, and the 9:45 home could feature champagne and sparkling cider while everyone counts down the ball dropping.

To make the evening extra festive, add noisemakers and hats at various homes. Your group could also sing a chorus of “Auld Lang Syne” as midnight approaches. Print some copies of the song’s lyrics so everyone can join in together.

After the party is over, you may find that neighbors are friendlier since they’ve had a chance to get to know each other better. It also gives new neighbors a chance to get acquainted. This could become an annual event on your block and lead to other social events in your neighborhood.

 

A Fresh Start on Organizing your Home: Keeping the Guest Bath Company Ready

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From the Fulton Homes La Quinta Model

From the Fulton Homes La Quinta Model

Every homeowner with children has a dream of a guest bath that is always ready for company. Instead this bathroom, often the most convenient for children playing outside or in the main living area, ends up a disaster.

Sinks don’t stay pristine when dirty hands get a quick wash before dinner, and it’s almost impossible to find any child under the age of 21 who replaces the toilet paper when they run out.Towels also get grimy and often end up on the floor and mirrors may have multiple handprints. And if you have boys, at best there’s a 20 percent chance that the toilet seat is down at any given moment.

What can you do to discourage a messy guest bath and keep it nice and organized, ready for actual guests? Here are a few quick tips.

Close the door: The simple act of hiding the room will encourage family members to head to another location. They may assume it’s occupied. You can also use this as a code for your family – if the guest bath door is shut, that means that you want it to stay nice for expected company.

Invest in home disposable towels. In packages designed to rest on top of a towel rack, these will keep scruffy hands away from the nicer guest towels or the dressier rectangular disposable towels that sit on your sink.

If your bath is designed with a pedestal sink which provides no storage, add a small storage bin or chest to hold extra toilet paper and a box of kitchen counter wipes. In a pinch, you can do a fast sweep of the sink with one of those wipes.

Have a lined wastebasket in your guest bath. This encourages the family to place trash in the right spot, and a liner is easy to remove when guests are coming over.

You’ll never really solve the problem as long as your kids live t home, but you’ve made your life easier. You can’t expect your guest bath to stay the way you want it constantly, but with these simple steps you may be able to create a space that is ready for company – at least most of the time.

A Fresh Start on Organizing your Home: The Laundry Room

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From the Fulton Homes La Quinta model

From the Fulton Homes La Quinta model

We use the laundry room a lot, but it is often the most thrown together and ignored room in the house. How about taking an afternoon to really turn this space into a functional and valued place in your home?

Start by thinking about what you would like to use your laundry room for besides laundry. With this Fulton Homes laundry room, you have many more cupboards than you need to store laundry supplies. Here are a few suggestions.

Store household staples. Light bulbs, paper towels, tools, sewing essentials, and office supplies all fit well in a laundry room. Assign cabinets for each category. If you want to keep things in place, you may want to label the shelves.

Store extra supplies. If you are a warehouse shopper, you may be buying dishwasher detergent and toilet paper in bulk. The laundry room provides a handy go-to place for those extras.

Store your craft supplies. If you enjoy scrapbooking, beading or other craft activities, this is a great space to devote to your craft hobbies. It’s easy to reach and yet out-of-the way when other things beckon.

Store projects for your children. These cabinets can hold various games, coloring books or other supplies you can pull out when your children complain that they’re bored. Shop sales at hobby and discount stores for little surprises you can use to entertain little ones on road trips or for sick days.

Use for gifts. If you are a year-round shopper for the holidays, these cabinets can store presents until it’s time to wrap them. It’s even a fairly safe space to hide your children’s presents since they spend very little time in this room.

Of course, you will also want to store detergent and stain-fighting sprays and anything else you use to keep your clothes looking nice. But with a bit of imagination, your laundry room can hold so much more.

A Fresh Start on Organizing Your Home: Your Calendar

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22422960_SSo, as we move into 2014 and the holiday decorations are down, it’s time to dive into all those plans to organize your life. How about starting with your calendar?

With just a little effort up front, your calendar, whether tangible or online, can be the central planning tool for just you or for your entire family. Here’s how to start.

Select your calendar. If you choose a paper calendar, it should be one that breaks everything down at least by the week, so you have plenty of room for appointment locations and directions if needed. This is where an online calendar comes in handy. Many of them have plenty of space for whatever notes you need to make, as well as the option for reminder emails.

Fill in all family birthdays and special holidays such as anniversaries. Then run through and add all of the standard appointments such as kid sports practices or Monday morning meetings at the office. If there are a number of family members, you might want to assign each one a color so everyone can see their events at a glance.

Place a paper calendar in a good central location, possibly connecting it to a desk drawer with string so it can’t walk away. The kitchen is the best place because everyone walks through there at least once a day. If you keep your calendar on the computer, choose a program such as Google calendar that everyone can log into, so that access is easy.

Finally, make it clear that any appointments or events that are not on the calendar are not part of your responsibility. If a child needs a ride or a spouse wants you to attend a company party, there had better be a note about it on the calendar, after they’ve cleared your part of the task with you, of course. You can also set ground rules, such as that in case of conflicts; the first event posted on the calendar takes precedence, with exceptions to be negotiated individually.

While this is only the beginning of what you have to do to get organized, this small step is an important one in the right direction.

Set Resolutions for your Home in the New Year

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10254941_SWhen you consider resolutions for the New Year, how about making some for your home?

Most people have things that they want to fix, change or add to their homes, so you could make 2014 the year that some of those dreams turn into reality. Here are a few examples.

Small maintenance tasks: A dripping faucet, weeds in the yard or even light bulbs that are burned out are easy to ignore but can be a constant irritant. Plan a day to fix those little frustrations that always seem to be postponed. Getting those done will make your home more relaxing.

Safety checks: Have you replaced the batteries in your smoke alarms? Do you have a fire extinguisher in your kitchen? How about a complete first-aid kit? Are some rugs or cords tripping hazards? It won’t take long to make sure your home is as safe as you can make it. You can find tips for keeping your home hazard free on the Internet.

Organization: Don’t feel obliged to get the entire house whipped into shape. Instead focus on a few areas that are particularly challenging. Maybe you empty and sort-out your junk drawer, or get your gardening tools organized in the garage. It could be time to dispose of all of those old cleansers and unsatisfactory cleaning products under the sink that you never use. Every place you make more functional will add to your pleasure in your home.

Special touches: Have you wanted to add scented candles to your guest bathroom? Maybe one wall is begging for some art. Pick out one or two areas that feel unfinished in your home and resolve to add those items that will make it look and feel the way you want.

If you include your home in your resolutions for 2014, your home will see improvement and you will find yourself happier living there.

New Year’s Eve Party for Children

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17888724_SFor many children, New Year’s Eve may seem like a mysterious adult event that happens while they’re asleep. But you can make the change to 2014 something special for your children without the champagne, and even without staying up until Midnight. Check out these ideas.

Take advantage of time differences. If you live in Central, Mountain or Pacific Time, you can have your children celebrate an earlier midnight – there will be a live webcast of the ball dropping in Times Square at this link, so you can watch the year change with your children and still get them to bed well before midnight.

Make some noise. Party and discount stores are ready for the New Year with noisemakers, streamers and confetti. Have a dress rehearsal before midnight. You can split the children into two groups, with the adults determining which group is the loudest or most enthusiastic. This gives the kids a chance to be extra noisy and energetic several times before 2014 hits.

Out with the old and in with the new. Have everyone write down all of the things that happened in 2013 that they want to forget, and burn them in a fireplace, fire pit, or fire-safe container. Then have everyone write down lists of what they want in 2014. They could tie their lists to helium balloons and release them just before the New Year.

Write predictions. Have everyone write down their predictions for themselves and others in 2014. Encourage silliness. Read the notes aloud, and then save them to read next New Year’s Eve. This could become a fun tradition for family and friends.

However you decide to celebrate, it will be more enjoyable if you include everyone in the family. And at Fulton Homes we all hope you and yours have a terrific 2014!

Unwanted Gifts

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15334772_SDespite people’s best attempts to buy gifts you’ll love, almost every year someone will hand you a present that isn’t to your taste.

Whether the gift is something you already have or something you would never buy in a million years, you have a decision to make. What can you do to escape the kindness of others without filling your home with things you don’t want or need? Here are a few options.

Return it. Most stores will provide gift receipts if you ask. You may want to mention this casually to those family members and friends who purchase doubtful things on a regular basis. You can talk about how you always get gift receipts for anything you buy in case something doesn’t fit or doesn’t work. Even without receipts, most stores will accept returns for a week or so after the holidays. Practice the words, “Oh, what a lovely gift. Wherever did you find it?”

Re-gift it. The big cotton cardigan in the exact shade of green to make you look jaundiced may be perfect for your red-headed aunt. If it doesn’t suit you, that doesn’t mean that it won’t work well for someone you know. Think about it.

Schedule an exchange party. Get a handful of like-minded friends who have well-meaning givers in their lives and engage in a trade. You may already have a waffle iron or popcorn popper, but someone else could use it, while that curling iron is just the thing for you.

Just keep it. If you have the closet space, sometimes the kindest thing is to keep it so it can be on display for visits. If you have a guest room, that’s the perfect place for those items that aren’t really to your taste. After all, how often do you walk in that room?

Agree to stop exchanging gifts. There are times when the best gift is no gift at all. You could buy each other lunch or dinner or treat each other to a movie. And you never know, maybe your friend or family member cringes every time he or she opens one of your gifts too!

Think of Thank-you Notes

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8388385_SAfter all the gifts are opened and admired, do you take the time to write thank-you notes to the givers? As a child, many of us were required to write thank-yous for any gift we received, and it was often a tortuous process. As adults, some of us have stayed in the habit, while others gave it up long ago.

No matter your age, thank-you notes are good manners and just a nice thing to do. Particularly for older people, this recognition of the time and expense they took to buy and send a gift can make their day. Everyone loves to get mail that isn’t a bill or advertisement, and a hand-written note is something special.

You can make writing thank-you notes easier and more fun for your whole family with a few simple tricks.

Give cards for thank-you notes to every family member as one of their holiday presents. These note cards can be small and match the personality and style of each person.

Make a list of each gift and who gave it for every person in your family. At the end of the present-opening extravaganza, everyone will have a record of who needs thank-you notes for which gift.

You can make these notes particularly special and memorable by taking a photo of every recipient holding up or wearing the gift and enclose it with the thank you. If you decide to email your thank-yous, which is getting more and more acceptable among younger adults, you can attach the photos to each email.

Write your notes as a family. If everyone received a present from Aunt Joan, do a round-robin thank-you with everyone contributing a sentence or two. Even little ones can draw a picture or write a couple of words. This way you can also help each other come up with good ways to say thanks for each gift.

Gifts are special and givers deserve the appreciation that a thank-you note shows. Take the time to make the celebration special for those people who take the time to think of you.