Ideas for making a family yes day fun for everyone

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A couple of months ago, my kids watched the movie “Yes Day” on Netflix at my parents’ house. Since then, they’ve talked about how they wanted to have a family yes day as well. In fact, as we made a list of activities we wanted to do this summer, family yes day made it onto the list.

And so a couple of weeks ago, we picked a Saturday and declared it would be our family yes day. My husband and I had some concerns and weren’t all that sure what to expect. The kids forbade us from watching the “Yes Day” movie beforehand, though they shared about some of the antics in the movie. Just like that our yes day was underway, and I’m so glad we did it!

What exactly is a family yes day?

A family yes day is a day when parents say yes to anything the kids ask them. Basically, it means the kids get to be in charge. The yes day in the movie lasted 24 hours, according to the movie trailer. Our yes day was from the time we woke up (at a time our kids chose) until we went to sleep that night.

Saying yes to anything kids ask for sounds a bit scary and potentially alarming. So, as a family we agreed to a few ground rules ahead of time. We tried to keep the rules simple and straight forward. My daughter wrote them down for us.

1. All rules apply!
2. Parents may sit out when involving major fears or inconveniences.
3. Any toy purchases come from the kids’ own money.
4. No asking for living things.
5. Say yes!

While our kiddos had about six days to plan their yes day after we made these rules, another option is to just pick a day and say yes to whatever the kids ask without them knowing ahead of time. I suggest letting them do some planning, though. At least for my kiddos the anticipation is half of the fun. (Another bonus is it gets them to work together on something!)

Making plans

Once we had finalized our rules for yes day, our kids got to work coming up with ideas of what they’d like to do for the day. They sequestered themselves in my daughter’s room so we wouldn’t know anything. The pair of them even made arrangements with grandparents for things. They asked my in-laws to watch our dog for the day. And they asked my parents for a day to come over and do some work for yes day.

Meanwhile, my husband and I were beginning to wonder what we’d gotten ourselves into and what they were going to have us do!

I learned after the fact that the kids did some online searching for ideas. They checked the weather forecast. Rain was predicted for the Saturday we chose, so some activities wouldn’t work out well. Because my daughter is much like I am, they also made an itinerary for the day complete with approximate times for everything. They were well prepared!

Earlier in the week as they were making their plans, I mentioned to my daughter that I wanted to make sure her little brother had an equal say in the day. I do see that could certainly be an area of conflict among siblings. My kiddos feel very strongly about being fair, though. They did a great job at balancing the day with things they both wanted to do.

Ideas for family yes day

Let’s get to the fun stuff of what actually happened for yes day! The kiddos told us we needed to be ready for the day by 7:30 a.m. and that we shouldn’t eat breakfast.

A breakfast treat

Our first stop was a local doughnut shop where we each picked a sweet pastry for breakfast. My 8-year-old son chose to wear his PJs for the first part of the day. We don’t usually let him go places in his PJs, but we couldn’t tell him no!

Shopping

The next stop was Walmart for my son because he wanted to do some toy shopping. He used his own money and purchased a truck set he’d had in mind. (Thanks to not being out much for the past year and a half because of the pandemic, my kids both had a decent amount of money in their spending. They were able to have small shopping sprees!)

My daughter opted to wait until we got back home after that stop and order online. She’s wanted a giant teddy bear for years. We’ve always said no, because where are you going to put a 5-foot tall bear?! But, we couldn’t say no on family yes day. Plus we had just finished cleaning out and reorganizing her bedroom with her, so she really did have room for the bear. She also added in some stickers she’d been eying to use in her new room decor and some new scrunchies that you can store small items in.

Getting crafty

The kids asked to make fluffy slime. We hadn’t don so for a while, but thankfully we had the ingredients needed for fluffy slime: shaving cream, glue, baking soda and contact solution. We’ve made this slime recipe a couple of other times and it turns out well, but we hadn’t made it for about two years. We were overdue. And my sweet kiddos gave me my own glob, because I love slime!

Water fun

Our next activity was a bit crazy. We live in the Midwest where July weather is usually hot and humid. On our family yes day, however, we had an atypical cool day with highs in the low 70s and rain forecasted. But that didn’t deter my kids from wanting to have a water balloon fight. We’ve never done that and evidently it was something they’ve been pining to do.

On their day with my parents, they went shopping and my parents got these easy-fill water balloons. We got them filled pretty quickly and then proceeded to chase each other around the yard with them. There were lots of shrieks and giggles!

Lunch

After drying off, we were all ready for lunch. We made our typical lunches, but the kids had a rule that we could eat anywhere except the kitchen table. One sat on the fireplace hearth and the other on the dining room floor. My husband and I opted for the couch!

Obstacle course

During virtual school, we had a couple of times that our gym assignment was making an obstacle course. The kids wanted to do that on family yes day, so I helped them sit it up downstairs using kitchen chairs, stools, a yoga mat and some fabric squares. Basically, it worked like “The Floor is Lava” where they couldn’t touch the ground. They did a couple of tweaks as they went and then wanted to time themselves to see how much faster they could get.

Downtime

The kids had extra time in the schedule, so we had some family downtime for a bit. They had planned some family downtime, but we ended up with just a bit more than they had planned, which was nice for their tired parents!

Chuck E. Cheese’s

The next activity was a trip to Chuck E. Cheese’s to play games. I wasn’t super excited for this idea, and it was the busiest place we’ve been since before the pandemic, but my son really wanted to go. Plus, how could we say no? So we spent 45 minutes playing games. My daughter, who isn’t as excited about Chuck E. Cheese’s these days, was sweet to humor her brother.

Early dinner

If my kids can pick anywhere to eat, they always pick Fazoli’s. So we weren’t shocked that’s where they wanted to have dinner on our family yes day.

Cake decorating

According to the kids, the next activity was a bit last minute. They had planned for us to go see a movie, but that didn’t work out for a variety of reasons, which they realized the day before. Instead, we came home and they wanted to have a cake decorating competition. I got a slightly modified cake in the oven in two round pans and then whipped up some buttercream icing.

My daughter found an image of a bear and we divided into teams. Our objective was to recreate the image of the, but we didn’t have to use the same color as the bear. My husband and daughter worked on a brown bear, while my son and I decided on blue for our bear. We let grandparents pick the winner via photos or video without telling them who did which cake. My son and I won just barely.

And then, we had some tasty cake at the same time the kids would usually be going to bed!

Fort building

As we were getting into bedtime mode, the kids had planned to make a blanket fort in the loft and sleep there. They switched to making it our bedroom, though. My son planned to sleep in it all night. My daughter hung out there until she was ready to sleep and then went to her own bed. The fort turned out very well using our kitchen chairs, blankets and some clamps.

Glowing in the dark

The final activity for yes day was using all sorts of glow bracelets and balloons that they had gotten from the Dollar Tree with my parents. As we blew up balloons, we put one or two activated bracelets in them to create glowing balloons. Some glow bracelets stayed out.

Benefits of our family yes day

My husband and I were quite surprised at what our kids picked to do for yes day. We had visions of them wanting to go on excursions out of town or do major activities. But instead they really just wanted to do fun stuff. Chances are, we would have said yes to many of these things at different times. I know we wouldn’t have said yes to them all in the same day. And, honestly, some of them seemed like more effort than they actually were.

I don’t want my kids to always think of their dad and me as saying no. Of course we can’t usually say yes to everything, but letting them have the freedom to just have fun with our yeses was more than worth it. They completely loved the day. I was proud of how they worked together to plan the day. Seeing them excited to be calling the shots and in charge was so much fun!

The best part to me is that we made good family memories. I took photos. We laughed. We won’t forget yes day any time soon. The kids asked to have another one again sometime. Our answer? Yes!

10 Easy family fun night activities you’ll all love!

I love family fun time. One of the best things about having kids who are older (currently 8 and 11) is that we get to have fun together and make good memories. And we can often do so without even leaving the house, which is another bonus! We’ve found quite a few family fun night activities that we like to do together.

The best family fun night activities don’t require a lot of planning, work or clean-up. Honestly, if something takes too much work, we are less likely to do it. So, everything on this list offers minimal effort for maximum fun.

Affiliate links are used in this post, if you make a qualifying purchase via my link, I receive a small percentage of the sale at no additional cost to you. It helps support my blog, so thank you for your support! Read my full disclosure here.

1. Play hide-and-seek with toys.

I’m not sure what else to call this, but our kids like playing hide-and-seek with toys. It started outside because we don’t have a lot of good hiding places for people in our yard. But we have also played it inside a few times. It’s sort of like an Easter Egg hunt. Someone hides a relatively small toy and the other people try to find it. Of course, when it gets tricky, the hider can give some hints or declare the finders “hot” or “cold” as they search.

If you are playing inside, I suggest you pick one room or area in which to hide the toy or the game might go on forever! When we first started playing this game, our son was 5 or 6. So, he often paired up with an adult or his big sister to both hide and find the toy. Definitely work in pairs or groups with younger kiddos to make it fun for everyone.

2. Color.

I’m nowhere near artistic, but even I enjoy coloring. Coloring is a good family fun night activity because each person can choose what he or she wants to color and find something based on their skill and comfort level. But the best part of coloring is that while you color, you can also talk. With having a tween, I love anything that lets us just relax and chat together.

Sometimes while we color, we play music for some additional fun. We pick favorite songs or even just turn something on in the background we all like. One evening, we ended up listening to classical music while we colored. I felt very cultured! My kids’ interests have varied. My husband likes to color superhero pictures with fancy markers, shading and all sorts of stuff. I like to color Barbies or princess coloring pages with crayons and give them makeup to match their dresses. Do what you like!

3. Play with your pets.

If you have a pet who loves playtime, turn playtime into a family event. This probably won’t be your entire family fun night activity, but it’s still a good one to be part of your time. Bonding over the cuteness of a pet is good.

Our family loves playing with our beloved Pixel the Pup together. Our cheeky Lhasa Apso loves playing fetch. Sometimes we make it a family event simply by all being out with him together, even if just one of us is throwing the ball for him.

4. Take a walk.

This one easily combines with the previous one if your pet is a pooch. But even without a pooch, a family walk is a nice way to connect and spend time together. A stroll around your neighborhood together is a good way to spend time with one another and get a bit of exercise in as well. If you want to take this activity away from home, you could go to a nature area near you, but neighborhood walks are just as fun. The point is less about where you are and more about who you’re with.

One of our favorite family walks happened two years ago when Pixel was a few months old and we all walked through the neighborhood and then decided to walk a couple of blocks away to get ice cream from a nearby family restaurant that has an ice cream parlor. Thanks to the pandemic, that didn’t happen last summer and this summer the restaurant is remodeling, but I have a feeling we’ll do that again sometime. It was a spontaneous and fun treat during our walk.

5. Play board games together.

What board games you play depends on your family and what you like. My husband and I love playing games, and we’ve shared that love with our kiddos. We’ve played a variety of games with them and found our family favorites tend to be cooperative games where everyone is playing together to beat the odds. One of our favorite cooperative games is HeroQuest, which is board game from when my husband was a kiddo. A new version is coming out soon. Another cooperative board game that is similar is Marvel United, which we all have fun playing as superheroes working together to defeat bad guys.

But not all games we are play are cooperative. We’ve played lots of others that have been fun like Uno (including Harry Potter Uno and Jurassic World Uno), Uno Attack, Toilet Trouble, Dragon Snacks and Trouble.

6. Watch something together.

If you’re looking for easy family fun night activities, it doesn’t get much easier than watching a movie or show together — as long as you know what to watch. Deciding and agreeing on what to watch can definitely be the most difficult part! We like finding movies and shows to watch together that we all enjoy. Don’t go for shows just the kids will like. You might as well enjoy it, too. We usually add in pizza (homemade, frozen or delivery) or popcorn. To kick it up a notch, popcorn snack night often involves some candy as well!

We subscribe to a few streaming services, so I’ve organized the list based on where we watch them, but some of them you can find other places. Don’t forget that your local library usually offers DVD rentals as well if that works better for your family.

7. Do water activities at home.

Obviously this family fun night activity is weather dependent! If it is cool or rainy, this one won’t work. But for hot summer evenings (or days) you can have some fun cooling off together as a family. Get out your sprinkler and enjoy the cool water flowing over you, have a water balloon fight or spray each other with water guns. If you have smaller kids, consider getting a water mat sprinkler. (I got one for my son last summer when he was 7 and again this summer and he loves it!)

8. Let the kids be in charge.

For a few years now, one of our kids’ favorite activities is having one-on-one parent time. With two kids, my husband and I can easily switch between them. With more than two, you’ll have to get a bit creative. Basically, we set a timer for a predetermined time (usually 20-30 minutes) and each of us spends time one-on-one with a child. We switch kiddos at the end of the time. The kiddo gets to pick what we do. Now that our daughter is getting older, her one-on-one time is usually less about playing and more about something she’s interested in that she talks to us about or shares with us.

Then other times, we switch this up to have time as a family and let each child pick what activity the entire family does. We do the same thing with setting a timer for 20-30 minutes and let them each be in charge during that time. The rules are the child deciding the activity needs to pick something we can all do, and the other child needs to participate as well.

9. Play non-board games.

We really do love playing games, so it is fitting games are on the list twice. But outside of board games, there are other games great for a family fun night activity. A long-time favorite of our kiddos is charades. You can get a charades game where you pull out a card with choices, use a free online generator or let your family pick on their own. We have played all three ways. Usually we have at least a few that the kids pick on their own. Our only rule is it has to be something we all know and can’t be a made-up creation. One of my favorites was when my son was a newspaper lying on a porch!

You can play charades with teams, timers and scores, but we play it all together. We don’t keep track of time or scores. We also just go in an order so each person gets the same amount of turns. One time we tried playing where the person with the correct guess went next, but that doesn’t work out so well for some kiddos’ sense of justice. (Trust me on this!)

Another non-board game we recently tried and liked was alphabet story-telling together. One person begins telling a story with a sentence that starts with the letter “A.” That person says a couple of sentences and the next person continues the story with a sentence that starts with “B.” The story goes that way through the entire alphabet. I think we laughed more playing this game than any other in recent memory!

Finally, video games can be good for your family as well. If you all play video games and can do so together at the same time, then go for it. For my family, video games means that one person has the controller and we all have input. Our recent favorite was playing Monopoly together on the Xbox. My husband ran the controller and we played against computer characters. Our whole family was strategizing together, celebrating together and moaning together. We spent a few evenings playing one game, and it was so fun. When our character won the game, we had a living room dance party.

10. Serve up special treats.

Of everything on the list, this one takes the most planning just because you have to have ingredients. Having a special treat can make any family fun night seem all that more special. We have roasted s’mores in the fireplace (and over our indoors s’mores maker), popped popcorn in the popcorn maker (instead of the microwave) and had an ice cream sundae bar with a variety of toppings.

Other fun food we’ve had before is a variety of appetizers or an array of finger foods like crackers, cheeses, fruit, veggies and dips. We tried fondue with the kiddos once making a mild cheddar cheese dip, but neither of them liked it. But if your kiddos are into fondue, that’s another fun, special treat option as well.

12 Ways to have easier road trips with kids

Whether you’re hitting the road for a vacation, family reunion or something else, taking road trips with kids are always an adventure! Patience isn’t exactly easy for little ones, and vehicles are small spaces for your family to be so close in.

But, road trips with kids can be fun, too. Our oldest child is 11-1/2. In her lifetime, we’ve only traveled by plane once. Every other trip we’ve taken has involved a road trip that’s taken anywhere for two to 12 hours. We’ve not only survived them, but even had fun with them.

In a summer that may have more families thinking road trips to avoid flying, I figured this is a great time to share 12 tips for making road trips with kids a bit easier. If you have any to add, please leave them in the comments. I’d love to hear from you!

Affiliate links are used in this post, if you make a qualifying purchase via my link, I receive a small percentage of the sale at no additional cost to you. I only recommend products and services I use and love. It helps support my blog, so thank you for your support! Read my full disclosure here.

1. Utilize some snack hacks for family road trips.

It has to be a given that road trips with kids are going to involve snacks. I mean, road trips are made for snacks. I literally have some foods I eat only on road trips! I’ve found a few ways to make the snack business easier for our family.

Bring along your own snacks.

One of the easiest things to do is bring along your own snacks. You can pack a cooler with drinks, string cheese, yogurt pouches — whatever your family likes. Pack a bag with non-perishable snacks as well. Go for things that aren’t so messy and are easy to share.

Use zip-top bags.

I’m a big fan of zip-top bags for a variety of reasons. Before leaving home, you can transfer snacks into large zip-top bags for easy sealing and storage. And you can bring along snack-sized zip-top bags to divide up snacks on the go. For example, if I open a box of cheesy crackers, I can fill a snack-sized bag for each of my two children and pass the bags back to them. Everybody gets an equal portion and the bags keep messes to a minimum.

Another plus of serving up food in snack-sized zip-top bags is kids can more easily open and close them than individual portion bags. It also saves you money because the individual bags of snacks cost more. And you can mix snacks. For example, I might include a few M&Ms in with the cheesy crackers as a road trip treat.

Serve beverages with lids.

My kids love their insulated Thermoses. The steel Thermos keeps cold beverages cold forever. I love the 12-ounce Funtainer for traveling because their lids close and it’s nearly impossible to spill them. They’re prefect for the car! (We also use them for lunchboxes, on picnics and pretty much everywhere. They last forever!)

Let older kids help pick snacks.

One of my kids’ all-time favorite things to do on a road trip is pick out their own snacks. While we bring along snacks and food to eat on our trip, we usually let them go into a gas station once on the trip to pick out something savory and something sweet. They love picking out gas station snacks, and I tend to agree to snacks (within reason) that I wouldn’t otherwise.

2. Find some easy family activities for the car.

One of our all-time favorite things to do in the car is Mad Libs. I’ve tried printing some out and downloading apps, but hands down buying the Mad Libs books are best. The books don’t usually cost more than $5 and are totally worth it. If you aren’t familiar with Mad Libs, they are stories with blanks in them. On a separate page, you fill in all the words for the blanks without knowing what the story says. It makes for some very silly stories! Our family takes turns going around and saying words. (And since it’s only saying a word, the driver also gets to participate, which is awesome!)

Mad Libs offer all sorts of fun options, including one about road trips! You can find a Mad Libs book to fit with your family’s interests including ninjas, Peanuts (as in Charlie Brown and the gang), Dungeons & Dragons, Disney’s Frozen, Star Wars, Pokémon, Marvel’s Avengers and so many more.

If words and word games aren’t as much your thing, consider other activities to do as a family. Pick up an automobile Bingo game, a scavenger hunt for the road card game or a “Would You Rather” book.

3. Read a book together on road trips with kids.

If your kids are older and want to read on their own, go for it. Even with kids who are readers, we still love reading books together as a family. (In fact, reading out loud is part of our bedtime routine.) You can use library books, books you own, ebooks or even audio books.

Here are some great books to read out loud:

• Harry Potter (The entire series is part of Kindle Unlimited and free for subscribers.)
• The Mapmaker Chronicles series
• Humphrey the Hamster series
• Judy Blume’s Fudge series (I remember my mom reading this series to us on family trips!)
• The Chronicles of Narnia series

4. Create a family playlist for your family vacation.

If your family likes music, you’ve got to create a playlist for your family for road trips. We have had a wide variety of musical choices throughout the last decade for our family road trips. We love Spotify, but whatever you usually use for listening to music works.

If your road trip happens to take you through some remote locations, consider downloading the songs from the playlist in case you lose your signal or go through an area with a spotty signal.

5. Give the kiddos paper-based activities to use in the car.

Paper-based activities are great for the car because they don’t weigh much and usually don’t take up too much room. If your kids are going to be writing or drawing, a clipboard comes in handy. We have tried lap desks, but they are bulky. The last thing we need is something taking up more space! Clipboards work best.

You can get any clipboard, including cheap ones from the dollar store, which I’ve done. But, our favorite are these Crayola Color Wonder clip boards with storage in them. First of all, the Color Wonder markers and paper are awesome because you don’t end up with marker on anything except the paper. And having the built-in storage keeps it all together, in one place. We have used these for a few years now and even switched out what’s inside of them a time or two.

One caveat for paper-based activities is to take along writing utensils that won’t melt if you’re traveling during summertime. Mostly that means avoid crayons! Opt for colored pencils, washable markers or pencils instead.

Aside from coloring and drawing, other lap and paper-based activities are great for car rides as well.

• Paint-by-sticker books
• Reusable create-a-scene books (like Disney princesses, a construction site or Noah’s ark)
• Sudoku for kids
• Word searches (for kids 6 to 8 or for kids 9 to 12)
• Mazes (for kids 4 to 8 or for kids 8 to 12)
• A variety puzzle book

Utilize activity books and travel journals.

Activity books and travel journals are another great way to keep kids entertained. For kids 8 to 12, don’t miss the “Ultimate Kids’ Road Trip Activity Book and Journal.” For tweens and teens, you’ll want to grab the “Ultimate Teen Travel Activity Book and Journal.”

6. Make sure your kids have road trip toys.

Whenever we are going on a road trip with kids, we have them pick out a few car toys, a.k.a. toys to play with in the car. My daughter is getting away from this now and instead picks out her own books to read and such. I usually pack what I call a “car bag” that holds our car activities like the Mad Libs, clipboards and car toys. The bag stayed up front with me when the kids were younger, but now I put it in the backseat with them. Car toys usually have to be approved by us. We have found toys that are smaller (but not too small) and don’t make their own noises are usually best.

Another toy option for road trips is getting a few new toys for the kiddos. My kids have kept themselves occupied for an hour with a small toy from a vending machine at a restaurant. (Seriously!) It doesn’t have to be anything big or expensive. Think about hitting up your local dollar store to find some things. I would suggest not letting them play with (or really even see the toy) ahead of time. New toys hold kids’ attention longer, which is great for road trips!

7. Use electronics for kids wisely when traveling.

For shorter trips, we don’t use electronics for the kids at all. But if the road trip is going to last for 8 hours or more, then we talk about electronics to help pass the time. When my son was a toddler and my daughter a preschooler, we took a long trip to the beach. In order to help keep them entertained for 13 hours in the car, we made a DIY tablet holder with a gallon-sized zip-top bag and string that hung between our two headrests. The kids watched some episodes of the old Batman television show. If you have a minivan with screens, then watching a movie or show is even easier for longer trips.

Keep in mind that since you’re in a small space, you’re probably going to hear whatever electronic your kids are watching or playing (unless they’re wearing headphones). So consider that as you’re deciding what to allow and what to say no to.

One other thought is that we have found having time together that we are chatting, playing games or even just resting is far more fun than being on electronics. Kiddos don’t have to be constantly entertained.

8. Plan extra time for stops on road trips with kids.

While you can make good travel time with kids along, you also have to be prepared for extra stops and give them a chance to go to the bathroom and move around. We were a bit prepared for this because I have a bladder issue that means I need to make plenty of stops myself!

Plan some breaks from being in the car. You’ll want to stop for the bathroom, but also just allow kiddos a chance to move around and get out some energy. Being in car seats, especially, keeps them from being able to move around too much, so they need a chance to be out and stretch. In the baby and toddler years, we would even just let the kids have time in the car at stops to move around.

You can stop at rest parks and let them move around outside if the weather is nice. If the weather is cold or rainy, look for a big store or large gas station where they can stretch their legs. On one regular trip we take, we usually make a stop by Bass Pro Shops because it’s a fun store for the kids to explore with the live fish and various interactive displays.

When it comes to bathrooms, one of my favorite things when my kids were toddlers and preschoolers was a folding toilet seat. I kept it in a large zip-top bag in our diaper bag. It made using public bathrooms so much easier! For kids a bit older and bigger, these disposable toilet seat covers are ideal. It helps alleviate stress of finding great bathrooms, which can be challenging sometimes on road trips.

9. Play car games that don’t need anything.

Don’t forget about games you can easily play in the car with just your words. There are quite a few options that work as long as your kiddos can talk.

I Spy

My family likes playing “I Spy,” but it doesn’t last too long in the car because we have the rule it can only be an object inside the car while we are driving. Otherwise, there’s no chance we’d be able to spot it!

20 Questions

“Twenty Questions” is another good car game. One person has something in mind and everyone else asks questions to figure it out. If the guessers can’t come up with the item within 20 questions, then they lose. With kids, especially, you might want to have some parameters of items that are allowed and not allowed. As the mom of a little boy, I know some of the things he comes up with sometimes to be funny. And, of course, you also want to make sure the item is real and not imaginary.

The Alphabet Game

If your kids are preschool aged and up, a version of “The Alphabet Game” works well in the car. You can play it where you are all looking to spot words that start with the letters of the alphabet in order. Or you can play it where you build off of each other and come up with words that start with the next letter.

We have often done grocery shopping with “The Alphabet Game.” So I might say I’m going to the store to buy apples. Then my son would say he’s going to buy bananas. My daughter would go to by cheese. And so on and so forth. You can pick nearly any broad topic and come up with words related to it that go through the alphabet.

Tell a Story

Another creative option is to tell a story together. At home we use the game “Story Cubes” to do this. Because it uses dice, it’s not so conducive to playing in the car. So, we have told stories together where each person says one or two sentences and then the next person add their sentence or two and on it goes. We usually end up with lots of giggles!

Both the “Ultimate Kids’ Road Trip Activity Book and Journal” and the “Ultimate Teen Travel Activity Book and Journal” have story starters included along with other family verbal games.

10. Keep the vehicle and yourselves clean as you travel.

If you’re on a road trip with kids, you don’t want your vehicle to get too out-of-control messy. While messes and children go together, there are a few ways we’ve found to at least help keep our vehicle and ourselves relatively clean while on the road.

Have a bag for trash.

There is always trash to be dealt with on road trips. We use plastic bags from stores as a bag for trash and then toss them at our next stop. They hold enough but aren’t too big. Bring some along or just acquire them on your trip.

Be prepared for germs.

Even pre-pandemic, I was ready for germs and made my family clean their hands when we got back in the car from being in public places. Now, I’m even more vigilant. I have kept canisters of Wet Ones in the car to pass around. The original ones work well but don’t have alcohol to kill COVID germs. You can now get Wet Ones with alcohol in them to help kill COVID germs as well.

Since my kids are older, they use hand sanitizer gel effectively and without getting it everywhere. Find what works best for your family and go with it. You don’t want any germs tagging along on your vacation!

Bring wipes for faces.

Neither of my kids have been in diapers for a long time, but having unscented baby wipes along on trips comes in handy for messy faces.

Keep a stash of napkins.

Not all messes need a wipe. A stash of napkins in your snack bag or glove compartment can come in handy. You can get them from a drive-thru or pack your own to bring along. (I usually do both!)

11. Use technology to your advantage when traveling.

Aside from your smart phone being a potential source of entertainment for music or games, it’s also a great help on road trips. Of course you can use it for directions to your destination, but don’t forget other things you can do to help yourself as well.

Use maps to find bathrooms.

With smart phones, it’s easier than ever to plot out stops for bathroom breaks. You can find rest stops or other places you want to stop for bathroom breaks. You don’t have to rely solely on road signs any more to help you find the next best stop.

Find restaurants you know.

You can use the map to find restaurants you know. This comes in handy while traveling on the interstate, for example. If you’re looking for a particular restaurant where you know your whole family will eat well, pull up your phone and find one nearby.

Check out reviews.

If you are feeling advantageous and want to try a new restaurant with your family, you can also pull up reviews for local restaurants in the area. Oftentimes menus are available online as well so you can even go over with your kids (and yourself!) what you have in mind to order before you even stop.

Do trip research.

I’m a planner through and through and do research before we take trips. If you aren’t, being in the car is a great time to do some research on your smart phone. Even if you are like me and have everything planned, you can read through some ideas you have saved for your trip or look up interesting places to stop along the way when everyone is getting cranky and needs a road break.

Be sure to check out this Family Travel Planner to plan your trip and stay organized! Use the code FWGFAN to save an extra 10%!

12. Prepare your kids before your family vacation.

I learned long ago that my kids do best when they know what to expect and what is expected from them. So, before we take a road trip with our kids, we talk with them about it. (We even do that when traveling just an hour away.) We go through a checklist of sorts to make sure everyone goes to the bathroom before we leave, the kids have whatever car toys they’ve chosen and cover our food bases.

When we start out on a trip, we also remind everyone that they need to let us know when they need bathroom breaks as soon as possible since finding a bathroom while traveling takes time.

Basically, if you can explain to your kids approximately how long you’ll be in the car and ideas you have to keep busy in the car, they handle it better. Remind them that where you’re going and the fun you’ll have once you’re there is worth being on the road for a while. And do your best to maintain a positive attitude about being on the road, so they will, too.

Find more great posts about traveling with your family:

Family travel advice

10 Family bonding ideas

Summer planning tips you can use

How to create an atmosphere full of grace, love and faith

When I think of the perfect family life, I think of a family happily being together in a serene atmosphere. I envision lots of smiles and smells of homemade dinner wafting through the air. I can just imagine the delighted conversation the parents are having while the kids calmly play together. Everyone is well coiffed and put together.

But, in reality, our family life is different, because life isn’t perfect. Life is messy. You can look around my family and find one child hanging out in a messy bedroom and the other stretched out on the couch watching Minecraft videos on YouTube. My husband and I are working in the home office or scurrying around doing our household chores. The dog adds in his flare of barks for dramatic effect, and dinner is a frozen pizza stuck in the oven.

What we need most in the midst of that chaos is grace. I need grace from my husband and children when I get grumpy because I’m tired and overwhelmed. My kids needs grace from me when they are out of sorts. If everything was perfect, nobody would need grace!

Through the 21 years I’ve spent as a wife and 11-1/2 years I’ve spent as a mom, I’ve learned some things along the journey about how to create a family life filled with more grace, love and faith than irritation, grumpiness and grousing.

1. Pray for grace, love and faith.

Unsurprisingly, the first step of creating a happier family life starts with prayer. I cannot live a life filled with grace, love and faith on my own. Without God’s help, I’d be too irritated and annoyed to be loving and grace-filled. While we remember to pray for so many requests, we overlook this one.

One of my daily prayers is for God to help me be the kind of wife and mom my husband and children need me to be. I don’t believe that He put my husband and me together by accident or gave us the children we have without a reason. If I am called to be a wife and mother, I want to do it how God wants me to do it. I want to be who He created me to be. I can’t do it on my own.

On the days and in the moments when the day is lasting longer than our patience, we need Someone with more strength, grace and patience than we have to help us through.

2. Speak kindly to each other.

The words we speak reflect our hearts. They are so very important. My husband and I learned early on in our marriage to talk kindly to each other. We promised to not be passive aggressive. Instead of nagging and grousing, we ask each other for help and say “please” and “thank you.” Speaking in kindness goes a long way.

We have kept the same attitude with our children. Unless our kids are in danger, we start out kindly asking them to do things. We do our best to not start out with a stern or irritated attitude toward our kids. If that happens for no reason other than our own grumpiness, we also do our best to apologize.

We avoid teasing or making someone feel bad for something they prefer. My husband and I remind our kids often that anyone’s success in our family is a success for the whole family. We have to stick together and support each other — not tear each other down.

Think about whether you’d speak the same way to a complete stranger as you are to your family. I know. That gets to me! Sometimes we are more polite to someone we don’t know than to our family members who we love most. Of course we need to be free to have disagreements with our spouses and discipline our children, but we can still do so with a measure of kindness.

3. Listen to Christian music.

Listening to Christian music might sound like an odd way to improve your family life, but hear me out. Music is powerful. It can shift our moods and thoughts. Christian music can also help us focus on God throughout the busyness of life.

Being cranky with my kids is difficult when I’m humming or singing along to a song about God’s love! So many times I have heard God speak to my heart and been able to truly worship Him best through music. Making it part of our family life just makes sense.

(In fact, I feel so strongly about the importance of the music we listen to that I’ve created a Families with Grace playlist on Spotify and continue to add to it with songs I find inspiring and uplifting.)

4. Guard your family’s time and activities.

Because I’m an introvert who needs downtime to re-energize, I learned early on that I needed to be intentional with my family’s time and activities. I am protective of my time and energy because it’s limited. My chronic health issues impact how much of me there is to go around. I won’t say yes to something that will interfere with my relationship with my kids or my husband. After God, my family is my top priority, and I want to make sure there is enough of me left for them each day. Sometimes that’s easier said than done!

I am also protective of my kids’ time. I tell them that they have their entire lives to be busy. Childhood should be when they have downtime to just play or pursue a hobby for fun. For our family, that means limiting our kids to one ongoing extracurricular activity at a time during the school year. As they get older, that will evolve, but for now it’s what works best for us.

I’m doing my best to teach my children that it’s OK to say no to some things and not do absolutely everything all the time. Because if we are too busy to recharge and we are too overwhelmed by our schedule, then grace and love fly right out the window!

5. Put down electronics.

Pretty early in my motherhood journey, I realized I was more likely to snap at my kids when I was using my phone. While both my husband and I do work-related tasks from our phones, I do my best to limit any other activity on my phone when I’m with my kiddos. I want to be present in the moment with my family instead of caught up in a digital world that really doesn’t matter in the grand scheme.

I’ve also instated a policy when it comes to social media that has improved our family life. If I am on social media and come across a post that upsets me, then I log off of social media. Those feelings have a residual effect that then spills over in my attitude and how I interact with my family.

We also don’t allow electronics at the dinner table (unless we are watching a movie or show together).

6. Maintain a consistent routine or schedule.

I’m naturally predisposed to routines and schedules, because I thrive on them! I know not everyone is schedule-oriented, but having at least some non-negotiable times is a great idea. Schedules allow children (and adults!) to know what to expect when. Schedules also keep everyone sleeping and eating regularly, which helps maintain a happy family life because nobody feels like being full of grace and love when they’re tired and hungry!

My family does well with routines. The simpler a routine is, the easier it is to stick with. And sometimes you need to reassess routines to figure out if something isn’t working and needs to change. Through the years, for example, our bedtime routine has evolved and changed as our children have gotten older.

7. Have fun together!

Having fun looks different for every family based on what you like and enjoy. But its impact is the same: you make memories, have fun and aren’t grumpy. It’s not possible to have fun and be grumpy at the same time! While life isn’t all fun, find time regularly to have fun together as a family.

Figure out some small, everyday sort of things you can do for fun together. We enjoy watching movies, playing games and reading together. Of course we have bigger family fun, too, like trips to the zoo or an amusement park, but it’s the smaller activities with family fun that help our family bond most.

8. Communicate.

In creating a family life filled with grace, love and faith, you’ve got to have good communication. So many problems can be solved with communication. I know my husband can’t read my mind, so I tell him when I’m struggling. (Sometimes he knows based on how I’m acting or reacting!) I’ve learned to do the same thing with my children. If I need a moment alone to sit and read or just be, I tell them rather than assume they’ll figure it out.

My husband and I have learned we have to be intentional about communicating and connecting while raising our kiddos. We also have to be intentional about communicating individually with our kids. Since our kids were smaller, we have had one-on-one playtime. It was the best way to communicate with them. We’d set a timer for 20 or 30 minutes and each take a kiddo to play with one-on-one. When the time was up, we’d switch.

While we still do playtime like that every so often, now we’ve evolved into bedtime talks. Twice a week our 8-year-old gets to stay up with us past our bedtime routine to talk with us or read with us. And three times a week, our 11-year-old gets to do the same thing. We just finished reading through a book about middle school with her and are now reading a book about boys. We have had some great discussions!

9. Praise often!

When my children do something right, I try to praise them for it just like I would discipline them if they had made a bad choice. Everybody feels good to be acknowledged for what they’re doing. So when I see my daughter helping her little brother with something, I praise her. And when I notice my son doing a chore without being asked, I praise him. As a result, I have reinforced good behavior that improves my kids’ confidence as well as our family life.

I do the same with my husband. I tell him I appreciate the things he does around home. It can be as simple as saying, “Thanks for taking out the trash.”

10. Accept your family’s imperfections.

No matter what you do, you are going to fall short because you’re human. Your family is the same way. Your kids will behave badly. Or your husband will get grumpy. You’ll snap at all of them out of frustration. Give yourself and your family some grace. Of course do the best you can, but don’t put pressure on yourself to be perfect. It just isn’t possible.

Instead, show your family what it looks like to learn and grow from your mistakes. Even if you’ve made the same mistake 20 times already, the next time you move forward with something different, celebrate that. Just keep showing up and trying every day. Go back to square one when you have to. Press the reset button on a day after spending a few minutes praying for grace, love and faith. You aren’t on this journey alone!

This post is part of Realigned Motherhood: Juggling the Joys of Motherhood. Be sure to also check out the other posts linked below for more encouragement and tips!

Cultivating Connection in Your Home from Inspired by Family
14 Refreshing Bible Verses For The Struggling Moms from Mindy Jones
Self-Care Tips for Moms from Clothed with Dignity
What I’ve learned from Motherhood and Marriage from Life Notes Encouragement