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One of the things I love best about being a mom who’s present with her children, is celebrating milestones and even everyday moments with my kids. I’ve talked before about how we find any excuse for a family gathering and joint birthday party celebration at my parents’ house. But that’s not the only way to celebrate a milestone. Or even just appreciate an everyday moment.
Road trips and honey sticks, perfect for reconnecting. See 20 other ways to celebrate family milestones!
Here are 25 Ways to Celebrate a Moment With Your Family
1. From Kim Moldofsky “I made a special plate for each of them at one of those pottery places. We break it out for bdays and special times. I joke they will eat their wedding cake off of those plates.”
2. Rotate the Child of the Week– the COW gets to make the fight-preventing decisions and also can have a fun (or needed) outing with Mom or Dad during the week. COW outings can be simple, but the consistency of touching base with your kids makes them special.
Child of the week and birthday outing involved a huge milestone last month – ear piercing!
3. Let them put their name on their school supplies. We use Mabel’s Labels and create “school boxes” even though we homeschool. Each box is personalized which makes even school time a special moment.
4. From Andrea Katz “Love notes in their school lunch boxes and encouraging emails.” I never would have thought to do emails for older children…smart!
5. Send them a card. Through the mail. Through the actual postal service with a stamp and everything. My kids LOVE this.
6. From Erica Mueller“Family dinners. We all gather at Grandma’s house and have a huge feast together. Afterwards we watch an old movie or play games.” Any excuse for a family dinner is a good excuse!
#13 Dance!
7. Poddy training rewards. In our family we get a giant bag of skittles or M&Ms and they get one for number one and two for er…you get the picture. Once you are poddy trained you get the privilege of a set chore AND being added to the COW rotation (See #2 above).
8. Elizabeth Norton points out the emotional benefits of family celebrations. “Even milestones that can be stressful, like the first day of school, we plan an event, invite the whole family over and celebrate. We not only mark the milestone we calm nerves and focus on fun.”
9. Throw a birthday party even if it’s not in the budget. Untrained Housewife author Prerna Malik shares budget birthday party tips.
10. Shannon Otthad a great idea for having a “Say yes to everything” day!
Finding dinosaur bones on our adventure safari.
11. Get out the old art supplies when school is over and make a fun craft from them to celebrate no more school! These recycled crayon suncatchers are a perfect activity.
12. Selena Cochran has a suggestion for teens and preteens, “Because my teens are older we have an “all about me” day which includes fave hobbies, desserts, hugs, random cards/notes hidden throughout the house and of course lots of accolades and high praises.”
13. Dance. Put on some music, gather everyone around, and just dance!
14. Vicki Foster Chavez reminds us reach our children in ways they will understand. “You probably already know this but once you know each of your children’s love languages it’s easy to fill up their tanks on a regular basis. But for special occasions, it’s nice to carry on that communication in a deeper way. ”
15. Take a road trip. Especially when you’ve been busy and need to reconnect as a family.
16. Jennifer Cruz is a woman after my own heart as she suggested, “Cupcakes!!”. These strawberry cupcakes with chocolate hearts would be perfect for making a child feel special.
17. Build something long-lasting together like this container planting. It was a girl’s day out for Brianna and I. She picked out all the plants and we worked together (with some brotherly help) to put the container together.
#17 Build Something Together – Let them make the decisions.
18. Kelly Whalen says “We do ‘date’ time with each child. It’s not always as regular as I’d like but they adore their one on one time.”
19. Go on an adventure safari. We like to make our own binoculars and then go on an adventure.
20. Have an advent calendar type countdown to big days, not just Christmas. Birthdays, holidays, and even things like first and last day of school, kids love to count down!
21. Make something special. For example, a Father’s Day gift that is handmade and beautiful can make the occasion just that much more meaningful.
22. Play dress-up and stay in character throughout the day. “Captain Princess? Can you please hand me Super Baby so we can change the diaper of doom?” These are days sure to be filled with laughter.
Dress-Up Day. Fun!
23. Frame a child’s artwork to not only save, but proudly display their creativity.
24. Make toys and playthings for your kids. They will know you spent time on it. Better yet, make them together. Try an I-Spy jar or these wooden dolls for starters.
25. Put together a photo album. My kids LOVE their photo albums and we paw through the books telling stories about THEM on a regular basis. Digital Storybook albums are my favorite because I can make them on the computer.
It is an honor to write these posts as one of the Hallmark Blogger’s for campaign. They are compensated posts straight from my heart.
What are some of your favorite ways to celebrate special occasions, or everyday moments?
My kiddos LOVE it when I make them a toy. It is a big deal when I stop making things for other people for a sec and make something just for them. We are about to lose our first tooth in the fam, and instead of the tooth fairy he has opted to celebrate the event as a family. He’s so looking forward to it!
Yeah. I need to embrace my non-comfort-zone and try making more toys and playthings for them. They don’t care about perfect.
Thanks for sharing…we do most of those…when you have kids..everyday is a celebration!!
Exactly! It’s finding ways to make everyday events special that creates those memories I think.
I would like to partake in the “Say yes to everything” day.. 🙂 Namely dessert before dinner.
Adorable post!
That was one of my favorite ideas! I think the kids would love it.
What a bunch of great ideas! Love it! 🙂
Thanks! As you can tell, I crowdsourced to see what other families did too.
Great round-up. Thanks for including me!
Thank you for sharing your ideas! I really appreciated the input from everyone. I love how this post turned out.
So many great ways to celebrate moments, and life in general! Love these ideas. Dancing is one of my ultimate favorite ways to have fun, celebrate, and laugh.
I think it’s impossible to dance and NOT have a good time!
So many fun ideas! Tuesday is pretty much my ‘say yes’ day. We do park day with the homeschool group and afterward the kiddo usually asks for a trip to Sonic for a slush to cool off. I try very hard to say ‘yes’ to those kinds of things. 🙂
Tonight we’re celebrating a birthday… big family dinner, here we come!
I agree. I’m learning to say yes to the non-important things and save the no’s for the things that are really important to discuss.
LOVE! <3
We love dance parties and yes days!
I’ve learned a lot from my kids….dance party fun being one of them.
I am SO doing yes to everything day!!!
Won’t the kids be blown away by it? I thought that was such a good idea.
All of these are such great ideas…and not only perfect for celebrating milestones, but for some fun things to do this summer!
Great point! Summer can be overwhelming with so much daylight to fill! 😀
Great post ..we are doing ear piercing next year for my daughters 8, same year when my sister and I got ours done
I think I was 5 or 6, I can’t remember. This was a 6th birthday. She’s been SO good about keeping them clean and turning them, etc.
OMG! I’m so glad that I came across this post this morning! Sometimes the craziness of life’s to-dos get the best of you. You have to do this, and that and this and then that, and I forgot to do this, and we have to do laundry on top of that. Then… my kids have grown two sizes and I haven’t seen it. I try to remember to have fun with them, but it’s easy to let life’s responsibilities and other things… take control. Thank you for reminding me of this! This is awesome!