It’s not all about food :)

Ok, by the looks of my posts lately you would think all my posts are about food. We do focus our attention around what we eat in our house a lot because I think it can make a huge impact. But we also eat out and do other things too. So I guess I wanted to blog this week about some other stuff. I know, gardening … oh wait, that’s food too. The half a hog we are ordering – uh, I guess not… Ok you get the picture.

So what about the stuff we do and not the stuff we buy. Here are some of the free or very inexpensive things we have been up to lately:

• Making Cards and Crafts - The weekends have been filled with birthday parties as of late and so we have been making a lot of cards and gifts. I like to have my older hand make cards with her own twist and we added in a few Mother’s day cards as well. Sometimes we color, use markers, cut and paste pictures from old magazines, add in a recipe, use water colors, or decorate with stickers… I really leave it totally up to her.
  


• Get outside – While not always nice weather we take advantage of every moment, we have been gardening (more on that later), walking to the library and park and even got out the stomp rockets hidden away since last October and made all sorts of new friends at the park when we busted them out.
  


• Dancing/Pretending – We love to dress up and put on music and dance as a whole family, I think I burn a ton of calories too! My older also loves to pretend she is fishing or flying too far away places with her friends, or getting caught in daddy’s traps.
  


• Playing games – I already talked about crazy eights but we do a lot of memory and candy land and I think with the crazy eights success we might have to try Uno – but I would love to hear what others are playing.
  


• Reading books – We have now officially read the Lorax I think 100 times! Apparently reading never gets old.
  


• Hide and seek – Not with each other but with household objects. This started with Easter eggs but has progressed to other toys and we take turns hiding and seeking

Here are some things I really want to try again soon that we haven’t done in a while:

• Indoor tent - Make a fort around tables and chairs with blankets and sheets, etc.
  


• Play dough – we went through a HUGE play dough phase and I’m not sure what happened but I think I need to resurrect this one.
  


• Biking, hiking, and running – as the weather warms up we’ll be getting out more and I can’t wait for more long walks and bike rides.
  


• Swimming – I won 2 free passes to the parks and recs pool on a facebook and I’m now looking forward to more time at the pool (though this one isn’t free but relatively inexpensive I suppose)
  


• Movies in the Park – We LOVED this last year, with the baby it might be difficult but I’m hoping we can still get in a few this summer.



• Volunteering - Here is one that I would really like for us to do as a family now that my husband is not working and our weekends seem to be less about chores and errands and more about family time. I would love some tips on volunteering as a family if anyone has any.
  


• Last but not least - Help around the house – We all have chores and even if it means coming down to the basement to help move laundry, cleaning dishes, or sorting recycling, we need to get everyone, especially our older, more involved in housework - but make it fun too.

Of course then there are the adult things like working on my photos, blogs, and catching up with friends. Reading (ok, maybe just magazines and web articles these days), crocheting (I really need to find time for this again), and just relaxing (does this translate as too much TV time?). What do you do for more fun that costs less these days?