Summer is winding down quicker than you may realize. Many children have already gone back to school and soon the dog days of summer will be coming to an end. Why not take advantage of these last few warm weekends? This weekend, get the family together and create a campground in the backyard.

Obviously, this family night activity requires a bit of planning. You'll need to grab some camping foods, such as hot dogs and marshmallows for roasting. You'll also need a tent and sleeping bags. If you don't have any, chances are your friends have some you can borrow for the weekend. Last, but not least, you'll need a bundle of wood to create a roaring fire and don't forget a cooler for the drinks and food.

Next, you'll need to think of some activities. Scary stories around the campfire are always a fun idea. Each person can make up their own story and tell their story before bedtime. Another activity that is fun for little kids is to take a hike around the backyard. Take time to look at things like you've never looked at them before. For example, look at the different plants and wildlife. You could even take pictures. A fun idea for older kids is to create a bit of competition through sports or even a campfire cook-off.

There are several advantages to camping out in your own backyard. First of all, there's easy access to clean bathrooms, which is always a plus. Second, you don't have to spend a dime on gas to get to your destination. Last, but not least, if your city doesn't allow fires in the city limits, you can cook everything on a grill. This truly is a family night activity that brings the family together, but doesn't require a lot of money. It's a great way to say goodbye to summer. Don't worry though because there will of course be many more family night activities for the cool months of fall.

Discovering a family's history should be an important part of everyone's lives. Not only does it enlighten you on what your family has been through, but it can be fun to learn about your ancestors as well. Believe it or not, this can be turned into a family activity. Whether you have young children in the house or even older children, this can be a fun experience. This week, let's bring the family closer by learning more about the family's history.

Obviously this activity will be different based on the age of your children. If you have young children, this can be a simple project that helps little ones get to know their family a little better. This is a great activity because it helps children learn about their relatives. This not only keeps them safe, but it can be fun for kids to learn little things about their relatives. You can simply use a large piece of poster board and photos of the immediate family to create a simple family tree. Under the photos, you can put the name and birth date of the relative along with something fun about them. For example, Grandma Sophia may love to bake cookies. This helps children remember their relatives. Once the family tree is complete, it can be hung in the child's room so that they can study their family tree and get to know their family even more.

Older kids will love learning more interesting facts about the family. This will take some time spent researching the internet. There are websites that can help you, but beware that many of these sites do charge a fee. The good thing is that these sites can give you a chance to connect with distant relatives who may have more information. While just learning about the family can be a fun family night activity, you can also create a more sophisticated family tree using one of the many software titles available.

Young or old, this is a great family night activity for your children. It can also be fun for parents as well. After all, who wouldn't want to learn more about their family history?

If you are looking for a fun, inexpensive party to organize for your two to three-year-old child, you can take the simple game of Hide & Seek and build a complete set of party activities around the idea. This will be loads of fun and low-key. Parties really can be so simple for kids this age. Take a look at the Hide & Seek fun to be had:

1. Play Hide & Go Seek ~ the classic game, of course.
2. If adults will be attending the party, reverse it and have the kids look for their parents.
3. Provide toddler-sized boxes that are either pre-decorated by you or that the toddlers can decorate themselves.

What a great craft activity! Have them use markers, crayons, etc. to make their own “Jack In the Box.” (This can also be the take home goody from the party!)

4. Play Jack In The Box. Have the kids climb into the box, and duck down so as not to be seen. Play music, and let the kids pop up just as a Jack In The Box would do.
5. Hide a Piñata that the kids must find in order to enjoy the fun.
6. Organize a treasure hunt for chocolate gold coins.
7. Make a mock tent using a large cardboard box and a sheet. Let each child hide in the tent and pop out surprising the others. You can ask them to pop out using their imagination and become a lion, a dog, a cat, etc.
8. Give them boxes of Cracker Jacks to enjoy finding their prizes.
9. Hide candy treats in a batch of cupcakes. The kids will discover the surprise as they enjoy their cakes.
10. Play “I Spy.”
11. Read books that have flaps to reveal hidden pictures.
12. Have the kids make creations using Play Dough. Hide some small prizes in each little Play Dough jar for the kids to discover.

There will be plenty of surprises and prizes for the kids to find and take home at this party. This is very low-cost, high fun party for the toddlers. Amazing how a classic game can give a party full of kids a great afternoon.

It’s that time of year when you begin to plan your Fourth of July celebration, and you want to include the kids in the fun too, of course! Check below for easy, budget-friendly ways to make the Fourth of July full of family fun!

Decorations:

• Instead of filling vases with flowers, fill them with blueberries, strawberries, and raspberries. This is yummy and festive looking. Guests can scoop the berries out and add whipped cream for a truly red, white, and blue treat!
• Use different-shaped vases to hold dips and chips as well. These make great centerpieces as well as unique serving dishes.
• Mix and match red, white, and blue solid paper ware. Cloth napkins in the same colors would also add an elegant touch.
• Roll butcher paper out onto your party table. Scatter red, white, and blue crayons across the table for the kids to color with while eating.
• Fill balloons with red, white, and blue crinkled paper. Have the kids pop the balloons for festive explosions of color.
• Using pop-cork place mats and attach the kids’ names to the pop corks for easy seating arrangements. The kids can take their pop cork home along with their tags, so use red, white, and blue colors to make them festive.
• Sprinkle red, white, and blue confetti and candies around the table.

Activities:

• Have the kids make small US flags and place them into red, white, and blue sand pails that have sand filler at the bottom! Turn this decoration into a game. Divide the kids into two teams and have them run, grab a flag, and quickly walk back to the team line, where the next person must do the same. The team that has all of the flags in hand most quickly wins! Let the kids take the flags home as a goody!
• The kids can make a sidewalk chalk mural. Have red, white, and blue sidewalk chalk on hand to give to the kids and let them create their own patriotic mural. They can create an American flag, fireworks, the Washington Monument, etc. This is a great activity for a dry Fourth of July Day!
• Boil a dozen eggs and color some red and blue (be sure to keep some white)! Have an Egg Spoon Relay Race. Divide the kids into two teams, and provide each team with a spoon and eggs. The kids must balance a colored egg on their spoon and walk quickly from one end of the yard to the other and return. If the egg drops, the team member must begin again. The first team with all members completing the relay race wins!
• For older kids, water balloons will be loads of fun. A fun twist on traditional water balloon games is to create a small hole in each balloon, and then fill it with water. Let the kids toss the leaking balloon, which will become a bit of a time bomb as you don’t want to be the last one holding it when it finally runs out of water! Quick, easy, and fun!
• Play classic relay races and picnic games, such as ring toss, sack race, and three-legged race.
• Have the girls add red, white, and blue star beads to their shoelaces for added fun.
• The kids can make their own creative rockets with cardboard tubes, tin foil, craft paper, tissue paper, glue, markers, ribbon, and child-friendly scissors.

Tasty Treats:

• Have a red, white, and blue taste test with the kids. Put out all sorts of foods and spices in a series of small dishes. Blindfold the kids and have the kids taste the foods and spices and guess what they are. Ideas for tasting include salt, ketchup, blueberries, strawberries, French salad dressing, mayonnaise, sponge cake, strawberry jam, pepper jack cheese, beets, tomatoes, garlic, bananas, cherries, etc.
• Freeze blueberries and raspberries in ice cube trays to make star spangled cubes.
• Make a rocket pop drink. Fill a glass with ice cubes. Carefully pour cranberry juice, blue Gatorade, and 7-Up into the glass directly over the ice cubes to maintain the patriotic colors.
• Using blackberries, cut up/halved strawberries, and bananas, have the kids create a fruit flag using the fruit pieces. They can place this on a cookie tray, and then you can lay it out to serve to the rest of the guests. The kids can also make mini flags for themselves. You can also provide lollipop sticks to the kids to skewer the fruits with.
• Using a star cookie cutter, make up a batch of patriotic gelatin stars, star sugar cookies, cheese slices, and sandwiches filled with cream cheese and blackberry jam.
• Make a batch of cupcakes and have the kids frost them and decorate them with red, white, and blue sprinkles.

So much fun for so little money and time. Happy Fourth of July planning!

Remember sitting down with the family for a night of board games? Whatever happened to this simple form of entertainment? There was once a time when you could spend $20 on a board game and enjoy years of entertainment. While classic board games may bore many of today's families, it's important to remember that board games aren't what they used to be. In this week's blog, we'll discuss how families can bring back family night with exciting board games.

Classic Monopoly and Life used to be quite entertaining, and still entertain younger children. Unfortunately, these games have lost their luster for older children. That doesn't mean that family game night has to be a big bust. The market is loaded with classic board games that have been given a makeover. Not to mention all the new games that are truly interactive, such as Scene It.

That's not all though. For families who have gaming consoles, board games can even be enjoyed on the TV. Games, such as Monopoly and Battleship, are available at affordable prices. Most of today's current consoles allow for at least 4 players, giving families the chance to enjoy video games together.

If you're worried about price, don't be. Not only do these games offer hours of entertainment, you can often find them used at yard sales. A great way to enjoy video games is to subscribe to a game rental site. For around $25 a month, your family can have two games out at a time. This is a wonderful way to try games before investing in them.

To round out the night, why not bake up a few pizzas and prepare ice cream sundaes? When you enjoy family night at home, you can afford to do more. This week, why not have a little fun with the family and purchase a new board game? You'll experience hours of enjoyment for an affordable price.

There are a number of fun family activities associated with holidays. One of the holidays that can be especially for kids (and parents) is Valentine's Day. It's a great time to teach your children about giving heartfelt messages -- no expensive gifts required. One of my favorite Valentine's Day crafts is the melted crayon heart. The heart can be given as a gift, or it can be taped to paper or cardstock to make a homemade Valentine card.

Making a Valentine's Day Crayon Heart
First of all, you will need the following items to make the melted crayon heart:

• Pieces from crayons (old and broken crayons are great for this), with the paper wrappers removed.
• Muffin tin with heart shapes (you can find these at most baking stores -- especially in February).

If you plan to mount the crayon heart in order to make a Valentine card, you will need these additional items:

• Heavy construction paper or card stock.
• Mounting foam available at most craft stores or art supply shops (double sided -- regular tape will not be strong enough).
• Scissors
• Markers

The first thing to do is heat the oven to 250 degrees. While the oven is warming up, send your kids in search of crayon pieces. Put the crayon pieces in the heart shaped muffin tin molds. It takes between 10 and 15 minutes for the pieces to melt into fun, swirled hearts. A cookie sheet placed under the muffin tin can catch overflow.

Let the crayon hearts cool. While this is happening, I like to increase the temperature in the oven and make sugar cookies with my son. When we're ready to bake the cookies, the melted hearts have usually cooled so that we can take them out of the molds.

If you plan to make cards with the melted crayon hearts, take the heavy paper and cut out large shapes (circles, squares -- or even larger hearts). Use the mounting foam to stick the crayon hearts to the heavy paper and use the markers to write a message and decorate to your heart's desire.

Ice candles can provide an otherworldly, magical quality to your backyard landscape. (Or put them out front as a winter time decoration at night.) You can make ice candles together as a family to enjoy each other's company and do a fun winter activity.

Making ice candles is fairly easy. All you need to do is create a holder out of ice. When you put little tea lights inside, the frozen ice distorts the light so that it looks a little different. In order to make the candle holder, you will need one tub or bucket (use an empty coffee can or a play bucket from the sand box). You will also need a tin can from canned soup or vegetables or a plastic cup.

First, place the cup or tin can inside the bucket or tub. Place rocks or weights inside the tin can or cup to hold it down. Next, being careful not to get water in the small cup or can, fill the bucket or tub with water. The water line should come to about an inch below the rim of the cup or tin can. This is the basis to form the ice candle holder.

Set the bucket outside on the porch to freeze. While you are waiting, you can play in the snow together as a family. Have a snowball fight or build a snowman. It may take overnight for the water to freeze, so go inside and have some hot cocoa and have a cozy evening.

*When the water is frozen, take out the candle holde*r. If the holder is stuck, run warm water on the outside of the bucket to loosen things up. Once you have the ice candle holder out of the bucket or tub, you can put a tea light or other small candle inside the holder. Set the holders you have outside and light the candles. Make sure everyone has hats and gloves, as well as warm coats. Watch the beautiful candles in their ice holders.

What kid doesn't love comic books, cartoons and comic strips? For this reason alone, a visit to the amazing Barker Character Comic and Cartoon Art Museum in Cheshire, Connecticut, is one that comes with a solid guarantee to entertain everyone. If it has something to do with comic books, animated movies and TV shows or newspaper strips, it is almost assured to be found inside this museum. This fascinating trip through the history of animated art, founded by Herb and Gloria Barker, continues to grow at an almost alarming rate. At last count, the collection of collectibles at the Barker Museum was well over 80,000 pieces.

Sure, a 1930s vintage, Popeye, burlap bag that was once used to haul popcorn to a cinema of bygone days probably won't appeal to a lot of kids by itself, but it is the entirety of the collection that will make an impression. Sheer wonder is instilled by the recognition that all these classic cartoon and comic-strip characters have made their way into the cultural orbit of America from a tin pail featuring the likeness of Herman Munster to a 1930s blackboard featuring the likenesses of Mickey Mouse, Goofy and Pluto.

The Barker Museum is not just a chance for kids to browse through the history of pop culture; it also presents an opportunity for the shock of recognition of characters that adults have long forgotten. The underlying beauty of the museum is the revelation that things that are wildly important to kids eventually get tossed into the trash bin of memory. Only by being reminded through discovery do some of the characters that meant so much to you when you were a kid begin to resurrect themselves in your consciousness. The museum offers a perfect opportunity to remind kids today how they should take care to preserve their own memories while they have them, because so many of the items that are valued today will be relegated to the dustbin when they become adults.