Comments on: Day 29: Keeping Kids Busy During a Summer Dinner Party

By: Laura

Laura — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 16:37:39 +0000

I love that you offer up your guest bath ~ that never occurred to me, and it’s such a fantastic idea! You sound like a really fun grandma!

By: Ad K.

Ad K. — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 05:19:22 +0000

While our kids are adults, we have grandkids to entertain along with new friends that have young ones. I have an iris cart filled with art supplies, paper, glue sticks, chipboard, puzzlepages, and coloring pages. We also play beanbag, simple card games and sometimes split up into teams to play board games. Sometimes we ask the kids to put on a talent show or a play or I host a treasure hunt for them with simple prizes. I always tell parents of little ones to bring their jammies and after dinner and play time they are free to use the guest bath to get the little ones ready for bed before the ride home.

By: Becky@OrganizingMadeFun

Becky@OrganizingMadeFun — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 02:13:06 +0000

Oh, the kids! They LOVE coming to our house…and we really love that they get excited. We have lots to do – we’ve turned our garage into a recreation room – with a basketball hoop game, foosball table {both given to us free}, and now a ping pong table! We have kids of all ages – our church High Schoolers are here during the summer for their Bible Study. We even have everything labeled for all the kids to put away when they are done. We’ve also got our summer fun – Backyard Thursdays!

http://organizingmadefun.blogspot.com/2011/06/how-i-organize-for-backyard-thursdays.html

Such wonderful inspiration, Sandy! Thanks for all you do!

Becky B.
http://www.organizingmadefun.com
Organizing Made Fun

By: Diane

Diane — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 20:47:04 +0000

I love the long evenings, warm enough to be outside, roasting marshmallows over a fire, with white twinkle lights in the trees.

By: Laura

Laura — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 18:33:35 +0000

We have four kids, ages 2-8. Most of our friends have 3 kids each, so there’s lots of kids, even when we invite only one or two families over. And our house is small … 1400 sq.ft. with a smallish yard. Easily the smallest of all of our friends.

That said, we don’t usually do much to entertain them other than when we have a birthday party with activities. Usually we just set out the sidewalk chalk and bubbles, let them dig around in the flower beds, pick flowers or fruit/veggies, jump on the trampoline, play in the kids’ rooms, climb a tree or (rarely) we let them play wii. The toddler tends to splash all the water out of the birdbath, which is fine because the birds don’t visit while the kids are all out there anyway. And they come up with their own games, too; their imaginations have never let them down yet. I do love the activities you listed … I especially like the idea of setting up paints outside. I’ve thought about stapling a roll of paper to our fence and setting up watercolors on tv trays along it to let the kids paint a huge mural, but haven’t gone to that effort yet. I went to a party recently where a parent spontaneously organized races, and that was a lot of fun for everyone.

As far as cleanup goes, we just don’t use things that require much maintenance. We use our outdoor blankets for tablecloths (if we use one at all) and have plenty of wipes available when the food is sticky or messy.

By: kathy

kathy — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 14:13:04 +0000

P.S. The game being played in the picture looks like loads of fun and I’ll definitely use that in the future!

By: kathy

kathy — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 14:11:35 +0000

We recently had a few friends over where the youngest child was 8 and the oldest was 15. My boys are 12 and 15. It worked out okay but was still a little challenging. I got sidewalk chalk and they used that for a bit, and I got a few of those cheap balls that you see all over the place at this time of year for them to play dodgeball. They cooked hotdogs over the fire pit and made smores. Still, they occasionally ended up at the grownup table, which was a bit trying. The next day, as I was cleaning up marshmallow from just about everywhere, I decided that I had done the obligatory party with kids and am done for the summer. The frustrating part is that the other two families have the best yards for kids with all the bells and whistles, yet they never want to entertain. My yard is half the size of theirs, and since my boys are older, we don’t have kiddie toys outside anymore. My yard is great for adult parties, so at least for the forseeable future, either they come over without the kids or we just don’t get together.

You must always think I’m such a negative ninny when I comment, but I really do love to entertain and get together with friends, which is why I continue to do it even though my house is less than ideal for large groups. And your website is always chock full of great ideas!