5 Love Languages for Children: 10 Changes To Make Today

March 12, 2018 No Comments

As a mom of three boys, it feels like sometimes no matter what I do, there are are days where the fits just won’t stop. There are times when it feels like the kids are hellbent on ensuring that I get nothing done. Then there are times where it feels like everything is going right. Smiles, laughter, and cuddles mixed in with independence and helpfulness. I try to do all that I can to make the good days more frequent than the hectic ones. But to be honest – sometimes it just feels like a crapshoot.

I do not read near as much as I feel like I should, but I do get an itch sometimes and end up browsing the free downloads on the library site. If you’re anything like me, then you can spend as much time browsing the books trying to pick something to read as you actually do reading a book. It’s exactly what happens to me in Netflix. By the time I decide what to watch, I’m ready to call it a night. The last time I got the urge to take in a book, I settled on The 5 Love Languages of Children by Gary Chapman, PhD and Ross Campbell, MD, and I’m glad I did.

I don’t know what exactly made me choose it, as I’m not usually big on the self-help genre. But I guess I thought that if I’m raising three boys, maybe I should see what I could be doing better to help them become well-adjusted little humans. I’d heard someone talking about love languages in the days before seeing the book in the virtual library, so it felt like the universe was telling me something. After reading the book, making those good days more frequent feels like less of a shot in the dark, and more like something I’m actively working to make happen.

*This post contains affiliate links. If you decide to follow a link/buy a product from this post, I’ll receive a small commission at no extra cost to you! Read my affiliate statement here.

What are love languages?

In his book, author Gary Chapman applies his “love language” theory, originally developed for couples, to parent-child relationships. While this may seem a bit odd at face value, it makes sense. We are all human, and whether it be from a spouse or a parent, we all have ways that we communicate and feel loved. The basic premise is that there are five ways in which we communicate our feelings, and that each of us has a preferred love language that makes us feel valued and loved. Think about it. You may have one child who wants to be hugged all the time, and another who could do without the hugs but is constantly asking you to play with him. These two children would have different preferred love languages. The 5 love languages are as follows:

Primary Love Languages

When applying this theory to your significant other and older children, the idea is that everyone needs a bit from all areas, but that most people will have 1-2 primary love languages. As a significant other, if you know that your partner’s primary love language is acts of service, then you would want to make a point of going out of your way to regularly take on tasks to ease their burden.

What I found most interesting about applying this theory to children is that the authors state that most children under the age of 5 do not yet have a primary love language. They require regular expressions from all five categories. Since all three of my children are 5 and under, this got me thinking and wondering if I really am showing them I care in different ways. I know that I love my kids, I know that we provide a safe environment for them, and I feel like we have a very loving household. But the bottom line is that if my kids are not feeling that, then I’m not doing my whole job.

In an effort to make sure that we are thoughtfully showing each of them love from all five approaches, we made a few super easy changes to our regular routines. As it turns out, some little tweaks to what we were already doing made a big difference!

If you’re like me and tend to forget things as soon as you’ve started something new, take a minute and print off my free Love Languages Ideas recording sheet. It’ll allow you to record anything you like here, or any ideas you have as you read/later on as you begin to implement the principles of the five love languages!

Receiving Gifts

I’ll start with this love language because it was probably the one that seemed the most out of my comfort zone. I generally do not give my kids gifts outside of “gift giving occasions.” The fact that this was a love language had me thinking that maybe I’d just have to fall short. As a stay-at-home mom, our budget is pretty strict. Not to mention, we don’t like having a lot of junk! And then to top it off, we always hear about kids being entitled or spoiled, and I don’t want to turn my sweet boys into materialistic beggars who always expect something. Maybe that’s a bit dramatic.

Since reading this book, I have changed my tune. Have you ever seen a kid who was just incredibly excited to receive a gift, no matter how small? When someone gives you a gift, it is just one more way that they can show you they are actively thinking of you. And don’t gifts that someone gives you “just because” somehow seem even more special?

So how do we do this without breaking the bank?

The “Giving it to them anyway” Gift

This idea came from the book, and I have had fun with it. My kids have felt special, and I haven’t even had to buy anything extra. The suggestion from the authors was to try wrapping something you were going to give them anyway.

I did this with a shirt that I made for my son to wear to school. He even knew it was coming. Instead of just handing it to him or laying it out for him, I took an extra 30 seconds to put it into a plain gift bag and left it at his place at the table where he’d see it when he woke up for breakfast. He was so excited. His reaction to the thoughtful addition of gift wrapping made the whole thing even better for both of us. You don’t have to make your child something to do this. I also wrapped some clothes that I had bought online just because they needed new ones, and they loved that too.

The Gift of Groceries

Wait, what? Yes. The gift of groceries. Is there something ridiculous at the store that your kids are always begging you to get? For mine it is Scooby Snacks. Dog bone shaped grahams. I’d much rather just buy good ol’ (cheaper) rectangular grahams. But every once in a while I’ll buy those Scooby Snacks (or Frozen cheese or whatever the ridiculous thing is they’ve been asking for). And you better believe I make a big deal about it. I come home from the grocery store acting like I’ve brought home a puppy. “You guys get in here! You’ve got to see what mama got for you at the store! I picked it out special just for you!” It’s like Christmas. Only it’s groceries. And for about $0.50 extra I’ve pleased the masses.

Christmas Book Countdown

This one’s a bonus to implement later. I know, I know. You don’t need one more thing to do at Christmas. BUT this is a fun replacement for (or addition to) an Advent calendar filled with chocolates. Wrap a Christmas book per day in December (or just regular books!) and take some time to read the ‘special’ book the kids opened. (This pulls double duty for the “quality time” category!) If you’re thinking that 25 books is not cheap, you’re right. So we just wrap up books we already own, with a few new ones sprinkled in.

This has two effects. It breathes new life and excitement into our old books. It also makes the kids’ anticipation and joy for the new ones that much greater. Every time they open one that is new, it’s kind of like they hit the lottery. If you have multiple kids, this is also a great exercise in patience and sharing. One book a day means not everyone opens one every day!

Quality Time

How many times do you find yourself saying, “Just a minute …” or “After I finish … ” when your kids ask for help or attention? I know for me it is more often than I’d like. How often are we on the phone when our kids are just needing a few minutes of quality time? For me, it’s more often than I’d like. Since reading the love languages book, I’ve tried to be extremely mindful of my responses to requests for quality time.

More often than not, if my kids want to play catch or cars, they truly only are engaged for about 5 minutes before they’re on to the next thing. I’ve found that since saying, “Yes.” a little bit more often, my children actually can be a lot more self-sufficient while I complete whatever task I was about to do.

The average children’s book takes about 5 minutes or less to read, so I’ve also tried to respond to those requests with an immediate yes rather than put them off as well. I’m not suggesting that we should always drop what we’re doing the second a child asks us for some QT. That’s unrealistic and unreasonable, and sometimes what I’m doing is honestly important. But there are many times when whatever I’m about to tackle can wait while I read a quick story. Making my kids feel more important than laundry is a-ok in my book.

It may also be fun to try a new twist on a family favorite. My kids love going to the park, so I created a scavenger hunt for us to complete and it was a lot of fun! I shared it here so you can print it too! Following are a few ideas you can implement around the house:

Before School Snuggles

I wrote earlier in this post about my oldest son’s transition to kindergarten. He was having a very hard time adjusting to the early mornings and long days. We weren’t having knock-down-drag-outs every morning or anything, but he was just overall grumpy and uncooperative. We decided we’d try waking him up 15 minutes early for snuggles while he took some time to adjust. I’d be lying if I said he’s super pleasant all of the time now in the morning.

BUT the difference this small change has made has been awesome. He knows when he gets out of bed he’s going to get some one-on-one quality time. (If you can ignore the 15 month old crawling all over us!) Sometimes he talks, sometimes he closes his eyes, sometimes he wants his back drawn on. But he truly enjoys this time. I know this may be unrealistic for some schedules. But if you can’t fit it in before breakfast, I’d strongly encourage you to try to squeeze in some extra one-on-one snuggle time after school or in early evening some time.

Breakfast Book Club

This one is my husband and oldest son’s ritual. But I have to share it because my five year old looks forward to it so much. After he’s done snuggling with me, he goes on to breakfast. While he’s eating, my husband reads from whatever chapter book they’re reading together at the time. (Usually it’s an Astrid Lindgren tale! They’re both a bit Sweden obsessed, so Pippi is a favorite around here.) This time is pretty sacred for my son. On the few occasions where daddy’s been out of town for conferences, he is very concerned that I won’t be able to read to him during breakfast. (I do.) He loves getting to have a special time with dad, and it’s never a bad thing when a kid is into a book, right?

Morning Walk

With my younger boys, I’ve been trying my best to stay regular with a morning walk. Sometimes I feel like I don’t do a great job focusing on them for significant amounts of time when we are hanging at the house. I of course play with them, read, etc. But there’s always something to be done from housework to work-work (I teach part-time) to just wanting a minute of my own. When we’re on our walk though, we are free from distractions. We can play games like color spotting, bird/squirrel watching, or my three year old’s favorite – leaf or rock gathering. On days we don’t get out for our morning walk, I can definitely tell that the boys are more needy, clingy, and whiny. This works double duty for me too because I get a little bit of exercise guaranteed!

Physical Touch

I feel like with kids especially, this one is easy for a lot of us. In my experience, small children will often initiate hugs, snuggles, and physical play. For this love language, I wanted to think of a few ways outside of the normal day-to-day touch we engage in. Take cues from your kids. We have changed the way we interact with our middle child since reading the book. He used to get frustrated as we would initiate hugs/kisses etc. “I don’t like kisses!” he’d yell. He does not love unwelcome touching. We have changed from forced hugs to high-fives and hair tousles. I can tell since the change, the number of hugs and snuggles initiated by him have gone up.

What Am I Drawing? Game

This one is a favorite of my kids with their daddy. It’s quick and easy to do whether you’re sitting at home or out and about. They often play it in church (while they’re listening intently of course!) or at times when we are having to wait and be quiet or still. One of the kids will hop up in Kyle’s lap, and he draws a picture or writes a word on their back from a category they choose. I love hearing our 3 year old’s sweet voice say, “My category is …” Sometimes he comes up with some crazy stuff. It can also get pretty specific, like “tiger eating a mongoose.” So…. you want me to draw a tiger eating a mongoose then.

In any case, the big boys love this game so much that they also request at least one round of drawing on backs each night when laying down for bed. Sometimes all I want to do is get bedtime done with and go relax. But I realize how important it is for me to take a few extra minutes to draw a little picture and spend some extra time with them.

The Dab Hug

This is another one of my husband’s “games.” It sounds silly because it is. Instead of just tackling a kid for a hug, he engages in a “dab hug.” It’s where he pretends like he’s going to force a kid to hug him, and then dabs at the last second. If you don’t know what “dabbing” is, allow me to share with you a dabbing cat shirt. Animal dabbing is the best kind of dabbing (other than my 5 yr old’s dabbing. That’s pretty entertaining!) According to my husband, dab hugging always results in actual hugging. And giggles.

Words of Affirmation

I feel like I’m a pretty good verbal communicator with my kids. I do my best to orally praise them each time I’m proud or pleased. People have given me parenting advice like, “Don’t praise a kid for something they’re supposed to do anyway.” But I don’t follow that advice. I 100% believe that my kids need to hear that I’m happy with them when I’m happy with them. Otherwise, they may not be perceptive enough to pick up on the fact that I notice or approve of their behavior. Seriously, kids are oblivious. So I go out of my way to give them positive verbal reinforcement. I was struggled to find a way to improve in this category. What else should I be doing?

Write a Note

I have Facebook friends who have posted sweet notes that they have gotten from their kids that were written at school. I must admit, I had some jealousy because it seemed like everyone’s kids but mine write their parents sweet notes. One time I got one, but it came with a disclaimer: “Oh yeah, we had to write that.” I’d decided that maybe that just wasn’t my kid’s jam. One day I wrote him a lunchbox note. Nothing fancy, just an, “I love you, have a great day!” note. And I wrote a few more. Dad wrote a few Swedish notes.

I cannot verify that this was a catalyst for change. But I can tell you that I have gotten many, many notes this semester. Maybe he just decided to start writing. Maybe his daddy told him he’d better start writing mama love notes. Then again, maybe he realized that this is a way to express to someone that you’re thinking about them. Be the change you want to see, folks!

Acts of Service

In a relationship, acts of service are intended to be things that you do to intentionally lighten your partner’s load or to, well, serve them. It could be as simple as taking on one of their “regular” chores one day. With kids, it feels like literally my entire life is an act of service to them. I mean, if wiping someone’s hiney on the daily isn’t an act of service, what is? For this love language I wanted to think of things I was basically already doing, but that I could just modify in my delivery to be presented in a loving way.

Favorite Dinner Thursday

I am the cook for dinner more often than not. I do like cooking, but in my opinion it is already an act of service for the family. I’ve decided to instate Favorite Dinner Thursdays, which is exactly what it sounds like. I’m going to rotate and have a different family member choose a favorite for Thursday dinner each week. I have a feeling I’m going to end up with a lot of meatloaf and pork chops, but lucky for me – I like those things. It might not sound like much, but this is a way that I can turn cooking dinner into an intentional way to serve each of them individually. I make their favorite dinners pretty often anyway, but this way it’ll turn it into a special event “just for them.”

Public Service Announcement

This one is, again, Kyle’s brainchild. He has begun announcing whenever he picks something up for one of the kids. Not in like a weird way like Dennis Quaid on Ellen, “Dennis Quaid is here!” Just in a way that says, hey – I’m doing this for you so that you don’t have to. Our oldest constantly leaves his backpack and coat in the middle of the kitchen after school. Almost always, he’s responsible for coming back to hang it up.

But sometimes you clean up after your kids anyway. Instead of just putting it away unnoticed, Kyle will say, “Hey, I’m going to go ahead and put this up for you!” A service that would’ve gone unnoticed can now be appreciated. (This is also nice for the parents – a bit of appreciation goes a long way!) Note: this doesn’t work if you are sounding annoyed about it. It takes a bit of a mindset shift from viewing it as picking up their junk again to seeing it as speaking in love languages.

Mindful Responses

I don’t expect that any of these suggestions were ground breaking or novel ideas. The point of the love languages theory is that you are mindful of how you are expressing yourself. You probably already do many of these things. We have not made any huge changes. But being mindful of the ways we express ourselves has definitely made a difference in our relationships with our kids. Knowing specifically what the boys need from us has made us better parents. And if you weren’t able to pick up on it from this post, my kids have a great dad!

Speaking Their Love Languages

As the boys get bigger, they will each develop a preferred love language. I have some guesses as to what the older two boys’ will be, but I’m interested to see how it plays out! That doesn’t mean we will quit trying to fulfill all five, but there will be one that takes precedence.

Have you read about love languages before? If you’ve applied the theory to your children, what have your results been like? If not, what do you plan to tweak to start regularly hitting all five?

Looking for more ideas to spend quality time with your kids? Don’t forget to check out our Park Scavenger Hunt, & tackle this Summer Reading Challenge as a family!

Books

10 Books to Get You Started on the POPSUGAR Reading Challenge

March 5, 2018 No Comments

Guest post by Kyle

*This post contains affiliate links. That means if you decide to follow a link here/buy an item from this post, I’ll receive a small commission – at no extra cost to you!

Reading Challenge Accepted

I’m not exactly sure what POPSUGAR is, but a couple of years ago, I was searching for a reading challenge and came across their 50 book topic challenge. I found the concept interesting enough to give it a try. Instead of a traditional “books to read” list, the POPSUGAR list is a set of topics and criteria to satisfy over the course of the year. I find it appealing because one of the main challenges I (and a lot of other readers) have is picking out a book to read. The library and bookstores have always been among my favorite places to visit, but I have found that I can’t just “pop in” without a plan. I have to know what I’m getting, or I will be there all day. Now, I don’t have to wander around looking for a book from my four or five “comfort” genres. In fact, I enjoy having this reading challenge so much that we created a Summer Reading Challenge for Kids (shared here!)

The POPSUGAR reading challenge essentially gives you a list of prompts and it’s up to you to find books that match the prompt. The next year’s list comes out around November, and then the fun starts! I probably enjoy the research of preparing the list more than actually reading the books. This involves checking all my other reading lists for books that qualify (I have several different book lists going at the moment), checking Goodreads discussion threads, reading the descriptions, and then finding out what’s going to be available at my local library, my college library, or what I might already own (or be willing to buy).

Here are my picks for the first ten prompts from the 2018 list. Also be sure to check out prompts 11-20 here!

1. A book made into a movie you’ve already seen

I am a big fan of watching the movie first; I find both the movie and the book much more enjoyable than the other way around. Like many of you, when I read the book first, the movie fails to live up to my expectations. Nothing is worse than when they cast the wrong actor or actress to play your characters. If anybody else is thinking Owen Wilson in Wonder, then we are on the same page. However, when you watch the movie first, your expectation is built in advance and the characters are already associated with actors. So you cannot be disappointed. If you ever hear Megan complain about the film The Help, based on the Kathryn Stockett novel by the same name, just know that I do not feel the same way. Unlike everyone else, I saw the movie, then read the book! But back to the list!

This turned out to be an easy prompt because I was already reading Män som Hater Kvinnor (Stieg Larsson), which is the original Swedish version of the American adaptation The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (same author…obvs). And trust me, if you are reading a book in a language that you don’t completely understand, having seen the movie first is a big help! If you have not seen the movie or read the book, the story focuses on Mikael Blomkvist. He has been hired to investigate the forty-years-ago disappearance of Harriet Vanger. The story also features Lisbeth Salandar, a young computer hacker who assists Blomkvist in his investigation.

2. True crime

True crime is one of my favorite genres, so there were a lot from which to choose. I ultimately narrowed it down between In Cold Blood (Truman Capote) and The Devil in the White City (Erik Larson). I put them both on hold on Overdrive and In Cold Blood became available first, so I went with it. It’s an account of a family found murdered in a small Kansas town in the 1950s, and is unique in that a portion of the book is from the perspective of the guilty parties.

3. The next book in a series you started

It seems like every book out there is a part of a series, and when I read one book in a series, I feel obligated to keep going. Damn you, Alex Cross!. This category more than any other seems to have the most potential options. Harry Potter? Hunger Games? Percy Jackson? Adventures of Captain Underpants? Nope, none of those. I originally decided to go with Missing in Malmö (Torquil MacLeod), which is the third book in a series I find very enjoyable, despite the fact that the first book had one of the worst and cheesiest endings I’ve ever read. However, due to the inevitable switerchoos that take place when you “accidentally” read a book that’s not on your list and want it to count toward the reading challenge, I had to make some adjustments. Ain’t nobody got time for reading books that don’t even count.

So for this prompt I ended up reading The Girl Who Played with Fire (Stieg Larsson), the second book in the Millennium series. In this installment, Lisbeth Salander is on the run after being connected to the murder of a young couple.

4. A book involving a heist

Zero hesitation. When I saw this prompt, I knew exactly which book I was reading: Sex on the Moon: The Amazing Story Behind the Most Audacious Heist in History (Ben Mezrich). This book has been sitting in my virtual wish list for years and I finally had a reason to buy it! But instead of buying it, I listened to the audiobook narrated by Casey Affleck (say that without sounding like a duck selling insurance). Thad Roberts convinces his girlfriend and another NASA intern to help him break into a laboratory and steal precious moon rocks that are extremely valuable and also extremely illegal to own!

5. Nordic noir

My favorite genre. Nordic noir, sometimes called Scandinavian noir, is a very interesting crime fiction genre. It typically uses simple and straightforward language and the stories are contrastingly dark compared to the calmness that we sometimes associate with nordic countries. The genre owes a lot to Stieg Larsson, who (posthumously) brought international attention to Swedish crime fiction and who features heavily in my reading. I had a lot of choices here, and ultimately, due to the switching and replacing that was mentioned earlier, I read Roseanna (Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahloo), which is the first book in the Martin Beck series. Yes, another series. In this book, Martin Beck is investigating the murder of a solo traveler, whose body is dredged from Lake Vattern. All Beck has is her name and the 185 fellow cruise ship passengers who could potentially have strangled her.

6. A novel based on a real person

Here is a prompt that poses a bit of a problem. Novel implies fiction, so you have to stay away from memoirs or biographies. But researching this is kinda difficult, so I ended up looking at a Goodreads list and just trusting the contributors that The Sun Also Rises (Ernest Hemingway) is, in fact, based on a real person. The story follows Brett and Jake as they journey from the nightlife of 1920s Paris to the brutal bullfighting rings of Spain with a group of expatriates.

7. A book set in a country that fascinates you

If you haven’t figured it out yet, Sweden is a country that fascinates me. I have several books in this list that qualify here, but I wanted to read something for this prompt that didn’t exactly qualify for anything else. So, I went with My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry (Fredrik Backman), which follows seven-year-old Elsa who is sent on an adventure when her grandmother dies and leaves behind a series of letters apologizing to people she has wronged in her past. Also, if you haven’t read Backman’s A Man Called Ove, do yourself the favor. I also hear that Beartown is good, but I haven’t gotten around to it yet. Maybe it’ll fit on 2019’s list?

8. A book with a time of day in the title

Here is the fun part about this reading challenge: you get to decide which books count and which books don’t count. I don’t know if “night” is technically a time of day, but I decided that The Friday Night Knitting Club (Kate Jacobs) was close enough. This book features a group of women who come together once a week in a New York City yarn shop to work on their latest projects and share their lives.

I didn’t think I would like this one, but it surprised me. If you are into knitting or group-crafting of any kind, I think you will have fun with this book. It will remind you of the crafters in your circle!

9. A book about a villain or antihero

As I mentioned, reading a book AFTER watching the movie is the way to go. I failed to mention that it also includes going back and re-watching the movie after reading the book after watching the movie. This applies to television shows too. Darkly Dreaming Dexter (Jeff Lindsay) is the foundation for the Showtime series Dexter, about a *spoilers*serial killer who works as a blood analyst and only kills bad guys. The show does deviate from the book, particularly the ending. But since I saw the show first, in my mind, the books deviates from the show!

10. A book about death or grief

And to end this first post, we arrive at the true purpose of the reading challenge. The Year of Magical Thinking (Joan Didion) is a book that is critically acclaimed and an amazing book, but under no circumstances would I have “chosen” to read it on my own. Facing a parent’s worst nightmare, Didion and her husband watch their only child fall seriously ill, be induced into a coma and placed on life support. While eating dinner after visiting the hospital, Didion’s husband suffers a fatal heart attack. This book is Didion’s attempt to make sense of her life and put into perspective the realities of grieving.

A Challenge to Branch Out

I enjoy this reading challenge because the prompts open readers up to new ideas through new genres, authors, and books. They provide opportunities to grow when you otherwise would have ignored the chance. (Please ignore the fact that 3 of the first 10 books involve Swedish crime fiction. I promise I get more diverse as the prompts go on!). Please share any thoughts or suggestions in the comment section. Hopefully, you will be inspired to branch out from your comfort zone and try a new book. Let us know if you are going to try this reading challenge and what books you choose.

Ready to keep it going? Check out my picks for prompts 11-20 in this post! And if you want to be the first to know when I post my next picks, sign up for the mailing list!

My Pick:

Here’s @oscarshead with my favorite book out of the first ten prompts.

I liked a lot of these books, but The Year of Magical Thinking (Joan Didion) is the only one I would recommend to anyone regardless of their genre preference. Everyone will experience grief differently and everyone will experience this book differently. But someone out there needs this book to help put life, death, and grieving into perspective.

Holidays

Springbreaksgiving

February 21, 2018 2 Comments

What Even Is Entertaining?

When my husband and I watch shows like Fixer Upper and House Hunters, we are always struck by the number of times we hear, “Oh! This would be great for entertaining!” I don’t know if it’s just a certain type of super extroverted personality that gets cast for television shows or if we are just seriously out of the norm, but entertaining others is not a regular function of my house. Sure, we have people over every now and again. But “entertaining” is definitely not tops on our list of activities. Maybe that’s actually because my housekeeping skills can be categorized as “disastrous.” But they’d stay that way even if I did have a sweet island in my kitchen perfect for chatting over finger foods while the guys grilled steaks on our stellar deck. (Complete with an outdoor kitchen of course). And that last sentence was a little bit sexist, but also true.

However, I do get the allure of entertaining. I love the sounds of the whole family filling the house. I love spending time with our families and friends, and it always leaves me with a sense of satisfaction knowing people left my house after a good time. It’s always like 100 degrees in my house after a group of visitors leaves, but I truly do enjoy it. Maybe there’s lots of people who are better homemakers than I, or those who are better than me at actually planning and scheduling things, or are just more social. Maybe they truly do entertain frequently, but I don’t feel like I know any of those people. Are y’all out there hosting get-togethers that you don’t even post on Facebook?!

The truth is, I wish I hosted friends and family more often, but I truly “entertain” only four times per year. I have three kids, so 75% of those gatherings are birthday parties. The one other time I fill my home with people is for Springbreaksgiving. My made-up, totally unnecessary, definitely not mandatory, only actually important to me holiday. (In my head right now I’m legit singing “It’s the most wonderful time of the year…” I don’t think that’s what that song’s about!)

The History of Springbreaksgiving

It all started my last year living away at college. My roommate and I decided to host a Thanksgiving meal for our friends before everyone left for actual Thanksgiving break, and I loved it. I loved cooking for everyone, I loved having everyone in our apartment, I loved seeing the empty plates stacked around, and I loved that we were the hostesses of a good day. The only problem (and you may be aware of this if you have friends who celebrate Friendsgiving) is that once you have a Thanksgiving meal, the anticipation of all that delicious food is gone. The food is still awesome even if you eat it back to back to back, but the sheer excitement of tasting those foods we save for the holidays only lasts until the first gathering. And multiple gatherings close together gets exhausting.

I loooooove Thanksgiving food. I wanted to host Thanksgiving. But my husband and I both have family traditions, and those shoes were filled on both sides. So, one year when turkeys were on sale, I bought one and froze it to use later. I ended up hosting a Thanksgiving meal during Spring Break. Springbreaksgiving was born. We have quite a few teachers in the family, so Spring Break is a good time to get everyone together. It’s several months removed from the holidays and not in the middle of summer when travel and activity schedules get crazy. So it’s generally a time where people can make room for an afternoon together. The official celebration occurs on the Thursday of Spring Break week – which has caused issue in the past as different schools try to get cute with what week they are off!

The Big Event

Our Springbreaksgiving menu is basically the same as my family’s Thanksgiving menu, but we try some fun things that are “frowned upon” at the real Thanksgiving. Like instead of pumpkin pie, we can test out a pumpkin pie cheesecake. (I asked once to bring this to Thanksgiving and was shot. down.) Or instead of candied yams we can have the copycat Ruth’s Chris sweet potatoes – if you haven’t tried these, try them! Though now we make BOTH sweet potato dishes as we now have lovers of both types. I can’t bear to disappoint my husband. Candied yams are seriously like the only thing he truly enjoys about Thanksgiving food. I get the joy of having my favorite meal of the year twice, and March really is pretty far from November, so it doesn’t feel like we just ate this stuff.

I never really know who will be at Springbreaksgiving, but I always invite our families first. We have a relatively large family, so if they all come it’s quite a crowd and I don’t think I could accommodate any extra folks. If it looks like several of our family members are busy or out of town, I then invite a few friends or neighbors to join the party! I can’t really describe the looks I get when I invite an outsider to come. It’s kind of a progression from confusion to acceptance to excitement. But I always like it when we get to let somebody else in on our weird little holiday. Part of me hopes they’ll think of it later and want to host their own. A big part of me hopes if anyone reads this that you’ll want to host your own. Or come to mine … maybe I need to have one in the summer for neighbors and friends too!

The Future of Springbreaksgiving

My absolute favorite part about this holiday is that my kids think it is like a real actual thing that people do. My oldest son was born just after the 2nd celebration, so it’s been going on for their whole lives. I will keep hosting this holiday as long as I can forsee, and I hope the tradition sticks with my kids and their families too. How fun is it to think that maybe decades down the road there could be several branches of my family tree getting together for a no longer made-up, totally unnecessary, definitely not mandatory, only actually important to me holiday?

Do you have any “extra” holidays or excuses for entertaining?

Holidays

The Easiest Halloween Party Food for Kids EVER

September 25, 2017 No Comments

Easy Halloween Party food

*This post contains affiliate links. That means if you purchase an item from a link on this post, I’ll receive a small commission – at no extra cost to you!

Halloween Party Food

When I was prepping for my middle man’s Halloween Birthday bash I searched a lot of Halloween party ideas on Pinterest and Google. If you do the same, you’ll find that there are several different types of Halloween party. One of those is the nasty/gross type. My son loves Halloween, but Halloween to him is about fun ghosts and pumpkins – not gross gory weird stuff! Maybe that’s why I have not really ever been into Halloween.

I haaaaate the gross stuff. Like a lot. But helping him celebrate the holiday 365 has reminded me that it does not have to be disgusting or even scary (though we do like stuff to be a little bit “spooky”). There is a lot about Halloween that is just fun and silly. So these Halloween food ideas are a small sample of the fun and silly side of Halloween, all approved by the 3 year old man of the hour for his Halloween birthday party.

Prep Ahead!

Some of the foods here are special treats that require preparation ahead of time. Others are literally foods you dump out and set a label on. My kids love coming up with silly names for regular foods for their parties – and I’m not complaining because that’s one less thing I have to make. I like to have fun foods for any party, but I hate when I’m in the kitchen after everything has started still trying to get everything ready. We’ll get started with the ones that require a bit of prep ahead of time – and then finish up with the dump and go! I’ll share my food labels too at the end of the post, so if you want to print those off for use at your party feel free!

Before Party Day:

We were able to knock out several of the food items before party day. Which was super helpful because I had to clean my house (ish) on party day and make big boy’s cake the day before, so I did not have time to be making a bunch of stuff.

Eyeball Bites –

AKA Cake mix cookies with eyeball sprinkles. These bad boys were a party hit with the kids. There were one or two left, and my children argued over who would get the last eyeball. (They split it, and I got another sprinkle from the cabinet. Because I had them, and why not.) These were made the afternoon before the party and stored in a plastic container overnight. I had never made cake mix cookies before, but they are like crazy easy. If you are needing colored cookies, I would definitely recommend these over sitting there squeezing in dye to your mix. I used this mix:

And I must admit it was a little weird when the “Vibrant Green” cake mix came out blue. Where is the yellow?! We need green! Anyway the most popular cake mix cookie recipe on the Internet (no stats to back this up, it’s the first one when you search Google) calls for 2 eggs and 1/2 cup oil. So I dumped in 1/2 cup of oil. Then I had the thought… “That was not a lot of cake mix…” Turns out these tiny packages are NOT 18.25 oz standard cake mixes. More like 9. Soooo I now had double the oil in my mix.

We did not have another mix, I’d already poured in 1/2 cup, so I figured it was worth 1 egg to try and salvage this stuff. So I carefully spooned out 1/4 cup of now green oil and just tried my best to not get too many cake mix bits out too. In went the egg, and I mixed ’em up, scooped ’em out, and baked at 350 for about 5-7 minutes. I did some with the “eyeball” before baking, some I stuck it on after – because there’s no info out there about when to add the eyeball to your cookie, and I didn’t know. Turns out I liked the “add the eyeball before” cookies better. The boys loved them.

Monster Spit

AKA Water. My 5 year old was super excited about his “Wartortle Water” at his Pokemon party, and really wanted to name the water for his brother’s party. We came up with Monster Spit (though later my husband said he thought Monster Slobber was better… but it was too late.) I had the labels printed off on cardstock, cut them into strips, then my awesome husband put them on the water bottles with clear packing tape.

We didn’t even bother to remove the original bottle labels beforehand, because it honestly seemed pointless. I want my kids’ parties to be great, but I’m not trying to spend 3 hours replacing labels on water bottles. We have not tried this method with bottles in a cooler, so I don’t know if the ink would bleed from the melting ice or not. They hold up really well in the fridge though! Scroll to the bottom of the post for the printable water label if you like!

Spooky Ghosts

AKA String Cheese. My son loves string cheese, so when I came across this idea I knew we had to have it. These were so easy. I used a sharpie, and drew on some circle ghost faces. Hardest part of these was just tearing apart the cheese sticks and praying that the tear wouldn’t go crazy and accidentally open them!

Jack-O-Lanterns

AKA Mandarin Oranges. Do y’all love these as much as we do? I get frustrated when I accidentally pick up a bag that are not the easy peel ones, and even the easy peel ones I have to peel for my kids, but when these are good, they’re good. This one was also a simple draw-on. I used a food writer instead of a sharpie because I wasn’t sure how permeable an orange peel was. These stumped a dad at the party for a minute! He said he had to do a double take to figure out what I was serving!

Worm Food

AKA Pudding with Oreos and Gummy worms. This was just a classic dirt-and-worms dessert scooped into cups! One of my all time favorite desserts. Mix chocolate pudding (according to package) and incorporate with a package of cream cheese that has been beaten with 1/2 cup of sugar. Fold in a container of Cool Whip, and the pudding is done! The ‘dirt’ is just Oreos that have gone through the chopper. I did wait until party day to top the pudding with the dirt and worms.

On Party Day

These are the things I did on the day of the party. Nearly all of them were “dump and go.”

Mummies

AKA Hotdogs wrapped in crescent rolls! I opened a can of crescents, pressed the perforated edges closed, then cut little strips with a pizza cutter. After that I took the strips, wrapped one per hotdog, and baked according to the crescent roll package. These were more of a hit than I could have imagined at the party. The kids loved this one!!

Creepy Carrots

AKA Carrots, Cauliflower, and Broccoli. This one was for the non-junk eaters (yes we have those!) It was super easy to do, and I used olives for the jack-o-lantern features. Done in a flash. We almost always have a veggie tray anyway, so it was crazy easy to just dump them in a pumpkin shape.

Zombie Eyes

AKA Grapes. That’s right. I just poured some grapes on a plate. The sign did the work.

And last but not least,

Pumpkin Skins

AKA Nacho Cheese Doritos. My 5 year old came up with this one and was so proud. I loved it. Another dump and go item with a clever name.

The Cake

My son requested a “pumpkin with sprinkles” for his birthday cake, so I delivered on that. This cake was incredibly easy to do. Read more here about how I put it together!

The food for your party does not have to be 100% homebaked and difficult. Planning a party is hard work, especially if it’s at your house that you’re trying to clean too! Feel free to use my food labels for personal use only! Hopefully they can make your party planning a little bit easier!

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