Spending Time With My Kids

What are some ways you spend time with your kids? Obviously there's fun activities that you can get out of your house to go and do. We have a fun museum here that the kids love to visit. I also enjoy taking the boys to Barnes and Noble. They love to play with the train table there and read a lot of different books. We have a magical toy store here that is so fun to go to and I also enjoy taking my kids to TCBY for a fun occasional treat. But as all of you moms know, getting out of the house is a lot of work and such a production so it's always nice to find ways to keep everyone entertained and having a good time at home.

Bennett loves toys. He doesn't care about the TV at all. He loves for me to get on the floor and play with him although he does a great job of keeping himself entertained too. Bennett enjoys toys that play music. He has a Little People pirate ship that he got for his birthday and he loves playing with it. He loves for me to pour blocks on the floor and build towers with him. He mostly enjoys knocking them down and he giggles so hard when they fall. Multiple times a day he brings me different Mickey Mouse figurines that we have and bobs his head which is his way of asking me to sing the Hot Dog song. It's so funny! We also have the Melissa and Doug cookie sheet toy (both of my boys love this toy) and he likes to hold a cookie up to my mouth and have me pretend like I'm eating it. He smacks his lips and says "Mmmm!!" and he just thinks it's great. Bennett is busy busy and goes from toy to toy all day long but if I get on the floor and play with a certain toy or object with him, he'll play with it until I stop.

I love to work puzzles with Campbell. We have a small play table in the playroom and we dump all of the pieces on there and work them together. Campbell is really great at puzzles and can do them himself but I usually get the outer edge put together and he fills in the middle. I also really enjoy playing with his Lego Duplos. The mess they make drives me nuts but I really have fun trying to come up with creative ways to build the Legos! He also has these fun wooden blocks that you can build cool castles out of and I think I enjoy building castles more than him! At the end of every day we read books in bed and I truly love it. Campbell has always loved reading books and I love reading them to him.
I don't want to leave you with the impression that I spend all day long playing with my kids because I don't! I'm usually doing stuff around the house while they play. However, I do try to carve out some time every day to get on the floor and play with my boys because I know it means so much to them. It's a way for us to create memories and it allows for wonderful teaching opportunities as well. I'm always happy when I spend quality time with them, playing with their toys vs staring at my phone, wasting time.
What about you? What are some ways that you enjoy spending time with your kids?

If you need some fun toy ideas these are some of our favorites that I talked about above!

Little People Pirate Ship // Melissa and Doug Cookies // B. Wooden Blocks