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Sunday, August 24, 2008

Extended Family

FAMILY MOMENT MONDAY
Everyday we spent time with our family. We wake up with them, come home to them, spend our evenings with them; but even with all of that so called "family time" that we have everyday, we are still missing another important type of family bonding.... the extended family time.

Families start usually with a mom and dad. Soon they have their first bouncing baby and later more follow. Those babies grow up and go to college, get married, and have babies of their own. No matter where you fall in your family, as the parent, child, in-law, or grand child, you are still part of a larger family and need to remember that and make time for it.

It is important to invite the grandparents, uncles, aunts, and cousins over more; to have play dates, movie nights, or even just a crafting parties. It doesn't have to be a party or holiday every time the whole family gets together, heck it doesn't even need to be everyone. Cause I don't know about you, but it is a mad house when we all get together. So, if you are like me and find holidays are a mad house, then just invite the ladies over, have a few cousins over for a play date, or ask the grandparents over for dessert. Grandparents are always looking for an excuse to come over and love on their grandbabies.

Our children need uncles and aunts to make them laugh, cousins to be friends with, and grandparents to spoil them. So have a game night with your brother's family, or invite your sister-in-law over for a movie, or go on a double with with your brother and his wife, because when we spend time with our family it is always time well spent.

Please remember to add your link only if you are participating in Family Moment Monday. Family Moment Monday consists of people who are sharing crafts, activities, lessons, ideas, service projects or anything else that you can learn/do/enjoy as a family in your post. Please remember to link back to Motherhood For Dummies, so others can learn about F.M.M. and participate too.


19 comments:

  1. Love your family moments. I do need to take more of an initiative to invite the extended fam over once in awhile:)

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  2. I always enjoy getting together with extended family also.

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  3. It is always a blast when the whole family gets together!:) By the way that cake you posted looks delicious. I wish I lived near you so that I could "taste test" all the yummy things you make!!

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  4. I think it is so important for kids to have a relationship with their grandparents. Besides, you'll never find a group of more willing babysitters in the world! ;).

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  5. I agree 100%! We actually have extended family time with both our families each weekend. It's exhausting sometimes, but so worth it. I don't know what we'd do without them!

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  6. I agree, extended family is so important. Thanks for the reminder.

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  7. It has been nice living by family so we can do this now. This is something we used to take for granted but no longer!

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  8. So much fun! I love all of your ideas! I think I'm back on top of things, so come over and check out my FMM!

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  9. So true. Those family ties are so important. The love between family members is special. Everybody really benefits. I wrote a FMM too.

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  10. I wish I could...all my family lives in another state! :-(

    Hooray for those who can do that. I guess I'll just have to invite the extended honorary family members.

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  11. I love getting together with my brothers. I make sure that we do it about once a week so the kids have a chance to play with their uncles.

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  12. I couldn't agree more. My family gets together all the time, we are so close! Hardly a week goes by that I don't see my sisters and their families and my parents. In fact for holidays and special events, we usually also invite my grandma, aunts and uncles and even more extended family so that we often have four or five generations together!

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  13. This is so true. My parents had a brother each, both younger, so my oldest cousin is 11 years younger than I am. The youngest is 31 years younger. So we did NOT grow up with cousins to play with. It was a bit lonely at Christmas with just the three of us.
    I wish we lived closer to our families. As it is, they tend to expect us to go to them rather than coming to see us.

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  14. so very, very true.

    the bigger the better :)

    ps - i think our little loves are about the same age? beans will turn a year on october 18th. when is lucy's birthday?

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  15. I sure wish all of my family didn't live 12 hours away so we COULD get together more often!

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  16. I think extended-family time is very important as well! My father lives with us, and occasionally will play poker or something with the boys. The boys often go over to their grandparents house for special time also. It's really great. Plus, I love the idea of the "village" raising the child. The boys learn so much from their grandparents that we parents don't teach!

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  17. Great post and I totally agree. In fact, we have decided that my Dad's side of the family will not meet at holidays and instead, they are ALL coming to my house for a "reunion" in 2 weeks! We have also tried a girls day out in Dallas in December. Much fun.

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  18. Thanks for the reminder!
    So important!

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