Pirate & MERMAID Family Reunion Theme

Posted on October 29, 2019 by Aunt Mo

Ahoy there, Pirates and Mermaids! We’ve just completed a major overhaul of our pirate family reunion package and now it’s a Pirate & MERMAID Family Reunion. This reunion theme package is now perfect for everyone that attends your family reunion.

The Pirate and Mermaid reunion is for everyone who has ever dreamed of sailing or swimming in the seven seas in search of excitement and adventure. This reunion includes everything the Pirate Themed reunion has plus tons of Mermaid printables and ideas. It’s a treasure chest full of step by step instructions, templates and printables to help you plan a family reunion.

Pirates and Mermaids are so popular right now and there is no shortage of swashbuckling fun with this family reunion theme. Use the over 50 pages of pirate games, decorations, activities and good things to eat to help your family set sail to their favorite Mermaid lagoon or Pirate cove. Your families’ eyes will be filled with visions of gold and jewels as they discover the real treasure in life is family.

You can find the Mermaid and Pirate family reunion theme package here

https://familyreunionhelper.com/products/products.php?ProductID=33

Our Favorite Halloween Treat

Posted on October 15, 2019 by Aunt Mo

Peanut butter Eyeballs!

We love peanut butter eyeballs. My daughter found the recipe several years ago and it has since been a Halloween family favorite. The little kids in our family like them because they’re kinda scary, Grandma likes them because they don’t look very realistic and everyone likes them because they’re delicious! The saying, “bet you can’t eat just one!” certainly applies to these delicious treats.

What you will need:

2 cups confectioners’ sugar, divided
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
3 tablespoons butter, softened
1/2 pound white candy coating (in small pieces) or white chocolate chips
24 milk chocolate M&M’s
1 tablespoon water
1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon red food coloring

Directions

Mix together 1 cup of the confectioners’ sugar, peanut butter and butter. Roll into 1-in. balls; place on a waxed paper-lined pan. Chill for 30 minutes or until firm.
In a microwave, melt white candy coating; stir until smooth. Dip balls in coating; allow excess to drip off. Place on waxed paper. Immediately top of each eyeball with an M and M to make the pupil.

Make squiggly lines to make the eyeballs look “bloodshot”.

Makes about 2 dozen eyeballs.

Jelly Bean Bracelets Ice Breaker

Posted on October 8, 2019 by Aunt Mo

Ice breakers for all kids

Whether planning a family reunion or party, I always like to provide an activity that gives family members an activity to do while waiting for the organized activities to begin. For instance, in the Caveman reunion, reunion goers decorated dinosaur sugar cookies. This is a great way to get family members reconnect with each other and shouldn’t require hands on attention from the reunion planner.

Here are fun idea that fit the bill-

Jelly Bean Bracelets

What could be better then jewelry you can eat?

Purchase lots of bags of Jelly beans (Try buying these at after Easter sales), sewing needles, Jewelry cord that is stretchy and scissors.

Cut the jewelry cord about 7″ long. Tie knots about 1 inch from the bottom of the cord. Thread the cord through the sewing needle. Tip- be sure the the cord you use will fit through the eye of the needle.

Push the needle through the center of each jelly bean to thread them, then push them down to the bottom of the cord. Continue to add jelly beans, about 15- 20 depending on your wrist size, until the bracelet is long enough. When your bracelet is long enough, tie the two ends together securely using several knots.

Tip: If the needle gets sticky give it a quick cleaning with baby wipes to clean off your needle.

Working on this project will kids talking and help them get reacquainted. I think you’ll be surprised at the fun color combination your family will come up with. Have I mentioned that this is a fun idea for your Easter celebration?

How to Light Up Your Family Reunion

Posted on October 1, 2019 by Aunt Mo

Or… how to say reunion thank yous with candy light bulbs

My son is an electrician and for his birthday my daughter came up with these cute light bulb favors for everyone that came to his party. It was the perfect idea for an electrician’s birthday but I couldn’t help but think about how to use these bulbs for a family reunion.

We purchased our “light bulbs” from Amazon. Follow this link- https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00X66WJBI/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1They are about a dollar a piece. We filled them with Skittles candies. It was kind of a pain separating the candy into different colors but it looked cute when we were done. I liked how the yellow ones looked best so if I ever did this again I would probably fill them with Lemonhead candies.

Although I haven’t used this idea for a family reunion, though I will, here are some ideas I came up with:

If you have a contest and want to give a prize to the person that gets the most answers correct, you could say, “You’re the BRIGHTEST bulb in the box”.

To say thank you-

Thanks for sharing your BRIGHT ideas.

Thanks for being a LIGHT to our family.

You LIGHT up my life! Thanks for all your help with our family reunion.

Thanks for making our family reunion BRIGHTER

Encouragement-

Be BRIGHT share your LIGHT

You’re future is looking BRIGHT

Let your LIGHT so SHINE

I’m sure there’s a lot of ideas out there- if you have one you’d like to share, please comment and let us know. SHINE on!

Pudding Painting

Posted on September 23, 2019 by Aunt Mo

The delicious way to paint.

What can I say- pudding painting is a very messy, very fun activity. It’s perfect for days that you have planned a water slide or sprinkle under the trampoline activity because it makes clean up super easy!

The first time I did pudding painting was in the 80’s when I had a cousins party for all my nieces and nephews and they still talk about how fun it was. Most recently, I had a pudding painting party with my grandkids and they had a ball.

There are a couple of ways you can do pudding painting. You can mix up your own pudding (vanilla is great because you can add food coloring to make different colors) or you can buy the already made puddings in the single serving containers.

This was an activity I did outside on a table covered with a plastic table cloth. I gave each child a large sheet of paper (like teachers use on their bulletin boards) and let them paint away.

Over the years I have found that some children do not like getting their hands messy so I like to provide other “tools” for them to use. Things like spatulas and larger paint brushes work well.

When kids are done painting you can let their paintings dry in the sun and if you have planned a water activity,they’ll be all cleaned up in a splish and a splash.

Campfire Cookies

Posted on September 9, 2019 by Aunt Mo

An Easy to Make Treat for Your Camping Family Reunion

One side of our family always goes camping for our family reunions and when I saw a photo of these campfire cookies I just knew we needed to add them to our reunion schedule.

Begin by frosting a sugar cookie with green frosting. Crush 2 snack size Oreo cookies on top of the frosting to resemble dirt.

Add 3 unwrapped Tootsie Roll candies for logs and cut up red, yellow and orange gummy candies to resemble fire.

Put 3 mini marshmallows on the ends of 3 pretzel sticks. Place sticks on each cookie in a pyramid shape over the campfire, making sure the marshmallows touch at the top.

For added fun, take a lighter and run it over the marshmallows to give them a roasted look!

Family Reunion Helper Is Having a Sale!

Posted on September 7, 2019 by Aunt Mo

We’re celebrating the surviving the family reunion season off by offering 20% off our reunion theme packages.

Yay, we did it! The “official” family reunion season has come to an end and we survived! To celebrate, FAMILY REUNION HELPER IS HAVING A SALE IN THEIR ETSY SHOP! Follow the link below to receive 20% off any reunion theme package.This even includes the wildly popular Family Reunion Brag Badges! But hurry, sale ends September 15th, 2020 .

https://www.etsy.com/shop/FamilyReunionHelper…

Goose Chase- an App for Reunion Fun

Posted on September 2, 2019 by Aunt Mo

A Scavenger Hunt for Your Family Reunion

At our back to school faculty meeting we played a game using the Goose Chase app. The entire time we were playing the game I kept thinking how fun this game would be for a family reunion- and I couldn’t wait to share it with you.

Here’s how it works. GooseChase is basically a scavenger hunt. You go to the Goose Chase website where you build your game. You give your game a name and can also set how long the game will run and whether there’s a password to join.

Each GooseChase game has a list of missions for participants to complete. You can create your mission list using their bank of 100+ tested missions or by designing your own from scratch.

Missions have a name, description, point value and an optional link or photo to provide extra information. To complete a mission, select it from the list and follow the instructions to receive the allotted points. Our team had 6 people in it and we piled into a car and drove around to complete our challenges. With real-time activity feeds and rankings, you’re able to see everything as it happens. At the end of the game we were able to watch a slideshow of all the photos & videos which was a ton of fun.

“GooseChase got people moving around, talking to each other and laughing. If I have any reservations about GooseChase it is the cost. It may be out of the reach for some family reunions and church groups but they do have an educational license for schools etc. and there is a free version if you only have 3 teams.

You can read more about GooseChase at GooseChase.

Flour War

Posted on August 27, 2019 by Aunt Mo

Flour Fight Festival for your family reunion

I’ve seen a lot of fun group games but when I was invited to participate in a “Flour” war I was totally blown away- almost literally. I had never seen such a thing but it was sure a good time for everyone that participated.

Here’s how it works. First thing is to make your flour “bombs”. Use small popcorn bags and fill them with flour. Twist the end tightly on each bag but don’t tie or tape it closed. You will want to make lots and lots of these.

At the beginning of the game, put all of the flour bombs on the dividing line between the two teams. Have players line up on their side equal distances from the dividing line.

When someone yells “go,” all players can make a run for the flour bombs and grab as many as they can. Then it becomes like Dodge Ball. Players throw their flour bombs to the opposing team. When you run out of flour bomb just pick up more from the ground.

The white marks left by the flour bombs will help settle disputes as to whether someone was hit or not. (Wearing dark shirts is recommended).

You might want to make rules about hoarding flour bombs, and remind teams that all hits must be below the neck. In most games, if you get hit you are out of the game but when throwing flour bombs everyone stays in the game and when the flour is all gone everyone lines up and awards can be given for the most flour and the least etc.

Image result for els enfarinats

Flour wars is actually a real thing. For 200 years a battle has taken place in Ibi, Alicante, Spain. Not fought with swords or guns, but with flour and eggs. Every year on December 28^th the town celebrates Els Enfarinats, better known as the Flour Fight Festival. This is Spain’s version of April Fool’s Day. At the end of the day there is a massive food fight, complete with fire crackers, to commemorate the day. I’m not sure I could handle the egg part of that competition but if Spain is part of your heritage it might be fun to share this information with your family.

And most importantly, the flour will disappear within 10 minutes of your battle but please be good stewards of the environment by picking up all the discharged bombs- paper popcorn bags..

Pancake Bar

Posted on August 20, 2019 by Aunt Mo

Pancake Party- a delicious way to feed your family.

Pancake bars are easy to put together and can easily be customized to your family’s needs. The toppings are limited only by your imagination and the pancake recipe can be your favorite store brand or a family favorite recipe.

I’ve hosted a couple of pancake bars over the years, and it’s one of my favorite ways to celebrate pretty much anything. Christmas, neighborhood get-togethers, church functions, birthdays and fund raisers or sleepovers. It can also be a pretty inexpensive way to do breakfast at a family reunion.

You can cook your pancakes on the spot or make a big batch of pancakes ahead of time. Just be sure to let your precooked pancakes cool then stack them between sheets of parchment paper and freeze them for later. When you’re ready to use your premade pancakes you can reheat the pancakes in the oven, microwave or Dutch oven.

I like to serve a variety of toppings with plenty of options for those that are eating healthy and for those that like to to make the craziest looking pancake they can.

The most popular item on my pancake bar is the spray whipping cream. When planning your pancake bar, you can really just think ice cream sundaes and that will help you come up with some fun toppings. Here’s some of our favorites:

Butter
Peanut Butter
Nutella
Honey
Yogurt
Fruits such as peaches, blueberries, strawberries, and sliced bananas.
M & M’s
Crushed butterfingers
Toasted nuts
Gummy Bears
Sweetened shredded coconut
Sprinkles
Mini Marshmallows
Mini chocolate chips
Whipped cream
Syrups such as Maple, Cinnamon, Raspberry of Strawberry
Hershey’s syrup

You can serve your pancakes alone (which is what I like to do) or add a side of bacon,, sausage or eggs. Either way, everyone can find something to love on a pancake bar and no one should go away hungry.

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