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I'm definitely keeping this one in mind.

Because no one has time to do these in December.

If it's not your thing, it's not your thing.

There's lots of cheering on involved!

Hint: it's a "wheelie good" family hobby.

Giant outdoor unicorn bowling, anyone?

It's always a hit.

Avoid the pre-party gift scramble.

My tips for hiking with little kids, including one game-changing secret weapon.

Fairy wands, glitter trails, special tooth pouches, and more!

3D blank canvases for your kids, right in your recycle bin.

Because who doesn’t love a good swing set?

This piece was created for Cubby, our weekly newsletter for families at home. Want more? Sign up here for a weekly splash of fun and good ideas for families with kids. Thanks to their natural curiosity, children are basically mini-scientists, constantly tinkering, observing, and creating. Exploring STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Math) methods through hands-on learning allows them to discover different concepts, while also having a lot of fun.

Minutes of set-up equals hours of fun (and learning)!

This Palm Springs paradise was surprisingly easy (and affordable).

Just a few simple steps — and some trusty products you can grab easily — turned this underused space into one we all love.

These fun new traditions are getting another spin this year.

You don't have to spend a lot of money OR time to get a show-stopping, IG-worthy group costume.

New popular characters, classic favorites, and adorable baby costumes ... we've got the best of the best!

From coloring rolls you can store in your bag all the way to Star Wars characters with a twist.

This piece was created for Cubby, our weekly newsletter for families at home. Want more? Sign up here for a weekly splash of fun and good ideas for families with kids. Join us over on Instagram for more! Before the pandemic, we always packed our schedules. We jammed the day full of playdates, visits to museums, and trips to somewhere local or far away, all before bedtime (and sometimes, way past it). We never wasted a single minute.

Nothing says back to school more than these bright essentials!

This piece was created for Cubby, our weekly newsletter for families at home. Want more? Sign up here for a weekly splash of fun and good ideas for families with kids. Join us over on Instagram for more! Summer is in full swing, and it’s too hot to think straight, let alone come up with creative activities for the kids. Allow me to introduce you to the easiest, most open-ended and sustainable activity in my toy closet: The Tinker Box.

When I had kids, I was told my longstanding relationship with hotels was over. So long, lavender-scented cold towels! Bye-bye, crisp sheets! See ya, infinity pool! Arrivederci, lobby bar of my dreams! It was nice knowing you. Based on the advice of many parents I know, vacation homes seemed to be the only option in the 2.0 version of my life. “When you have a family, it’s just easier with a kitchen, you’ll see,” they told me.

This piece was created for Cubby, our weekly newsletter for families at home. Want more? Sign up here for a weekly splash of fun and good ideas for families with kids. Join us over on Instagram for more! My earliest memories of getting presents all revolve around LEGOs. I still remember my very first sets: a tow truck, a family car, and a little road repair cart. Those initial gifts turned into a lifelong love of the plastic building bricks.

This piece was created for Cubby, our weekly newsletter for families at home. Want more? Sign up here for a weekly splash of fun and good ideas for families with kids. Join us over on Instagram for more! As adults, we only really get one day a year to dress up and play “make believe” without feeling totally out of place, right? The occasion is called Halloween, and it’s still months away … sigh.

This piece was created for Cubby, our weekly newsletter for families at home. Want more? Sign up here for a weekly splash of fun and good ideas for families with kids. Join us over on Instagram for more! Look: We’ve all had those days, when everything feels just, well, kinda terrible, often for no big reason at all.

This piece was created for Cubby, our weekly newsletter for families at home. Want more? Sign up here for a weekly splash of fun and good ideas for families with kids. Join us over on Instagram for more! Flashback fashion has been having a fierce renaissance in the last few years, and we’d be lying if we said we weren’t completely here for it.

This piece was created for Cubby, our weekly newsletter for families at home. Want more? Sign up here for a weekly splash of fun and good ideas for families with kids. We all want our kids to get outside and be active. We also long for those seemingly elusive toys that allow our kids to play while we sit back and relax. Enter: active toys with wheels.

This piece was created for Cubby, our weekly newsletter for families at home. Want more? Sign up here for a weekly splash of fun and good ideas for families with kids. To celebrate this beautiful month of Pride, Cubby editors rounded up a few of our favorite books with LGBTQ representation. Joyful, meaningful, complex, and utterly moving, each picture book helps shade in the many vibrant hues of the rainbow of identity.

This piece was created for Cubby, our weekly newsletter for families at home. Want more? Sign up here for a weekly splash of fun and good ideas for families with kids. The first blush of warm weather always feels like a rebirth to me, but with hope for the pandemic’s abatement on the horizon (huzzah!), I don’t think I’ve ever been more excited for summer.

This piece was created for Cubby, our weekly newsletter for families at home. Want more? Sign up here for a weekly splash of fun and good ideas for families with kids. My best memories of being on the road with my parents are the pit stops at gas stations. My mom would hand me a five-dollar bill ($10 if we were flush!) and let me go wild in the convenience store. Then I’d snack happily all the way to our destination, oblivious to the sea of crumbs and wrappers littering our backseat.

This piece was created for Cubby, our weekly newsletter for families at home. Want more? Sign up here for a weekly splash of fun and good ideas for families with kids. When we first started bathing our son in the regular tub instead of the bitsy infant one, he was so excited that he was allllllll over the place — pulling himself up here, bonking his head there. Add water to the mix and it was nothing short of terrifying.

This piece was created for Cubby, our weekly newsletter for families at home. Want more? Sign up here for a weekly splash of fun and good ideas for families with kids. We’ve all seen them: those idyllic scenes of children helping with the family garden on social media. Perhaps they are barefoot or wearing an adorably muddy pair of boots. There’s a close up of tiny hands holding colorful fresh laid eggs. A perfectly pastoral scene.

This piece was created for Cubby, our weekly newsletter for families at home. Want more? Sign up here for a weekly splash of fun and good ideas for families with kids. April means many things: spring gardening, warmer temperatures, and seemingly endless weeks of rain. After a punishing winter, I’m not going to bemoan the weather too much, but that doesn’t stop my 4-year-old from literally hanging upside down on the couch from soul-crushing ennui. (You think I’m being dramatic?

Sooner or later, we all have to learn how to tidy, at least if we want to be able to find our keys each morning and get along with a roommate or partner. But how do you teach kids to tidy—and maybe even enjoy it? As it turns out, there’s a cute board game that can help.Simply called “Tidy Up: Sort Around the House,” the game features a family of mice who live in a four-room house.

Playing games is more than just—wait for it—fun and games. That’s part of why board games and puzzles are experiencing a renaissance. They invite creative and strategic thinking, teamwork and cooperation, and of course, an opportunity to sit down and connect with other people—a welcome break from the usual Netflix/Hulu circuit. The hard part is actually picking out a game among a seemingly endless sea of options.