EvY at HomE: July 2023

Monday, July 17, 2023

Mom's Summer Backyard Essentials

Welcome to our home and backyard during the summer! My mom play heaven (more on that later) is away and now it's time for the Kid Kingdom. I used all the stuff we had from last year with some purchases to make my life and summer duties easier and decided to share with you all my summer wisdom for backyard kid things.

Here's my recommended items to save your back and sanity. If I indicate a brand it's because I am serious about it and it's tried and true and don't settle for anything less. Mom's honor.

Don't mess around and cheap out on a junky hose or nozzle. Finally invested in a good one this year that doesn't annoy me to death by its weight and cumbersome nature. This is helpful year round with watering plants and rinsing off of backyard furniture so do yourself a favor and get a Zero G Hose at least 50 feet in length.

Then get one of these Orbit $16 hose nozzles at Lowe's. See how the trigger is on the front? Anything else is bullshit.

Ok next: water guns. Gone are the days of that tiny little hole to fill water guns that takes 5 minutes only to be used up in 10 seconds. Get you one of these X-Shot Fast Fill ones that fill up in ONE second. Get a 4 pack so the kids can cool each other (and the adults) off.

Parenthood will involve a lot of blowing up of shit. Pools, balls, airbeds... save your lungs!

Speaking of blowing up of things... ball pump. This one came with some set but I love it 'cause it's compact and the needle stores into the top part of the pump to keep it safe.

This summer I put all their bubble stuff together including the accumulation of so many freaking bubble wands from every holiday and birthday party! The kids began this game on their own of making bubble potions and bubble babies and who knows what and keeping them together is great self-service backyard fun.

I also put all the balls and outdoor toys here easily accessible for backyard play and seeing it there encourages them to do it!

The laundry room is the room you first enter from the backyard and becomes our dumping ground for all things backyard that we want to keep OUT of the sun so we have a beach bag with their swimsuits.

On the shelf I repurposed that metal bin to house the three Thermacells we have, the chlorine for the kid pool, and the sunblock. For now the sunblock is on the shelf since we use it frequently but eventually it will all be stored in that bin.