#26 Playing Your Favorite Video Game With Your Kid

Kids love to play games and video games. Once your kid gets older and you can play together that's awesome!

Our son Valo likes to try playing NHL '11 already, but the controller is too large for his hands. But the iOS devices with swipe screen controls are great for playing together.

#25 Playing With Play-Doh

Play-doh or something similar is awesome to play with. You can easily shape animals of all kinds and from a very young age kids can do snakes even themselves and snakes are awesome. Play-doh or some other brand of non-toxic modeling compound is great to play with and not deadly even if you eat it. It contains a lot of salt so it is not good to eat lots of it. Keep it away from pets too, since they might think it's food.

You can also make Play-Doh yourself at home!
http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Make-Playdough-Play-doh/

#24 Making Funny Faces

Funny faces are awesome, so is making them.

A camera is great to have to take a look at the results. Even better if you have a camera that you can point towards yourself and see the viewfinder before snapping the photo. For us it is the iPhone 4 with the FaceTime camera that we use all the time for recording and learning new funny faces.

#23 Swinging

There is something just awesome about swinging back and forth in a swing. You can do this very early on as soon as the kid can sit properly and you have a baby seat in the swing that is secure.

This is also one of those joys of playing together that you won't be able to do together once the kid gets older. So enjoy it while you get the chance.

#21 Sliding Together

Sliding is an awesome feeling. Snowy hills, water slides or just kiddie slides. You don't have a long time window to get to slide together on most of these and especially in kiddie slides. Do it while you can, when the kid gets older he will not allow you to slide together, he wants to go solo. You are allowed a bit longer in the sled, but to kiddie slides.

#20 Feeding Fish

There is something awesome about fish and feeding them. A gold fish pond or tank or a fish hatchery are all great places to see big schools of fish and get to feed them. Make sure to use only food that is meant for the fish and tell the kid why fish don't eat e.g. smoothies or bananas...

#17 Sitting in a Police Car

Police cars, ambulances, fire trucks - all emergency vehicles that make loud noises and flashing lights are extremely cool.

It's even more awesome to get to sit in a real one. Of course only if the kid is there because he wants to and not because the police wants him to...

The driver's seat is the only place you would like to find your kid from in a police car

#15 Photo Shoots

We live in a visual world, human beings are visual. Digital cameras are great fun to have photo shoots with and look at the end results right away. Your kid will learn more about their own expressions and learn to enjoy posing.

Using the excuse of "let's take a picture of you doing X", where X is the choir or activity your kid wouldn't like to do just when it is needed like brushing teeth, eating, dressing up etc. is a perfect con to get them excited about the activity you want them to!

You can never take too many awesome pictures of every day situations and look at them and discuss.

#14 Feeding Animals

For some reason especially kids and grandmothers get a kick from feeding animals and pets.

Feeding dogs, goats, ducks etc. is awesome and the kids love it - if you make sure you are feeding the right food for their diet the animals will love it too.

#13 Sleigh Riding is Awesome

Riding downhill together or alone on a beautiful winter day is awesome. Kids are naturals as sliding down slopes etc. you just need to build their confidence and skill together for the height and slope so that they are always having fun and feeling secure. So better to ride together as long they think they need it, they will let you know once they want to go alone!

Sometimes sleigh is more convenient means to go around instead of stroller when there is a lot of snow.

When the kid gets a bit older you can graduate to steerable sleighs, downhill skis and snowboarding...

#11 Playing Kitchenware As Instruments

Pots and pans make awesome drums. Putting cling film on top of them allows to really build some cool sounding drums.

But some other undervalued kitchenware instruments include egg cutters that sound like harpsichords, glasses and bottles filled with water and singing to a broom as a microphone.

#10 Building Snowmen and Snowdogs

Proper winter is one of the awesome aspects of cold weather. For snow men and snow animals the weather needs to be just about 0 Celsius or 32 Fahrenheit to be able to work the snow and pack it into shapes that last.

Snowmen are an all time favorite, but snow animals are awesome too. Dogs are fun and easy to build, they're also not too big so it doesn't take long and the end result is hugging good.

Good clothes and especially good gloves make the process more enjoyable for all.

#8 Hugging Animals

Animals are awesome. Kids love them. Hugging animals, that are willing to be hugged is even more awesome.

Goats in petting zoos are a great target for hugging. Friendly dogs that like kids and are used to hugging are great too.

I'm sure there are several other animals that are awesome for hugging, but we haven't tried other than goats and dogs.

#7 Riding In A Carousel

Rides are awesome, carousels are the best rides to start with. Best to ride together at first and in a non-moving animal.

Later you can move to moving animals and more serious rides.

#6 Playing With Eye/Sun/etc. Glasses

Eyeglasses, sunglasses, safety glasses etc. are great fun and kids love to try them out.

Awesome fun guaranteed!

Awesome! And the 1000 awesome things to do with your kid

I am a father, have been since October 2008. We have a son who is now two years old and loves life and all the awesome things in it.

My son Valo is a bright and happy kid, who is into doing a lot of interesting, funny and sometimes crazy things. My wife Tuulikki and I do not follow any specific methodology of raising a kid - we just try to love, protect and support our son in his learning all the new and awesome things in life.

One day when we were looking at pictures about our latest holiday I started thinking that what were all the awesome things we did during it? I noticed how hard it is to remember all the things that happened just a couple of weeks ago - not to mention during the last two years.

That's when it hit me. To remember, relive and share, what better way than blog about it. I got the idea for the approach of "1000 awesome things..." from Neil Pasricha's original great blog 1000 Awesome Things.

I don't have a 1000 things written down yet, or maybe we haven't even done a 1000 awesome things yet - I haven't counted. But I do know that all the things that I will be writing about will be awesome, we know because we've done them with my son. You do need a kid or a playful friend or spouse to do them with, or some of the things are purely awesome even alone, give it a try.

I take no responsibility over any joy, fun, laughter, good times or the occasional tears or minor bumps and scratches that you or your kid might get from trying all the 1000 things in life that are awesome to do with your kid!