Enjoying summer at home! (Essentials for entertaining or having a fun family night)

(This post sponsored by Walmart but all opinions are mine.)

I don’t know about you but we are soaking up the fleeting days of summer over here and wishing they wouldn’t end.  We are trying to maximize the outdoor fun whether that’s entertaining friends over or just enjoying a fun family night at home.  I love hosting friends and making family nights special so thought I would share some of my summer essentials for hosting or just having a fun family night.  

1. Games or activities

We love to play outdoor games and this Play Day Googly Toss Game was a new one we picked up on rollback at Walmart.  Super easy to set up and fun to play for all ages.  

There are so many good outdoor toys available and many are on rollback online!

My little girl got this tent set for her birthday and it’s a lot of fun to play with outside too! They have tents, chairs, lanterns, and more and comes in several different character sets.

2.  Of course you are going to need food at any kind of event and I find it so helpful to have a few of these folding white tables on hand.  I use them all the time for having in the yard for serving food or even adding an extra seating area and also hosting a yard sale.  They fold flat and then in half making them easy to store in a closet.  

3. Drink dispensers and serving pieces.  Walmart has some of the best outdoor entertaining serving pieces – I always love to see the new line they come out with each year.  Here’s some of their outdoor line.

A drink dispenser is a must – in fact when hosting friends I usually have 2 dispensers with either tea, lemonade, or water.  Linking several options here:

I also picked up this set of melamine dishes for eating outside – so cute and comes in several different colors. 

4. Ice cream!  It is hot and summer and it’s the easiest crowd favorite dessert to serve. 🙂  We recently grabbed this Rise by Dash Personal ice cream maker and tried it out.  You freeze the container so no ice and salt are required and it makes enough for 1-2 people so it was fun to let them customize their flavor.  Our family loves ice cream so I think we will need something bigger most of the time but I see this little maker being great for just making a quick bowl of ice cream or if someone had food allergies they could customize their own ice cream for their needs. 

5. Seating – we love these Adirondack chairs and use them year round!   Whether it’s extra seating for cookouts in the yard or for around the fire pit enjoying a fire during the fall and winter.  And we found a new use for them this summer – backyard movies!  

6. Host an outdoor movie with a projector!

We just recently grabbed a very basic outdoor projector and screen on a big Walmart sale and watching a movie outside in the backyard or up at the pool has become an instant hit!  I envision us doing this into the fall with a fire burning in the firepit – just so fun!! 

Our projector is a very basic RCA projector that came with a screen (out of stock currently) – we just plug the power cord into a small power inverter generator and use our firestick plugged into the projector to watch a movie (we can pick up our WIFI strong enough outside).  But there are many other options that are chargeable/portable, have wifi/Bluetooth capabilities,  and allow you to stream from your phone.    I linked several options with different budgets and capabilities below that all have good reviews.