We decided a few months ago to make one night a week a "family fun night". We still have our regular Family Home Evening once a week, but we wanted to add an extra family night just for having fun. Life is so busy and the routine is so... well, "routine"... that we sometimes just don't stop enough to enjoy each other's company and just have FUN. We've found that Sunday works best to have our regular Family Home Evening since Blake travels the rest of the week, but he's almost always home on Sunday. Sunday just lends itself so naturally to more spiritual discussions anyway. So on Sunday we do our spiritual family lessons, scripture study, family council, stuff like that. Then one day during the week we do some kind of fun activity. That night can change depending on what's going on that week. Most of the activities we planned are cheap or even better - free. But hopefully they'll be fun and build family unity and make us laugh. So we planned on every week, but so far we haven't done them every week. Still, we're making an effort and are having some good, quality family time more often. So far we've had a Family Game Night, Chinese Jump Rope "lessons", and worked on a Family Service Project.
FAMILY GAME NIGHT
We spent an evening playing board games, had a family bowling tournament on the Wii, played Mario Kart, and ate ice cream. We all had a really fun time!
First, playing Connect 4.
Caleb had a ball playing Connect 4.
Eating ice cream:
Playing Mario Kart. MOM even played!! (I think Caleb is teething here. This made me laugh because he looks like it's a nail biting moment as he cheers on mom.)
Katie working really hard to stay on the track:
CHINESE JUMP ROPE:
I remember playing this as a kid ALL summer long. We loved Chinese jump rope! So I got the idea of getting a Chinese jump rope and teaching my kids how to play. We had a great time and laughed a lot. (Which I guess is the purpose of our family night's so now that I wrote that, I realize maybe we're having success.) I forgot to take pictures of the first Chinese jump rope night. These pictures are from the second time we played so Blake and Nathan aren't in them, but they did join us for one night. Also they're after Michael broke his leg so he didn't have as much fun. He loved the first night though... pre-broken leg. I highly recommend getting a Chinese jump rope (it was only $3 on Amazon) and playing it with your kids. Super fun, and even a bit of exercise.
Lydia trying to remember what comes next. (There are instructions on the package and on the internet if you don't know how to play.)
Michael helping Lydia with the "diamond" part. She couldn't get her feet out and jump at the same time so Michael picked her up. lol
I never got a picture of Elizabeth's face because she was too determined in her jumping. Here she is doing "twisty"
Caleb got in on the fun and held the rope. He mostly just enjoyed jumping and trying to step on the rope or climb under it.
You have to hold your tongue just right.
Not the best quality picture, but I thought this was such a cool picture. Look how high Anna got off the ground!
FAMILY SERVICE PROJECT:
We made snack bags for a local center. They basically help local families within our school district by providing assistance with food, clothing, school supplies and holiday assistance. They have a small food pantry. We decorated bags and filled them with snacks for kids to eat after school when their parents work or for school breaks when no parent is home.
Getting started:
Let the decorating begin!
Caleb was very serious about putting stickers on his bag:
After decorating the bags (and getting in pjs to avoid later chaos), they helped fill the bags. We filled each bag with: peanut butter crackers, granola bars, juice boxes, and a mini candy bar. (And there just so happened to be extra candy bars left over that mysteriously disappeared over the next 3 days. Remind me never to buy a giant size bag of chocolate at Costco - they're too bad to have around me!)
Filling bags (oh and Elizabeth put her pjs on backwards on purpose. She has a lot of interesting fashion statements.)
I had all the kids pick out their favorite bag that they decorated and took a picture of each kid to show off their creation:
Caleb didn't care about bags - he just wanted to play cars:
We later took the bags to the Service Center. I had the kids bring them in to hand deliver them so they could see where they were going and feel a part of the project. The girls just carried a bag each while my big muscly boys hefted the boxes for me. It was SUPER windy.
Anna was really touched after hearing about kids who didn't have enough money to buy food or have snacks. She was also really proud and happy to help:
It was a great family project because it was something that they all could do - even the little ones. And they were really impressed when they learned where the bags were going and what they were going to be used for. When we delivered them, I had one of the ladies there explain to the kids how their agency worked. She said something about these bags going to kids who wouldn't otherwise have snacks. Anna was shocked to learn that some kids don't have snacks and was really worried for them. All the kids felt a sense of accomplishment and were proud to give other kids snacks (probably since their lives include LOTS of snacks!)
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