Family Night Fun

Well, we've finally gone and done it. We have managed to get a regular routine of having family night once a week on a regular basis. In our faith, it's encouraged to have "Family Home Evening" every Monday (or whenever you can fit it if Mondays just don't work). We've tried it on and off in the past and never gotten it to take off, but now it's really working.

Who knew an hour a week of real quality family time could be so exhausting and fun all at the same time!?!? I took cues from my friend, Tracey, and created a "Family Home Evening" book. We use it to guide us each week. One person gets to conduct our "meeting" by welcoming everyone, choosing someone to do a prayer, someone to read a scripture, someone to lead a song of their choice, someone to make a snack, someone to tell us what acts of kindness they've seen in our house over the week, and someone to do an activity (that may or may not have some sort of lesson hidden in it). We also use the book to write down all the important events that have happened over the week.

So far, the book has documented a science fair (Aiden got fifth place in the fifth grade out of 36 entries and CJ got 3 place in first grade out of not very many entries!), school plays, pinewood derby entries, Byron marking his ten year anniversary with his company, Liam having his tonsils out, and a whole variety of other silliness that was somehow important to the children or us.

Activities we've done so far have included making our own Valentine bags and then putting a note a day in each person's box for a week, making a care package for two missionaries, learning about money using pony beads as currency, and we spent one week brainstorming what we could do to help the family of a dear friend who had become critically ill. (She had a miraculous recovery, by the way, and is back home with her family now.)

I'm hoping to start adding pictures and details on a regular basis just from the silly things we do on Family Night. No matter what, there's no going back now. All the kids are addicted to their Monday night time with Mom and Dad and I'm pretty sure there would be some sort of ugly mutiny if we opted not to do it anymore. That said, I wouldn't want to give it up. I think there will be some amazing memories and laughter that comes from our weekly family night fun.

Family Fun Night-Pumkin Decorating

Pretty hard at work
Marlene's creation. I guess I see a resemblance

Number One's finished "arachnid" project

The albino pumpkin

A work in progress

Snort and his pipe cleaner

Getting ready for the fun to begin

Our cute little pumpkin family

left to right

Marlene, Beast, Pretty, Beast for Angela, Number One, The King, Snort, Little Guy

Do you see a resemblance?

Snort and Little Guy's pumpkins

Little Guy adoring his big brother, Number One!

More brotherly love. Don't be fooled, people. They just look innocent.

The King being a big goofball

I think Snort liked his pumpkin

The aftermath of Snort's hair and highchair after a yummy treat.

The King's pumpkin

Number One's arachnid pumpkin with the King's unibrow thingy.

A very proud Beast displaying his fine works of art.

Each Monday night, we try to spend time together as a family. Marlene usually joins us since it's just her on Monday nights, and we don't think anyone should spend family night alone. Sometimes our activity is a silly game, other times it's watching a church video on the internet, and at other times it's sitting around singing goofy songs. Either way, it's our little family and we have a really good time together.

This week, we decorated pumpkins. Number One usually breaks out if he gets pumpkin guts on himself, so I just got each person a little pumpkin (of their choice) and a bunch of crafting supplies. Then, I set everyone off to do their own thing. I helped Snort and Little Guy, (note the canula, hearing aids, and glasses) but the rest were all done by each person on their own.

Number One spent the most time on his. He wanted his albino pumpkin to be an arachnid. He was apparently feeling very detail-oriented that night. The Beast decorated his own pumpkin to look like...um...hmmm...something very special. When he was done with that, he made one for Angela. I promised her I'd e-mail her a copy. (I put in on facebook for her).

Pretty was very excited about using the raffia as hair. She spent most of her time trying to use two drops of glue to attach about fifty pounds of raffia. I'm most impressed by her unique placement of the googly eyes.

Snort was most interested in his one red pipe cleaner and the snacks. Who can really resist cookies and apple cider, right? Yum-O!

Little Guy spent most of the time in his jumping thing. He loves to bounce in that, and he was delighted that we pulled it up close to us so he could be part of the action, too. After things calmed down a little bit, you can see that Number One gave him a little affection, too.

The King made his pumpkin look like....some dude with a unibrow I guess? I think it was first inspired by Bert from Sesame Street and then became a creature all of its own. Being that this was Halloween, I'd say that's perfectly appropriate.

All in all, I'd say it was a great family night. And no one even got hurt or did something to get sent to jail or anything. Success!!!