Do any of you have a family night

b&bsmom wrote: We are having family night tonight. It has been awhile and I would like to do it once a week. Do any of you have family night? What do you do? I am hoping to play a game or two and maybe go for a walk if the weather holds up. I am hoping to do something starting when school is out where once a week we go to the park, mini golf, movies, just small trips as a family and do a lot together. I feel this year got away from us and we did not adjust well. I want to get my family close again. We have started the kids made puppy mailboxes ( from the Big Yellow Box party) and we now leave notes to each other. They love checking their mail. Looking for other suggestions to keep family close. Thanks !!!

kit_kats_mom replied: We don't have a night specifically dedicated to the family but at thier ages, pretty much the whole world revolves around them anyway. LOL

Mainly we eat dinners together everynight. DH comes home for lunch at least 3 days a week to eat lunch with us too. If the weather is nice we take a walk together after dinner or we go to the park or for a swim. And my favorite which I hardly ever miss is storytime. All 4 of us pile into Katherines bed talk about our days, have a kiss & hug fest and read 3 books. I treasure that the most.

ediep replied: we are the same as Cary in the sense that my entire day revolves around Jay and when DH gets home from work, his evening is all about Jay.

When he is older I really want to have family night where we do fun things, have a fun dinner, and play games or go somewhere fun

gr33n3y3z replied: we play games or go bowling ,walking or just going for a ride
Its what ever we as a group decides

coasterqueen replied: At this age every night is family night. We cook and sit down to dinner together. We clean up dinner together (sort of, lol). We play together and do bedtime together. Same for breakfast too. And DH and I eat lunch together almost every day.

We have one night a week that we almost always go out to eat though, but that's it.

I'm sure as they get older we'll have some sort of family night.

CantWait replied: We have one at least once a month. It consists of a game, or movie, and lots of junk food.

5littleladies replied: Monday night is our family movie night. The girls take turns picking out a movie (We've had Star Wars for a couple of weeks-I'm sure Bri is excited for her turn ) and we pop some popcorn or have some ice cream, and we all snuggle up on the couch together.

ashtonsmama replied: We have a "Mommy and Daddy watch TV and snuggle with Baby" night.

We can't really get out much with him, but we usually just snuggle together on the couch with lots of blankies by the fire, or watch a movie while he falls asleep, that type of thing. I know, SO EXCITING.

luvmykids replied: We don't yet because of their age but I plan on it, and we did when I was a kid. It was every other Friday and the only rule was no phone calls and no one other than family. We played games, ping pong, bowled, watched movies, sometimes we even did work like painting a room or something. The point was just knowing it was just us.

AlexsPajamaMama replied: We have family time every night. My rule is no answering the phone during dinner time. We talk about our day, even Alex now tells his Dad what we did during the day. And after bath time we hang out in Alex's room and read and/or play toys. He loves having both mommy and daddy in his room to play!

DH and I never really had organized family time growing up so it is important to us to make sure we take the time now that we are parents and make it a routine to have family time even as alex (and any other kids we may have) grows up.

My3LilMonkeys replied: We do our family time on weekends because during the week I am gone before the girls get up and DH gets home after they go to bed. Like many others said, at this age it's all about the girls but we try to spend some time together with all 4 of us on the weekends. Usually Saturday mornings when the girls get up I bring them into the bedroom and we turn on cartoons and play while DH is waking up.

b&bsmom replied: Well we did family night tonight. It was so nice. We went outside and played parachute after dinner, then we did a little baseball. We came in and played the Money Money game and then the kids got baths we made ice cream sundaes and then we read stories and they went to bed. It was so nice. Thanks for all the ideas!!

Brias3 replied: This is something I wish we would have maintained in my family as us kids grew older because looking back, I so treasure those memories. Nowadays, every night seems to be family night for us. We'll all eat dinner together and have a bedtime ritual that is special to everyone. Besides, when my husband's home, we'll plan more "special" activities- like the zoo or a movie or other things outside the house and have a family fun day. We'll also usually go out to eat together 1-2 times a week. I do want to continue having a family day when the kids are older.

~~*Missi*~~ replied: Usually since Sabrina is only18months we have "family night" everytime daddy has off, so family day. We make a point for chris to try to be home at night for her bed time so that we can put her down together when she gets older i hope we can add more into it...
missi

C&K*s Mommie replied: As time permits with Chris' schedule, we try to have good QT with the kids on nights he gets off, & I am out of school. On Wed, if he takes that day off after all, we go out to Chuck E Cheese, or the mall or play in the pool, or something as a family. Lots of snuggling, and great QT.

The same for Sunday when he has that day off without a doubt. We may go to a friends house to eat with them, some of his co-workers have parties every Sunday, and we may venture out there every now and again. Beach weather is here again, so we are going to try to get out to the beach at night/evening more often with the kiddos. The flea market after church is another, we used to do. Maybe lounging around with the kids being lazy.

Anything to spend more QT with them.

holley79 replied: Usually on the weekends that we would have Brandon we would have "family" day. We would go to the Zoo, Flea Market, play board games or something along those lines. Now that my work weekends fall on Brandon's weekends, not to mention he is fixing to be 18 and hanging out with us isn't cool, we don't do it as often. As Annika gets older we will deifantly have "date" night with her. I am also hoping to have another position to where I am hope for dinner and we can have a sit down dinner together on a nightly basis.

luvmykids replied:
That reminded me, a friend of mine and her DH would get all dressed up and take the kids out to eat, this was when they were a little older, they wanted to model the way they expected their kids to treat/be treated by the other sex. "Date" night was when Daddy explained about treating ladies with respect, etc and mom talked about how to be a lady .... not that you can't do that every day at home, but the "date" seemed to be a fun way for the kids to kind of practice it.

Also, sometimes we get McD's and instead of eating there on the playground we go to the park for a little picnic.