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Family Night - Suggestions

crystalbella77

crystalbella77

Capture life and embrace it
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Sep 19, 2009
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Every Tuesday is family night in our household. The kids take turns picking movies or games (sometimes both if we can have a late night or early start) and usually some kind of tacos (though tonight is pizza cause that's what we have)

ANYWAYS....lol I feel like we have watched every kid friendly movie in the universe and tried every taco/Mexican food I can think of. Any suggestions for your fave recipes and family friendly movies?? Anyone else have any family night suggestions or traditions of your own?

ETA: my kids are 11, 9, 7 and then the baby is 1.5 :)
 
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our most favorite is taking the game to Wendy's. It is a hilarious evening, free refills, no clean up and memories that rock. We have done Trouble, and Yahtzee, as they are easy and quick, but oh so much fun.
When we were homeschooling we used to study an area in the world, pray for the people in that area all week, and then TOgether made a meal from that country...some epic fails, in which topramen was done after, but some are loved.
We also listen to books on cd (from our library) and everyone loves that I print out a few stacks of color pages, pull our crayons, pencils and markers...we don't have tv or watch movies at the house..so that is out for us. lol
 
You could have "make your own nachos" ... kids LOVE making their own nachos, at least my (grandlittles) do. Kinda like a decorate your own sugar cookie, or ice your own cinnamon roll type of thing. Depending on how old they are will determine how much "help" they need.

As for movies ... I don't know ... we've watched and re-watched and watched again and again everything you probably have. Madagascar is always a "default" fave when we can't decide on what to watch. We LOVE dancing along with the characters at the end! :) :)
 
My kids love to play pizza challenge. It's dinner and a game in one. Buy crust, sauce, and a bunch of toppings (say, 3 or 4 per kid) and put the toppings in bags or boxes so you can't see what they are and number them. Everyone draws numbers from a hat until all the toppings are assigned. Then you get a surprise pizza. I always split one pizza up so there are 1 or 2 slices per kid for the challenge and the rest of the pizza(s) are something we know we like. Some of the toppings are weird (like oatmeal or potato chips) and some aren't, so it's a big surprise what they end up with. This is also pretty much the only way I can get Princess Pickypants to try new foods, and it has actually worked in getting her to realize she likes more food than she thought. :)
 
We like to play card games, board games, and dice games. Even Mad libs. I know Sarah will be in with loads of games to choose from! She's excellent at giving advice!

Tickets to Ride, Monopoly, Catchphrase, Jenga, etc. Teach them Spades, lol!

What about card house building... with a deck of cards? Puzzles, Homemade Scavenger Hunts, Make your own Name That Tune, Photbooth Night, Family Fort Building, Craft Night...(make cards to send out to relatives), Animal Charades,

Food - Indoor Smores, Monkey Bread Making, Popcorn, Ice Cream Sundae Night, Eat backwards - eat dessert first, etc, Breakfast Night, Taco Bowls, Individual Pizza Making...

Work with the Movie Theme to give you ideas for the night. Pirates, Animals, etc.
 
We do make your own Pot Pies..
or Noodles with tons of different sauces is another favorite..
or build your own stir fry...

as for movies.. we try to do older movies from "our" childhood...to spice things up..
like pete the dragon.. or the black caldron
 
since I don't have to feed the grandkids everyday, I don't have any ideas for that, especially since you have already received a lot of good suggestions! One of the games my kids, and now grand kids like is SET. A new one they just got that is a favorite is Code Names. They like to get something to do "from the attic". I had saved some of my own kids toys, and had them in the attic. Getting them out was something they didn't have around all of the time, so they were fresh and new to them. My Little Ponies, playmobile, my legos :) Things like that. They got to play with them for the visit, then they went back to the attic. All of the games require reading though. One that was better for all ages is a richard scarry busytown "Eye found it" cooperative game. Everyone had to find things and age wasn't an advantage for it.
 
Some awesome ideas! My kids are all teens. We like breakfast for dinner. And like to watch movies from our childhood too. Not sure if yours are too young, but ET, Apollo 13, War Games...things like that were hits here.
 
We do the theme night sometimes. Like we will have soup for dinner and watch Ratatouille, or make pasta and watch Lady and the Tramp. I love the homeschool idea of Anne's and plan on implementing that next year with geography.

And when I can't decide what sounds good for dinner, I have gone online, checked out a restaurant menu or two, found something that sounded delicious and then made it at home. We have browned butter and Mizithra cheese pasta from Old Spaghetti Factory quite often. It's delicious. Cheesecake Factory is a great one to check out their menu because it's huge and varied! For Mexican, I check out the menu at On the Border.

For movie suggestions, I agree with those above! We pulled out Star Wars, Labyrinth, and Princess Bride recently. The 80's were great for family friendly movies.
 
Omelet bar, make your own pancake faces, build a rainbow meal , crepe bar. I like the idea of matching the food to the movie. My boys are currently into Titanic, Alvin and the Chipmunks Christmas, Lilo and Stitch, & Home. We do a math game of rolling dice & adding them quickly. You make a chart 2-12 & tally the results as you go along. The first person to roll all the numbers, wins.
 
When my husband travels, I usually make dinner an easy night and I take my kids to the grocery store and give them $5 a piece to find their own dinner. They love it. It's funny to see what they choose. It can add up if you have a lot of people doing it, but it might be fun to do every now and then (mine are 11 & 9)

We also love King of Tokyo and Ticket to Ride.
 
The kids loved the game Disney Scene It around that age. Clara (now 14) has resurrected it and plays it all of the time with her friends. Playing it might pique their interest in some of the old Disney movies that may not have seen.

Have you watched the National Treasure movies? My son (15) loved them when he was younger (the second one happened to be on ABC Family/Freeform tonight and he sat down and wanted to watch it with me :-) ).
 
You guys are awesome! I think part of the problem is that I am movie picky haha! I won't say some of the beloved classics that I just can't seem to enjoy so it ends up being quite a chore which I really really hate and try to just buck up, but I also want everyone to enjoy it :)

In case any of you guys are looking for ideas a few of our favorite games that we have played so much are apples to apples, Man Bites Dog (its a silly card game we picked up at WalMart one day) and Monopoly Millionaire (Not nearly as long as the original! thank goodness!). We taught the kids how to play Liar a few days ago and they have been getting a giggle out of that for sure!
 
Oh thanks for this thread! Some really great ideas and suggestions here!

Oh I love the idea of going theme-centric as @jk703 suggested. Building the entire night around your theme choice.

Fun fun!
 
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