Welcome to our Family Nights!

First off let me tell you a little about my family and I.  My husband and I have been married 18 years and have 3 wonderful kids: Alec (15), Zachary (13), and Emma (11). My husband is a pastor and I home school our children.  We have done Family Nights for a long time now and we love it!

Family Night came about because of a desire to bring our family together and have fun.  The problem was that I could not find any books or materials that had Family Night ideas just for fun. Don't get me wrong, there is a place for family devotions and learning times, but we wanted time just for goofing off and growing closer as a family. So since we couldn't find any resources, we decided to come up with our own Family Nights.

Our family set aside one night a week for our Family Night, in our case, Fridays.  We try and reserve this night just for our Family Night, but life happens (sports, youth group activities, etc) and we have to be flexible. Sometimes we have to change nights; other times we will skip a couple weeks.  When life gets hectic, we will just have pizza and a movie (recently we took a few weeks and watched the Avengers movie and all the movies relating to it for our Family Night). We rotate each week as to who is in charge.  Whose ever night it is, they have to come up with a theme and one or more activities. They also get to choose what to have for dinner and often our food even goes with the nights theme.  Sometimes we even dress up. Also, keep in mind the ages of your kids and what is appropriate at their age level.  When it is the kids' turn, they have to check in with mom or dad as to what they are going to do on their night. Our Family Night rule: No Complaining!!

Each week I will post a Family Night theme that we have done and maybe add some new things that we could have done or what I would have done differently.   You may even see some pictures that we have taken from time to time. Please feel free to use our ideas or adjust them to fit your family.  Even little ones can plan a night, with help from dad or mom. I hope this will inspire you to try a Family Night and maybe make it a tradition in your household.  If you have any questions or ideas you would like to share, please leave a comment.