Family Movie Night (and a Giveaway)
As you can imagine, this summer has been a little on the chaotic side for our family. Between flying straight to Vegas from vacation in the Outer Banks, to three weeks living with Bart’s sister, then six weeks with my parents, and now six weeks in Arizona, it’s definitely had a touch of the crazy.
Bart and I have made major efforts to keep the girls’ lives as calm and regular as possible during this time so that they don’t feel totally unmoored. They have regular nap and quiet times every afternoon, and they are in bed at 7 on the dot pretty much every night. We go to church on Sunday, visit the library and IKEA weekly, and have regular meals as a family.
And we also reinstated Friday Movie Nights once we were all back in the same house.
In my usual fashion, we’ve kept things very simple. I know myself well enough to realize that if I make it complicated, I’ll just quit, so it’s pretty streamlined.
We have (homemade) pizza for dinner, and then we have (not homemade) ice cream while we watch our movie.
Just before seven, we pause the movie, get both girls completely ready for bed and put Ani down. Then we finish the movie with Ella and she goes immediately to bed once the movie is finished (since she basically never stays up late, even by 7:45, she’s usually asking “how long until this movie is done?”).
Sometimes, if I’m feeling very nice (or I want to get things rolling earlier), we’ll let the girls eat on a picnic blanket and start the movie during dinner instead of waiting until after.
. . . a Poloraid camera with film, and a puzzle, a bottle, a book, a changing pad and the biggest box of styrofoam peanuts you’ve ever seen.
Pampers is giving away another identical gift basket with all those goodies to one reader. Yippee! (Also, save the box and peanuts – my girls have been playing in it daily for two weeks. We may be a little starved for toys around here).
We have a weekly pizza night at one of our local pizza joints. My husband did this with his Dad growing up and we started as soon as we had kids!
Weekly movie night. I'm going to follow your lead though and start the movie during dinner. Sometimes it goes a little later than this tired mommy wants.
On Sunday afternoons, my husband plays primary songs on his guitar and we all sing 🙂 on days that aren't Sunday we put "rockin'" songs on and have dance parties 🙂
The library weekly to get new books!
I love the idea of pizza and movies on Friday nights. We do a big breakfast on Sundays and then head to the farmer's market.
We do Thursday night breakfast for dinner, and Friday night dinner with my parents! I loooove the movie night idea though. Actually I think we need to start that ASAP!
I love our nightly routine of kisses and reading stories right before bed. It is always a great end to the day.
I love that every night, after family prayer, we all put our hands in the middle for a cheer and then have a big group hug. This is followed by everyone giving hugs and kisses and saying "I love you" to each person of our family. It's amazing how much it can bring little boys together after a day of craziness and some occasional fighting.
Have you ever posted a recipe for your homemade pizza? It looks absolutely delicious!!
We pretty well have our afternoon and evening routine set. We love when Daddy gets home!
Oh, we need to start this! And what a wonderful giveaway.
Dinner out on Friday nights, great way to kickoff the weekend!
Yep, pizza fridays. Though I should jump on the ice cream bandwagon. We're not that consistent in our ice cream eating. A fact which should be immediately remedied. (Also, it looks like you could use a new ice cream scoop.)
We have "Fun Food Friday". We are gluten free and dairy free (not by choice).On Fridays, we make our own versions of all the naughty food. This way, we still get to enjoy all the yumminess and don't feel like we are missing out.
I can actually use these things now! Hooray for baby giveaways!
We try to plan family trips or just hang out at home on weekends. During the summer its usually boating, fishing or swimming and then winter time we do movies and games with homemade hot cocoa and a fire in the fireplace.
We try to have homemade pizza every Friday!
Curious to know what designs you picked? Love picnic stuff, what a fun giveaway! Your girls are going to have so many fun memories! Love movie nights and homemade pizza! I still can't believe you get your girls down at 7?! I wish!!
Brunch on Saturdays and popcorn & apples for supper on Sunday night (momma is pooped!)
Ani's hair is just divine! I love it!
And I'm loyal to pampers sensitive wipes. As well as homemade pizza.