Matt and I are dating again. Yes, it’s official- we’re a couple. Ohhhh….cute….. I know, we were meant for each other. No, we are really enjoying a few hours a week to ourselves. I tell you, the weeks we miss that time… I feel its absence. It’s a time for regrouping and starting fresh. A time where we can really hear about each other’s week, not just the half-stories that we start but never get to finish. Am I the only one? This happens constantly- the start of some conversation that never, ever, ever gets finished because the phone rings, kids need help, etc…. and you mean to hear the rest but it just doesn’t happen.
I was reading this blog and came across the idea to have a weekly family date night. I loved the idea! We gave the kids a budget- $8 (we came up with that number because we have 8 people in our family). The only rule? No movies. Family date night could not be sitting on a couch together watching TV. Cayden had the first week. I was so excited to see what he would come up with!!
WEEK ONE: CAYDEN
Playing games as a family with popcorn. Not our home popped variety of popcorn either! He wanted movie theater microwave popcorn so Matt took him shopping.
The game- he made up his own version of Telestrations using notebooks. I had never heard of this game, but he’d played it with some neighbors at a New Years’ Eve party. It was so much fun!!! It’s like playing “Telephone”/”The Gossip Game” but with pictures! Even Dylan and Jackson had a fabuluous time! Matt loved it so much that he borrowed this game and played it with the class he teaches at the University of Phoenix. (It happened to relate really well with something that he had to teach in his next lesson, for reals, not just killing time or bribing students to make him their most favorite professor either, although I’m sure it put him there!) And now we own it for game nights to come 🙂 No pictures- sorry!
Cost: Popcorn
WEEK TWO: ASHLYN
Ashlyn decided to make up stations for her date night the following week
Lego Station
Arts and Crafts Station: Sand art and paper folding/cutting
Not Pictured: A Reading Station
Cost: $0
WEEK THREE: DYLAN
Dylan is in love with camping and the idea of camping. Since it is not camping weather he decided that we would roast s’mores in our backyard using the fire pit that Matt and Martin made.
Ashlyn, sporting her new book “Janitors” that she had the author sign. Can you just tell that Dylan is giddy to have planned this?!!
Matt and Cayden, stoking the fire
Ashlyn helping Alison roast a marshmallow
Cost: S’more supplies
WEEK FOUR: JACKSON
Jackson had his heart set on going to the Castle (Discovery) Park in Pleasant Grove, but as luck would have it… Saturday turned into a stormy day. He was so sad! We broke our cardinal “No TV on family date night” rule and watched Star Wars IV and ate popcorn with M&M’s sprinkled in it (Jackson’s favorite thing!) We had a great time and Jackson has been reenacting it ever since!
Cost: A bag of M&Ms
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