Last week, a friend of mine asked me what kinds of fun things I do with and for my family. I rattled several things off the top of my head, and she suggested I put it in a blog post. I pasted that list at the bottom of this post.
But first...here are some photos of one of those family fun ideas. We call it "Favorite Night." Every Tuesday it is someone's favorite night, and that person gets to choose the meal that I will cook that night. Siblings make creative cards with little notes for the special person.
The meal that was chosen for this week's Favorite Night was Walking Tacos. And if you've never heard of those, you're in for a fun treat! Walking Tacos are basically all the ingredients of a taco served inside of a bag of Doritos (hence, "walking tacos," as you can eat them while walking around...which we don't do!). We very rarely eat Doritos, so this is a treat for us. And also a treat is the fact that we don't use plates for this meal! Huge bonus for Mama and Daddy...less to clean up! And huge bonus for children...how cool is it to have a meal without a plate?! Instead, we set the table with large sheets of paper and some crayons at each person's place.
I line up all the ingredients of Walking Tacos so that I can make them assembly-line fashion. I open one bag of Doritos per person, and I take out 1/2 half of the chips and place them aside in a bowl (these will be used later if anyone wants a second helping). Crush the other half of the chips inside the bag. Then add all the ingredients of tacos or taco salad. We typically use: browned and spiced hamburger meat, chili beans, lettuce/spinach, tomatoes, cheese, black olives, salsa, and sour cream.
Meanwhile, as I'm assembling the Walking Tacos, little hands are kept very busy and happy coloring on the large sheets of paper on the table. These sheets will become their placemats and "plates" to catch any food that falls from their Doritos bags.
When the Walking Tacos are ready, they look something like this...
Each person takes a fork and stirs up the goodies in their bag, mixing everything together. This is big fun for the kiddos!
And then eat it right out of the bag! We use plastic forks for this meal, because metal forks tend to flip the bag over when you let go of it.
And for the younger ones who cannot manipulate the chips bag well...or for our little guys with sensory issues who may come unglued if their hand accidentally touches the squishy mixture on the insides of the bag of Doritos...we just dump everything into a bowl. Everyone is happy!
During the meal, we go around the table and tell the Favorite Night person one or two things we love about them. And they open up the cards and notes that siblings have made for them. This is always a very special time, as we get to build up one person with encouraging words of love. It's good to learn to give and receive, and this is always a special night for everyone involved.
We do a lot of laughing, and this one is our contagious giggler. These are the memories I always want them to recall when they think of family meal time.
The following is the list that I sent to my friend when she asked about what fun things we do.
* Hot chocolate during bath time in the winter (or lemonade in the summer)
* Packing a lunch and blanket for them to take into the woods for a picnic lunch (not in tick season!!) :)
* "Favorite Night" on Tuesday nights...one person gets to choose the meal (or dessert, depending on what we plan), and we go around the table and tell one thing we love about that person.
* Surprising them with setting up a board game in the middle of the table and playing a game during lunch (no greasy foods...learned that the hard way when grease got all over cards...better plan for sandwich days!). :)
* OH...this one if a favorite....ROAD TRIPS are super big fun for us! It's so much fun to explore a new place, eat at a local restaurant, buy a local book (usually a guide to whatever we visited), etc.
* Friday night movie night! This is a big one that they look forward to every Friday...eating pizza and watching a movie together. This is the night we get to drink Coke too (soda, pop, whatever you may call it…I grew up in Texas, and we call all sodas Coke). One child is in charge of doing drinks for every meal, and he loves to surprise everyone with a cherry in their drink every once in awhile.
* Leaving little notes somewhere where they will discover them during the day
* Surprising them with watermelon or popsicles while they are playing in the sprinklers
* Bringing them donuts every other Saturday...surprising them with what kinds I picked out (or letting one sibling choose what donuts they think each person would enjoy most...and we have a rule that the receiver of the donut must be thankful and not complain about whatever they get) :)
* Having a surprise planned (like going somewhere fun) and then springing it on the children right before we do it.
* Lunch in a restaurant after church on Sundays. Sometimes we'll follow it with a Sunday drive, where we choose a street we've never gone down and just follow it wherever it goes. Sundays are also the day Daddy does something alone with them while I nap with my kitty (some breathing time for Mama to get refreshed for the next week).
* Going to Sonic and letting them choose their own combination of drinks(one child is the king of crazy drinks like chocolate Sprite or watermelon Dr. Pepper!) :)
* Surprising them on a regular plain day by saying, "I was thinking........an ice cream cone at the ice cream parlor sounds really good, doesn't it?!" They squeal, go grab shoes and off we go to!
* Asking them if they'd like to surprise Daddy with hot fudge cake (or whatever) for dessert
* Surprising them with root beer floats
* Letting one child choose what music we will play during dinner
* Letting the child who sets the table choose some cloth napkins instead of paper ones
* Making "walking tacos" with Doritos bags as our "bowl"...on walking taco nights, I put a big blank coloring page at each person's place at the table and let them color while we eat our interesting meal
* A fun family vacation every couple of years, where we budget the money and then have fun exploring a new city and going to museums or other fun places. We let each child choose one thing they most want to do in that city, and we do those things. Usually, we have fairly modest meals but then we will splurge on a special dinner (on our last vacation, we had a seafood dinner near the Potomac River!)...something that is a real treat. Super fun family memories!
* And lots of fun things are free---picnics, drives through Civil War Battlefields, a walk along a river, a quiet fishing spot, play days with friends, rambling drives through new areas, hikes, audio books together as a family, etc.
* And lots of fun things are free---picnics, drives through Civil War Battlefields, a walk along a river, a quiet fishing spot, play days with friends, rambling drives through new areas, hikes, audio books together as a family, etc.
