Wondering what Mommy Homework is??? Each week you will have an “assignment” here to share in our comments here on this site. You will love this-both sharing AND enjoying answers by others. Some of them, I compile into an ebook (contributors can resell as a product of their own–be sure to submit your email and full name when you register so I can credit you appropriately!).
The result is AWESOME!
We get to know each other…we are encouraged in our journey…and we glean super ideas from other great moms!
Ready for this week’s MH? This is a good one!
Our topic this week is “Cozy Family Times!”
Your Assignment This Week…
My crew is gathered here in the family room for a movie night. So, this topic is completely complimentary to what we are doing tonight. We have the Christmas tree lights on (my soldier is still home until tomorrow and we are milking the holidays as long as we can!), comfy quilts, munchies, and even the puppy who has gone through cuddling with each of us. 🙂
There are many things that we can do in our lives, but so few things go with us all of our lives. The stuff does not stick. Maybe I am just getting older, but seriously, I just do not remember a bunch of the details from “stuff” through the years. I DO remember the family times. Those are my treasures. They are the treasures that I consider to be my REAL wealth here on this earth. God has blessed us with the fullness of many, many cozy family times through the years. What a blessed gal I am! How about you?
I want a fun Mommy Homework Assignment for this week. I would like to get a glimpse into all of your homes. Share the things that you do AS A FAMILY. What do your family times look like? What are your favorite things to do as a family? Share away! That is your Mommy Homework for this week. Oh! And…do something special every day this week! Make memories!
Ready? Just grab yourself a big cup of tea…or hot chocolate…or a latte and brainstorm on this one. I can’t wait to read these! Dig in!
Love ya!
Cindy
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Deadline–Friday at midnight CST.
hmm.. we do just about everything together…
one of our favorite things is to go to the $2 theater, whenever something decent is there, we go!
Also we have occassional family movie nights, which are nice, mellow, relaxed…
we have mealtimes together, pretty much all the time..
I really would like to develop more memorable traditions, so i’ll be eagerly watching this thread!!!
We are always on the lookout for things that don’t cost a lot of money. The bigger your family the more money and that can get expensive. We live across the street from the beach so it’s like a giant playground there. We will fish or make sandcastles, collect shells and sea glass. We also just like to chill out and make popcorn and watch an old movie. We have a fire pit outside so in the colder months( I won’t say winter as we live in Florida and there isn’t much of one.) we will put a fire in the fire pit and roast marshmallows my husband might play the guitar and that sort of thing. We have Tomohawks and Knives that we throw at our homemade target. We get really competitive at this. Even my 3 and 6 year olds get in on the act.(with supervision of course!) We only have a 1/2 acre in this little beach town but we try to make the most of it.
I can’t wait to see what everyone else does for “family” time.
Hugs.
Kim Wilson
I really like the making memories part. I reminds me of the older mother speaking to her workaholic son in the movie “The Christmas Shoes”.
Our family spends alot of time together, but unfortunately it’s more idle time than not. We haven’t worked our creative juices enough to find out what’s fun to do around town (or the neighboring city).
We really enjoy ourselves though when the childrens’ sports seasons are in swing. We laugh much more during those time.
Spending productive time together with each other is a goal that I am more than willing to work on. I think that I will challenge myself to post on my blog each week what our family has done outside of the home, or special (deliberate) memories that we make inside the home.
We always try to eat dinner together- with the exception of once in awhile mom or dad will be gone for something.
We watch movies, play video games, play board or card games. We have gone outside in the snow and built a snowman. In the summer and fall we have had bonfires.
For Christmas this year we took the days of Advent and each day we did something different as a family. Some activities were crafty, some were service oriented and all but a few were free. We haven’t had an income for a couple years now so we don’t do presents anymore, but we can spend time together and be with each other.
Here is the list-
Nov. 30- decorate the tree
1st play board games as a family
2nd make edible gifts for the birds
3rd make paper snowflakes (we hung these on the front door and windows)
4th write a letter to a US soldier
5th buy and deliver gifts for the military over seas
6th take treats to the local fire or police department
7th celebrate Daniel’s birthday
8th play video games together as a family
9th make Christmas cards for people in a nursing home
10th sleep in living room by the Christmas tree (this will be only the kids as I will be 8 1/2 months along and Dan’s back wont let him sleep on a couch all night!)
11th share with each other what you appreciate about each person in the family
12th have breakfast for dinner
13th make gift tags
14th deliver Christmas cards to the nursing home
15th take canned goods to the food center
16th take cookies to the neighbors
17th drink eggnog and eat cookies
18th drive around looking at Christmas lights
19th read Christmas stories together as a family
20th play in the snow as a family
21st go Christmas caroling (our church does this each year)
22nd make Christmas ornaments
23rd watch a Christmas movie and eat popcorn
24th go to the Christmas Eve service at church
25th go visit relatives
Now, it never snowed enough to play outside, so we had to improvise. Dh secretly took a bunch of newspaper to our room and crumpled it into balls, then when it was time to do our activity we moved the couches so we could hide behind them, split into teams and had an indoor paper snowball fight. The kids had a blast!
Kate
One of our favorite cozy family times is curling up on the sofas and recliners and the floor watching a good movie, eating popcorn! Sometimes it’s a classic black and white, ’50’s Sci-Fi (which causes snickers and giggles), or maybe something newer. We’ve also enjoyed curling up and reading books together, while eating popcorn. One of my favorite times was reading the Little House Series. Sometimes we read by oil lamps! My kids (8 years later) still ask for “stacks” – pancakes layered in butter and brown sugar! Yum!! We love playing games together…each child got a board game for Christmas (6 new games to play!) Of course we eat popcorn while playing (we limit the butter on game nights!) As the kids get older (18, 16, 14,14, 10, 8) and busier we have to plan for these nights it seems, but it’s worth the effort. It makes me sad when all of aren’t together for these events, but I’m learning (slowly) to accept that they are growing up! These are some of the memories that make up our lives.
We enjoy family times together.
Every night Dad plays one of his different kinds of guitars.
He has written a special song for each of us and we like that.
We have Bible time. We just finished Genesis & decided to begin Revelation.
My boys still like for me to read to them. Esp. `Little House series`
We are still reading Christmas stories and throwing in the winter stories. Their going through some blizzards right now.
We like discussing Creation Science. On Monday we begin Creation Astronomy. Looking forward to it. `W` begins dissecting with Dad. Uh, sorry..not for me.
HAPPY 2009,
Michelle Fitzgerald
We will sit together as I read to the kids. The girls usually will be knitting or crocheting and the boys will quietly be playing with legos or cuddling up next to me.
We also like to play board games together but we are limited because of the number of people in our house compared to the number of players per game (we have 8). We do curl up and watch movies together and my husband takes my children occasionally on night hikes in our woods when we have a full moon (they LOVE that).
Our small group decided one time to try and come up with ideas for family nights, and someone brought this list of 101 ideas — and then we added a few. We’ve still not gotten to some of them five years later! But it’s a great list to springboard from when Mom’s not feeling very creative…(like right now as I sit here typing one handed because I broke my elbow a few days ago!)
1. Visit the zoo.
2. Find out about your area’s community center and/or park activities.
3. Wash the dog. (A neighbor’s dog if you don’t have one!)
4. Have a family slumber party.
5. Build a fort.
6. Get out the family photo album.
7. Research your family history.
8. Visit the library.
9. Play stickball.
10. Play hopscotch.
11. Play games.
12. Clean the house together (Have a pick-up party.)
13. Make up a play. Take it to a nursing home.
14. Fly kites.
15. Go on a family trip/historical excursion.
16. Did it snow? Go sledding and make a snowman.
17. Make a collage out of pictures from old magazines.
18. Set up a lemonade stand on a warm day.
19. Shoot hoops together. Play H.O.R.S.E.
20. Draw pictures of members of your family.
21. Make a family calendar.
22. Tell stories around a campfire. (Or at the barbecue?)
23. Organize a game of capture the flag.
24. Make miniature boats and float them in some water.
25. Write letters to grandparents or a missionary.
26. Play freeze-tag.
27. Tell scary stories (With lights out.)
28. Play broom ball.
29. Go for a hike.
30. Go for a bike ride together.
31. Go get ice cream and walk around the temple grounds.
32. Learn to play the guitar together.
33. Listen to classical music, lights off, lying on the floor, and take turns saying what it sounds like.
34. Attend community concerts or listen to a local band.
35. Organize a community clean-up.
36. Go ice skating or roller skating.
37. Paint a picture, a mural or a room.
38. Learn how to use a compass.
39. Plant a tree or some flowers.
40. Learn the metric system.
41. Learn sign language.
42. Learn the Morse code.
43. Go swimming.
44. Go bird watching.
45. Walk the dog. (A neighbor’s dog if you don’t have one!)
46. Visit the countryside.
47. Visit the City. (Maybe on a bus?)
48. Pick berries/fruit together
49. Bake cookies or bread.
50. Make homemade jam.
51. Take treats to neighbors or friends.
52. Plant a garden.
53. Start a family choir.
54. Start a family journal.
55. Go to a museum.
56. Take a nature hike trail.
57. Play cards.
58. Start a family exercise group.
59. Sing (in the car).
60. Visit a local bookstore.
61. Make crafts together. Give them away.
62. Make Christmas ornaments together.
63. Write a story together.
64. Put a sleeping bag out in the back yard and watch the night sky through binoculars.
65. Go fishing.
66. Play touch football.
67. Have a culture night. Make a meal and learn about another culture.
68. Take photographs.
69. Invite friends over. Cook chinese.
70. Do yard work together.
71. Play Frisbee.
72. Make your own family cards for the holidays or birthdays.
73. Play chess, bridge or checkers.
74. Go camping.
75. Go for a long walk.
76. Play charades.
77. Do a rain dance.
78. Go around the table after dinner and have everyone say what they love best about each other.
79. Go dancing. Have a family dance. Take a dance class together.
80. Climb a tree.
81. Watch the sunset. Watch the sunrise. Figure out when the sun will rise and set in your location.
82. Have a big party and celebrate a TV free week.
83. Have a picnic. (If it’s raining, have a picnic in the family room on a blanket.)
84. Invite a non-member family over for a barbecue.
85. Memorize a Scripture together.
86. Memorize a family hymn.
87. Learn how to fold the American Flag (or your country’s flag). Have a patriotic night. Have a flag ceremony.
88. Visit and elder person or someone shut in.
89. Have a first-aid night. Invite other families. Call the fire department for a class.
90. Learn what to do if you are lost.
91. Have a budgeting class. Save for a family trip.
92. Learn how to build a fire and the cook hot dogs and enjoy.
93. Have an etiquette night. Practice your skills over a formal dinner.
94. Talk about drugs. Do role-playing.
95. Have a friend come and discuss good nutrition and health practices. (They don’t listen to mom).
96. Learn home repairs for an activity. Make sure the girls learn too.
97. Interview an older family member.
98. Start a family collection. (coins, rocks, stories, dress-up, clothes, treasures).
99. Have a family testimony meeting.
100. Have a bubble blowing contest.
101. Do bubbles outside. Try different instruments.
102. Have a baking contest
103. Adopt a grandma or grandpa from church.
104. Have a family fireside
105. Watch an old movie (maybe a western) together.
106. Make a family goal chart.
107. Have a service car wash.
108. Learn to play golf together.
109. Go miniature golfing.
110. Make a grocery list, set a budget, divide items, go get pizza with the money you save.
111. Make a family cook book.
112. Have a family treasure hunt.
113. Have a family dance. Everyone can bring partners.
114. Solve a crossword or wordsearch puzzle together.
Hi,
What a good question to think about as I’m organizing and strategizing for 2009!
First, I have to jump on the snuggle and watch a movie bandwagon. We are blessed that my husband can sometimes borrow the projector from work. We’ll pick a great classic or fun IMAX movie, bring out blankets, snacks, pillows, and watch the movie on our big living room wall. Some nights we play a board game together while waiting for dark.
Also, we love to go on nature hikes together. Of course, that means my husband and I have to remember to take our eyes off the to-do list and take a day to just get out and relax. We live in the northern Colorado foothills, so we have tons of choices for difficulty level, scenery, etc. This is one of my favorite things about living in Colorado. We can go into Rocky Mountain National Park to hike around water falls or beaver lake. We can go to the alpine level and see snow – sometimes even mountain goats! – in July. We can go up and down local canyons to cross big wide open areas or pick a winding forest trail that crosses over small streams. It’s an amazing feeling as we all unwind, breathe deep, work together to get everyone through the harder trails, an observe the majesty of God’s creation. My 8yo almost always ends up commenting on how many colors God can make:o) Thinking about this, I’ve really got to schedule more hikes this year.
Last of the big memory makers would be our road trips. Several times a year we like to pile into the car and set out to spend a day traveling and visiting somewhere. We live near old mines, old west forts, museums, farms, Celestial Seasonings, candy factories, parks, buffalo dude ranches — can I just say we love living out west !?! Sometimes we spring for a hotel so we can go a bit further and add swimming to the fun. Other times the memories are unexpected. Take for instance the time my youngest (then 2yo) got sick in her car seat in literally the middle of nowhere Wyoming on our way to Fort Laramie. While we were pulled over, two wonderful soldiers on their way to a training camp out there pulled over to help. The poor younger soldier turned a few shades of green when he realized the problem was NOT a simple mechanical one! They couldn’t really help much but it was so nice to see these honorable men stop to help our distressed family. I don’t think any of us will forget that morning!
And now, I’m off for the last day of vacation to make some more memories!
Bobbi Beeson
We live in a small town and have 3 young children- sometimes we feel like all we have is family to “play” with so we spend lots of fun family times together. We do almost everything as a family but our favorites are..
Fires in the fireplace inside and outside (roast hot dogs and marshmallows)
Dinner every night together
Reading storybooks
Playing board games
Bible Time
Science experiments
Wrestling and Tickling
Hiking in the woods
Asking trivia questions or reading an interesting fact book together
Going to the park
Walks around the block at a 1 year old pace…
Fun times and looking forward to more ideas. God bless!
Wow ladies. This lists are awesome. I don’t think mine will compare but I thought I would contribute.
We have a lot of fun as a family. I do think this is an area that we need to work on. I think one of you ladies said that we as parents need to let go of our to do list to be able to enjoy our family fun time.
Things we enjoy as a family are:
*Playing games together. Right now we are really enjoying Uno attack that our oldest daughter got for Christmas
*We love to go camping together. Those weeks in the woods just us, no tv, no phones, no interruptions are priceless.
*During the summer we like to go for bike rides and see how many deer we can see.
*In the winter we really enjoy going sledding.
*We have 3 wheelers and like to take time to pull the kids behind them during the winter also
*We always eat dinner together as a family.
*Snuggle time with a good movie is a great time.
That is all I can think of right now. I am looking forward to see what everyone else posts.
Jenni Schafran
Things we enjoy..we enjoy our Bible reading time that we do at the dinner table at night. Now that our kids are getting older, they are becoming more interactive. They ask questions, and give the passages thought.
One family outing that we always enjoy, is going to Dairy Queen. It’s probably not the healthiest thing to do, but it will be a memory for my kids when they are grown. When we go, we usually take up the whole large booth. Daddy grabs an auto trader to look at with the boys, and we enjoy talking about the events that took place during that day. Then we all leave shivering cold from eating our ice cream.
Ali Telfer
We also love to watch movies together or play games – especially when we have families/friends from church over. We have a dollar theater at the mall and whenever there’s a movie we all want to see we go and sometimes we take the kids friends with as well. There are a few occasions when we’ll spend more for a movie, but most of the time we get them on netflix.
A few times during the winter months (we live in northern FL so they go when it’s cool out) Don takes our 4 kids paintballing with the neighbor kids and they have a blast. They all have their own paintball equipment and are able to play for free on the air force base that we live close to.
We also go camping once in March and another time in October. We go to a state park on the Gulf of Mexico and have made so many great memories there.
In the summer we love going to the beach or pool and usually spend a few weeks visiting our family in Upper Michigan. This will be the 2nd winter vacation that we’ll be taking up there as well and we plan to play in the snow and go sledding like we did last January. Another thing we all do when we go to the grandparents home is play pool in their basement and sing karaoke. Well, the kids do all that and I just watch. 🙂 We also ride the 4 wheelers with family and friends up there. We have 3 wheelers and mini bikes at our home and go some Sundays for long rides.
Some Sundays after church we go to Ci Ci’s Pizza. Sometimes we go alone and other times we’re with friends. It’s always a great time. We like to eat, laugh, talk and just enjoy being together. We’re never in a hurry when we go there.
Don spends alot of time working on projects with Steven who is 17. When Steven is at work Don gets the girls to help him. Our youngest loves that the most. When they’re out working in the garage I go visit for a while and bring them water or hot cocoa to drink depending on the weather.
We also try to do reading at night. As the kids have gotten older, it’s been harder to be consistent with it – and many nights my reading puts Don to sleep on the couch, but we enjoy it as much as possible.
Katie Anderson
As a family we do just about everything together. Our son is 9 and in remission from Leukemia, so we try to as much as we can to make him feel special after going through chemo every week. We almost alwayls eat super together unless I get the rare chance to work. We enjoy movies and TV together. Tonight we started a new tradition of reading from our son’s Keys for Kids devotional book and the bible when daddy gets home from work. Someone metioned about being the only people to play together, that’s our family, even though we live in a town of over a million people, too many people are so involved in their own lives they can’t take time for others. That is a hard one for my son to swallow. We are also starting to enjoy playing games together now that our son is older, card games to board games. Family is sooo important,,I need to keep focused and not let computer time take away from my son and husband, especially during the day when dad is at work.
Have a blessed day
Barb
My husband and I use to love to go to his Aunt Helen and Uncle Eric’s house. Aunt Helen was always cooking something wonderful and we would go to a little fish place to get smoked fish to eat with special crackers.
Anyway, they had a wonderful, huge dining table with comfortable chairs to sit in. Long after the meal was over, we would continue to talk into the night about whatever happened to be on our minds at the time.
My husband and I decided then that we would have a huge dining table with comfortable chairs if we didn’t have another stick of furniture in the house. And it has come true! The table wasn’t cheap, but it has been worth every penny we spent on it.
We have spent many happy, laughing, crying, comforting hours at that table with our children and friends and hope to have many more!
Thanks for letting me share,
Robin Mureiko
We try to spend time each week together doing something as a family. We do the movie time with munchies a lot. But we also play games together. When we want to make it really special we break out the goodies to eat while we play game after game. We can spend hours playing game after game. It is a really good thing we have over 40 games in our house.
One thing that we have started doing it having a family “party”. This last year it was for the Lord of the Rings. On September 29 (Bilbo and Frodo’s Birthday) we got out the movies and all the special treats that we don’t normally get to have and watched the movies from start to finish. It was so much fun to take a break and spend the whole day doing something special together. We are thinking of doing it again in May for the Star Wars Movies. (Big Fans Here)
My husband and i fell in love over movies so that is a bedrock element in our house.
Movies and games.
Angela Martinez
Our favorite family times include going for walks, going to the local park and playing frisbee and watching the squirrels, having picnics (inside or out!), making special desserts together, reading, playing games. The kids love to slide in the winter and spend time listening to Grampa’s stories or him playing the guitar and singing funny old songs.
Thanks for sharing your lists! Vicki
In the winter we have game night (my kids are 4 and 7 so they are just getting into all the “fun” games). We love to play Uno, card games, put and take, all dice games, dominoes plus the traditional board games. We also do movie night (we love the Lord of the Rings series and have taken a whole day to watch them. We have also done this for the Star Wars series) on movie night we have snacks (gotta have snacks with movies). In the summer we do family hikes (we hike our area metroparks) and take a picnic lunch or dinner, we do family bike rides (the fave of the kids is our family bike ride to a local diner for breakfast) we also have a firepit that we roast marshmallows, hot dogs, etc over . We also like to golf as a family (ds is getting pretty good at it). Can’t forget swimming in our pool esp good after a long hot bike ride or a long walk with the dog.
I love this question! My family is my everything. A lot of our friends are more concerned with their lives, or their spouses, than their family as a whole. Such a shame.
My husbands work schedule takes him away over night a lot. So when he is home, we relish our time with our family. We chose family time over just about anything else. We will watch a movie together, read together, play nintendo together and our favorite it probably Go Fish together. My girls are only 5 and 7, so we have started this tradition early and at least one, but many times several nights a week are family nights, or for that matter days.
God blessed us with this family and we do everything we can to honor that blessing.
Thanks,
Shannon Depew
I have to admit that we sometimes struggle with family time as my husband doesn’t always want to ‘waste’ time on some activities the boys and I might pick out. We try very hard to have one night each week to be together. Since the boys are not teenagers begging to hang out with friends on the weekend, it is usually Friday or Saturday night we do things as a family. I love reading all the suggestions here as so far we are stuck in the rut of movie night or game night.
We do dinner together as a family most nights and also attend church as a family (though this is becoming difficult since I’m more active in music ministry right now.) Sometimes we do go to a museum or other site as a family as well.
One thing that my husband does with the boys (but usually not me) is walking along the river bank and bay. They love it, and while I sometimes feel guilty about not going with them each time I realize he’s giving me a break for a bit.
Laura O’Neill
We enjoy snuggling and watching a fire outside in the winter. My kids love to lite a fire! and make smores.
We also enjoy our family devotion time after dinner. The question and answer time is the best! Even my littles get in on it. We love my 4 year olds random answers.
We enjoy a long drive around the island, just taking in the sights. We will sometimes stop at the beach for a nice play.
Of course movie night with popcorn and hot cocoa is always a favorite in our house.
Heidi Jo Kemp
Since my husband works from home and we homeschool, everything is together time. We love taking trips to the local Children’s Museum (MIL gave us a membership for son’s birthday last year). We also watch TV together (mostly so I can monitor what the boys watch). But my favorite Cozy activities are getting ready for bed. The boys each pick out a letter book to read, we count our blessing , say our prayer (the boys are learning “Now I lay me down to sleep”), and then we sing a song or two… (I see the Moon and Amazing Grace are favorites for the boys). Some days I wish we didn’t spend all the time together but then I think I would miss them if they weren’t here.
Cariann
I’m enjoying reading other’s ideas and I’m sure our traditions will grow as our family does. Definitely some very creative families here.
We love eating dinner together.
We live in upstate NY, so we don’t walk much in the winter but we really enjoy our walks as a family. We have walked to all sorts of places, usually at least several times a week. A Sunday afternoon tradition is to take long walks. Sometimes we walk to the coffeehouse for muffins and juice and then walk down the Main Street with it. Sometimes we walk to a local gazebo where we watch and feed the ducks. We also like to walk to a local fast food place for ice cream. Another favorite is a larger cemetery where there is a lot of wildlife to observe.
Another favorite is game night. WIth our preschooler we enjoy Go Fish, Candyland, War, Guess Who? and memory.
In the summer we regularly walk to the playgrounds. We buy a children’s museum pass each year and enjoy museum going together. We also have Sunday night family time. We all gather in the bed read stories, sing, play games and snuggle.
I look forward to starting new traditions as my children get older.
Julia Reffner
We are always looking for new and fun family activities — we really enjoy family times!
Some things we do that we love are:
* movie nights (complete with popcorn of course 😉 )
* “book parties” where the kids get to pick their favorite books to read with Mommy or Daddy
* trips to the park (we live in the inner-city, so we don’t have much place to play where we live)
* picnics on the living room floor – the kids love when we spread out the picnic blanket.
Over the holidays, we enjoyed going for drives in the evening and looking at the Christmas lights and decorations.
One thing I’m starting (slowly) is a tea time with my kiddos — I’m trying to do this at least one afternoon a week. Surprisingly, my 4-year-old son is the one who asks when our next tea time will be . . . probably because he likes the treats we have 🙂
This is one of the harder ones for me to answer because it seems like right now, we are rarely together as a family, although that is something I would definitely like to change in 2009. We have two “pairs” of children close in age with a big gap, so its sometimes hard to appeal to the bigs and the littles at the same time. And there’s a LOT of squabbling that goes on when we’re all together too, unfortunately :(.
We do enjoy movie nights with popcorn or ice cream. Games are tough, again, with the age difference. We’re working on getting more active as a family and doing some hiking, at least as much as the four year old can keep up with.
Last night we were ALMOST all together (hubby’s away on business) and the weather was nasty, so I went out & collected a few of our favorite comfort foods and we snuggled down to a movie. In the end, we weren’t all actually watching — the two little ones were gigling their heads off on the floor while my oldest & I were each on the sofa on our laptops and my other daughter was in the kitchen making snacks — but it FELT together, if that makes sense!
Wish I could think of more… and hoping to get some new ideas reading this thread!
Cari
We really try and do family things all the time. I think that family time is above all.
We sit down, regularly, to have movie nights.
We sit down, nightly, to have supper together. We really try to not have our evening meal without all of us there.
We ice skate together on our dam, weather permitting.
We ride ATV’s together for family entertainment.
We go camping in the summer.
Julie Bertsch
Family Time,
When my son was little, Daddy time was not to be invaded by mom. My husband was active duty and gone a lot. So when Daddy would come home, Nathan would pick his Father Son day. We would pick a family day as well. No school, no chores, no cooking etc. Nathan is all grown up and has just finished 6 years of active duty and is getting ready to take on 4-6 years of college and 4 years of active Reserves/Guard duty.
Amanda on the other hand is only 12. She is a different child than Nathan, with her own ideas as to what constitutes Family time. She wants to shop for electronics, new programs for her laptop and the mac (my husband loves that). She demands Father daughter time. Literally demands it. In addition to that she loves her horses, making jewlery, soap, candles, cooking,shops like crazy for her pets things. So family time revolves around some of what we do for our hobbies and school. We are also involved with BARF. (Bay Area Renaissance Festival. )
Family time hmm well pretty much each day holds some aspect of family time. Even if it is just watching a T.V. show or participating in our hobbies together.
Lisa Robinson
Linda Sprague
I like this question. Makes me feel warm and fuzzy just thinking about the family times.
We have 2 girls, 5 and 2 and we snuggle together on the couch every evening. It really seems to help them unwind and relax before bedtime.
We read together every day. We just started chapter books (Little House series).
We don’t have a television, but once a month we get movies from the library for the girls. We blow up a large air mattress to make a big bed in the living room and have snacks.
We live in a small town with no mail boxes. Everyone has a P.O. box, so we walk to the post office every mail day. It is so amazing if I can slow myself down enough to see what my children see on a simple walk in town. We have been on hands and knees checking out moss in cracks in the sidewalk. We lay down on our backs and watch the limbs against the sky.
The girls favorite thing is prayer time. Before we eat and bedtime we each take turns praying about whatever we’d like to discuss with Jesus.
Linda
We live in the woods and we make a fire and sit around it and talk or make s’mores. We also like to play Apples to Apples together. It is such a fun game!
Well we got a Wii for Christmas so our new Family Time thing is playing it together. I have discovered muscles that I didn’t know I had before from playing Boxing, what a workout!!! We have fun bowling and playing tennis all in the confort of our Living Room and for free!!!
Even the little kids can play, it is fun watching my 4 year old bowl and my 2 and 4 year old box. They are soooo cute!
Praise the Lord for Families and Family Time!
Lori
During the winter, we’re generally snuggled up together watching TV or movies. My youngest son likes to snuggle with Daddy on his recliner. Quite often they snuggle down so well they both fall asleep. 😀 My oldest son has grown out of his “snuggling” phase, but I sure do miss it!
During the summer, we like to go camping and spend a lot of time cozy-ing up around the campfire. There’s nothing like a campfire to bring a family together, not just for physical nourishment but also spiritual nourishment. Camping really is one of our favorite family activities.
Occasionally we’ll play games together, but my boys aren’t always good sports when they lose, so we’re working on that. The more we can do together as a family, the better I like it.
One of our favorite family times the last couple of years has been exploring amish country. My hubby has Tuesdays off and in Shipshewana, IN there is a big flea market that is opne on Tuesdays in the summer. We have made a habit of going there and just enjoying wandering the booths and seeing the sites, we have also visited the others stores and a cheese factory. Each time we go we hear about something else we should check out, so we add it to our list. The kids enjoy it and looking is always free!
In the winter we have a tradition of starting Christmas on Halloween, we don’t celebrate Halloween in our house so we have made a tradition out of getting out our Christmas movies and special christmasy snacks and watching our first movie of the season on Christmas eve. It is a special time of just being together without all the rush and bother when it gets closer to the holidays, although movie nights have to continue well into January because we have a christmas movie collection that is well over 60 different movies now!!!
My birthday is January 8th and the tree always stays up til at least then, so Christmas gets stretched out and allows for a more relaxed holiday!
We love family nights. My husband is in collegiate ministry so during the school year our nights are really busy. We have really enjoyed the last three weeks and getting some family time together. We enjoy Monopoly together and my toddler plays with the extra pieces and cards. We also enjoy baking together as well as movie and pizza night.
Some of our favorite memory times are bed times when we get to pray together, read good books and sing hymns together. This is not always all of us together as the toddler is usually asleep first.
We have made lots of memories with our children this last month. We have played games, made Christmas crafts and made fudge and cookies too. Lots of relaxing time and enjoying playing together. Enjoy your family and love them every minute.
In His Abounding Grace,
Jeniver Boyer
We have a movie night Friday nights–usually. We have 2 favorite dinners we rotate between for this night. We set up a table for the children and eat in the living room. Depending upon what is planned for the day, we have a big breakfast on Saturday mornings–eggs, pancakes, etc. If it has been awhile since a Saturday big breakfast, we have it for supper one day during the week. We have been trying to have a time of reading to the children each evening after dinner and before bed. We don’t always have the time, but we try.
Blessings!
Hillary in Indiana
We have a different type of “cozy” around our house due to having our family split up at this point. Since our oldest has been out of our home the past 7 yrs we have had to learn to have our “cozy” times with him in a different way. But I can still remember how I would snuggle up with our oldest (8 yrs) in my big rocker and read stories, or go to the different parks in the area we were living at that time and play together, play all kind of games on the floor or turn a story tape on and listen to that. We even loved going to different Southern Gospel Concerts with him. Since he has been gone we have changed that to writing every morning and evening to each other on the computer, Daddy calling him on the phone every Sunday night and enjoying a few minutes together when we get to visit him every 6 months by taking him out for a meal and talking.
Time with our two younger children (6 and 9) have been spent going to the park, playing outside together with a ball, the swings or many other games that we make up. We love to crowd into our living room and watch a good movie together, reading the Bible or books, playing games, doing puzzles, or making up our own stories, drawing pictures for Mommy to put into a book later on. Probably the favorite time we spend is looking through pictures of when we were little and listen to the kids laugh about them.
We love being together as a family and since the extended family has rejected us this year our family is growing closer together. Believe me when you are turned away from those you love you come closer to those that you care so much about in your main family and try everything to draw them closer to you and to God.
I’m looking forward to being able to draw closer to our oldest and find new ways to “be cozy” with him and continue to come up with “cozy” ideas for my darling husband and two children at home.
May God richly bless all of you with this new year!
Orilla Crider
Our favorite family times are when there is no t.v. and we spend time playing games and just enjoying each other. We love board games! I love to see my kids excitement when they play one of the classic board games like Monopoly or Sorry or Uno. We even pull out games for large groups when we are together with extended family. Domino and card games are great fun. It is a lot more fun to interact with each other than to vegetate in front of a movie!
In our family we pray every night together just before bed. That is our every night tradition. On Sunday evenings we will watch a family movie, eat popcorn followed by ice cream and enjoy ourselves. That is a tradition carried over from my family. My dad always made the popcorn on Sunday nights. I have good memories and would like my boys to have good memories of Sunday nights when they are my age.
Now that it is winter we try to go sledding every once in awhile. My husband takes the boys ice fishing Personally I can’t see the benefit in freezing with no guarantee you will catch anything, but the boys LOVE it and that’s all that matters.
In the spring, summer and mostly fall time we light a fire in the fire pit out back. The boys roast hot dogs and marshmallows. We also try to do some type of yard work as a family in the summer time, like gardening or taking care of the yard.
I am hoping when the boys are older (the oldest is 7 now) we can have a family “band” and play music. I think that will be a great memory for all of us.
Karen Gebes
We love family times too. I have now got some more awesome ideas from all these great entry’s to add to our list.
Our favourite times are spent around our dining table or snuggled up on the couch. As a family we love to have dip and munchies night.
I make a couple of big platters up with all sorts of nibbles and dips, lot of veggie sticks and crackers, cheese and salami’s etc.
We don’t eat dinner on these nights. We play card or board games. Our favourite at the moment is Phase 10. (in fact we played it all afternoon today) and we have just discovered Mexican Train Dominoes so once we can get out of here on a vacation and buy a set I am sure that will become the latest popular game with us.
We spend time together, chatting playing, eating of course and just relaxing in fun.
Our other time we like together is occasionally watching a show on antiques or house renovation or gardening shows. We restrict what is watched in our home and these have become the favourite ones to watch. All the children especially love the cooking shows.
Christmas has been a wonderful time of memory making this year. We have a lot on in December already with 3 birthdays and a wedding anniversary so it’s already a jam packed month.
This year I did a daily prompt Christmas Scrapbook journal which the children had a lot of input on so that has made another wonderful memory time that we will be able to look back on in the future.
We eat dinner together almost every night, and our favorite thing is to listen to past Adventures in Odyssey episodes … sometimes we end up spending the rest of the evening listening to several in a row (I have to try to load the dishwasher really quietly LOL!)
Another thing we like to do in the wintertime is sit around the fire, either doing a read-aloud, or each of us reading our own thing, but just being together. And don’t forget the marshmallows!
We do several things as a family. We try and take a family vacation each year. For the past 3 or 4 years, my parents have also gone with us. Those have been so special. We also enjoy taking walks and try and get several in each week (even if it means taking the 2 little ones dressed in pjs right before bed). We also have family movie night where we pick a movie and picnic on the floor of the living room. We try and eat together every night. We always hold hands when we pray–even if it means moving across the room at large family gatherings.
Tracie
Our family night is not scheduled, but it really should be! The one activity we enjoy the most as a family is board games. I think it’s the best way to just escape being an adult for a while and get at the same level as my kids. Well, not the “poor sportsmanship” level, but that is a great opportunity for my husband and I to share to teach our children to be happy for others when they are not the winner.
Right now I am reading the LIttle Pilgrim’s Progress to my son and my daughter likes to listen (with one ear, she’s barely 4). Bedtime story time is perhaps the best time. I love seeing my son read to his younger sister. We get on our big comfy couch or put all the large pillows on “mom and dad’s bed” and cuddle up and read. I need a cup of coffee or I’m sure to fall asleep before them!
kimberlee Patton thanksalatte@gmail.com
Our tradition is to wait until the last birthday is over before Christmas to put up Christmas decorations. (We have two birthdays… one is 12/5 and the other is 12/16) this way Everyone has their own birthday. Yes, Jesus gets a birthday cake and a Happy Birthday song every year.
This year we chose to not have a traditional meal so that we could play more together. We prepared fingerfoods for 2 days before so that we could munch fruits,veggies and already sliced or diced meats and crackers for both Christmas and New Years Day.
It actually ended up costing less on our budget to do this.:)
Kathryn Wright
One of our favorite things to do as a family is go to the $1.50 movie on a Saturday, and then out to dinner, and then back to see a second movie. Most of the time we all see the same movies but sometimes we spit up and the girls and the boys see a different movie.
We make ice cream sundaes and watch movies at home that we borrow from the library. Sometimes we make homemade pizzas. We go to a popcorn store and everyone chooses a favorite kind and we share our popcorn during the movie. Last time we got chocolate, jelly bean, ranch, sour cream & onion, salt & vinegar, and cheese flavored popcorns.
Our children who live locally range in age from 28 down to 11. It can be a challenge to get everyone together. Our favorite family times are when they are all here and the grandkids are over. We don’t do anything in particular, but we have so much fun laughing together, kidding each other, etc. The summers are especially enjoyable. We sit on the deck, the kids play around in the pool and sometimes it is not unusual to see way too many people jumping on the trampoline together. (not recommended!) I guess the point I am trying to make is the coziest family times at our house are times spent just enjoying each other’s company and building relationships with each other.
This is all very easy to say right now, but a big snowstorm is starting to come through and I may be snowed in a couple of days in my small house with all my grandchildren, a nephew, a cousin, etc. etc. I might not be into this family togetherness by the time the weekend is out! Maybe next week’s topic will be on solitude and how to find some!
Linda Howard
Our family times are a most of our time together! We seem to be a together family! Everything revolves around each other here!
We love eating together round the table and my eldest makes it special by setting the table with themes or place cards or even questions or subjects to discuss. She does this once a week. she loves it and we all can;t wait to see what new ideas or thoughts she has!
We love movie nights/afternoons, when we all get to cosy up on the settee with some popcorn and chocolate! Yummy and fun time too!!!! We need a rota of who gets to pick the movie and who gets to pick the munchies!
We are also a Game Night family!!!! Again, the best snacks and the best games along with the family are just a fab combination for us!
Not to forget the walks we take together, anywhere – the beach, the wood, the park.
We seem to love family time!
For the last few years, our family times have not quite been exactly what we may have hoped for years ago. Realizing that we should always try to make the best of our situations, we try to make every outting fun or at least enjoyable, so whether it is a doctor’s appointment ( which we usually have several each month), errands, grocery shopping, lessons, all these times we try to “make memories.”
THE CAMERA–I try to bring the camera along with us and this has been so much fun because those everyday fun pictures are some of my favorites!
READ ALOUDS–Our children have grown to love read alouds! We have been incorporating “Charlotte Mason” ideas for our homeschool and the children are quick to classify “twaddle!”
MORNING COFFEE–Since the holidays, our schedule is off and the kids have been joining us for our morning coffee / cappucino / hot chocolate! They stumble out of bed and come sit at the table with us. This is new, I suppose that mom and dad will need to get up earlier in the morning, but this has been fun and we just start morning Bible reading!
MAKE IT COUNT—My point about family times is that we are not promised another day together and every single day matters and it is important! Our family has felt the loss of dear close loved ones and near loss of my husband in the last couple of years and we have purposed in our hearts to make our days count. Thanks to everyone for your comments and ideas! Thank you Cindy, I look forward to get together each week!
Tina Ketchens
Oh, this is a good one. It is something that we have gotten better at over the years and still want to improve on though.
One thing that we have incorporated after our little one goes to bed is to play Skip-Bo with our older daughter. That is really nice to spend some time just with her.
I love to read to my kids or make projects together.
I love to just cuddle up in our bed with the kids and watch a movie!
We like to go with the whole family and play miin golf or we really like to go to the park or the local nature parks and just walk around and see the nature.
One of the funnest things we have done was to go a couple hours away and go to the Little Niagra Springs!. It was so fun and a trip we will all remember!
I really like when we do something that takes a litle more efort or planning like that trip. We all really like long drives though so that is even fun.
But the best thing is when I can just be all cuddled up with the kids, whether it is reading, watching a movie, or whatever it may be, I just love being close with the kids.
Rodna James
This is a good question! It made me realize that we don’t do many things ALL together as a family. We have family mealtimes regularly, but the only other thing that I could think of, besides going to church together, is when we play charades. My kids will sometimes talk my husband into playing charades with them and I’ll usually end up joining in at some point. We all have fun and our 3 year old can participate just as well as the rest of us.
I’ll have to make more of a point of doing outside things with my husband and the kids even in the winter. There is something special about the whole family doing an activity together.
Jill
We are a family that is mostly always together. We go to sports events together Big sister is a cheerleader! Little sister’s and brother are into crafts and play groups. We play outside as often as weather allows. We have game night. We do watch movies together. We go to church together. cooking together is also a favorite lately. Moonsand party’s. Sleigh Rides (to come) . bed time stories together. I really enjoyed this I m sure there are many more things to come that we will add to this list in the new year to come. Thanks Tracey Haskell