My kids love family date night and ask us when we are going on our next adventure. Spending time together as a family is something that we value and encourage. As an added bonus we don’t have to plan in advance and find a sitter!
With 3 kids and 2 adults there is always a variety of ideas and inevitably someones feelings get hurt because their idea was not chosen. So we came up with a simple rating system that works for our family. All five of us think of a different activity that we would like to do. One of the kids make a chart of all the ideas and we rate each activity with o-5 fingers. We found that the kids were changing the number of fingers they held out based on how others rated the activity, so closing our eyes works for us. We simply count up the total number of fingers for each activity and mark the total. The activity with the highest rating is what we do. This simple system helps everyone to feel like their opinion is valued.
Tonight the vote was to go to an indoor climbing place that also had an open gym. Everyone had a blast! The kids loved climbing and exploring. We engaged with each of the kids, but we also stole a few precious moments for ourselves. While the kids were off climbing, we plopped down on the floor with a cup of coffee and played a board game. OK admitting that sounds really geeky, but we love playing games. Yes, there were a few strange looks, but it was fun! We find that it is important for us to spend time as a family, but also show the kids that we love spending time together as a couple as well.
I would enjoy hearing what activities your family love to do together and how family date night works in your house.
I love Edinburough! What game are you playing? It looks fun and Mike and I definitely need some more two player games to try out!
We have searched for good 2 player games, and they are hard to come by. We were playing Lost Cities. We really enjoy it.
soo..i’m sorta in love with every single project on your blog! very cool stuff! i can’t wait to try the ivory soap experiment! 🙂 yay for finding a TC mom in bloggy land! 🙂 i’m lovin’ the ‘warm’ weather.. has spring finally arrived!?!?!? 🙂 keep up the good work!
Thanks so much for the sweet comments. We are loving that the rain boots can finally come out, look out puddles here we come!!! Hopefully it is here to stay:)
Hey Tammy! Suzanne mentioned your blog on FB a while back and I’ve been checking it out. How fun! I really wish we lived closer, I think we would have fun! Anyhow, hope you are doing well, say hi to Chuck for me.
Thanks for peeking in. We have been having lots of fun. Next time your in the cities we should get together.
We love family fun days and family date nights! This is a great system for deciding what to do…
I am enjoying your blog. I really like this piece about family date night. My husband and I LOVE games too. When dating we would go buy a game and learn to play it together over coffee and that was sometimes the date right there 😉
Thanks for stopping by! I think that games over coffee totally qualify for a great date!