Family Night: Back to School

Tonight, we had our first "official" Family Night. Family Nights are going to be nights that we set aside the entire evening, most likely Friday evenings, to enjoy playing--or relaxing--together as a family. We, of course, have had nights of family fun many times before; however, all too often those times can be the first to be pushed aside when there is work that could be done or places to go. So, in order to make sure that we get that precious time together...I'm scheduling it!

To keep our Family Nights exciting, I'm going to try to have a theme for each night. Some nights may be more elaborate than others but I want each night to have some kind of direction and--more importantly--to be fun!

So, in celebration of the start of school, tonight's Family Night theme was:

Back to School!

For decorations I used some of the wall hangings from the homeschool room. Simple enough! For dinner, I packed brown bag lunches with sandwiches (from Subway), Cheetos, fruit, and a Capri-Sun. Since we homeschool, we obviously don't have to pack lunches that often, so the kids found this to be a special treat in itself.

For dessert I made "Back to School" cupcakes. Unfortunately, my icing did not want to cooperate while I was writing on the little 'blackboards.'

Wait a minute! Cheetos, Capri-Sun, and cupcakes! Oh my! If you know our little family, then you know that our kids felt like they hit the junk food lottery. You'll also know that the first thing they asked was, "What day is it?" They only get sugary/junk food snacks on the weekends, so they don't get a lot of it all that often. And, rarely do they get this much all at once!!

Then, after eating dinner, Jeff used the new school supplies to talk about our lives lived in Christ. We discussed how the pencils can remind us that God writes down the names of those who accept Christ, into the Lamb's Book of Life. The erasers can remind us that Christ's blood wiped away our sins and we are forgiven. We discussed how permanent markers can stay on our skin for a long time and how that can remind us of how the Lord has engraved us on the palms of His hands; He will never forget us. Those are just some of the items that we talked about.

Then we had a pencil hunt. There is nothing that my kids love more, than a "Something/Whatever/Anything" Hunt. If I remember correctly, we were still hiding plastic eggs in June.

Then to end our night, we talked about our plans for this school year: the things we want to learn, field trips that we want to take...and what insects/animals/amphibians/reptiles that we want to raise.

Ladybugs.

It was decided that we will raise ladybugs. I have to admit that this decision was a relief to me, considering there had been talk, not too long ago, about frogs. I'm not quite sure I'm ready to raise frogs. I think I can handle ladybugs.

Thanks to Heather at Whittaker Woman for all the great Family Night ideas and inspiration!