Family Fun Every Weekend?

Family fun is spending time together, and doesn't have to involve going out. You can go to a park, whatever. If you had fun doing nothing this weekend, then you had family fun :)

We are going and blowing a lot. Always have been this way.

We live there is great weather and lots of free things to do, but even we did not always go out on weekends.

We liked to "flop out" every once in a while OR we needed a weekend where we concentrated on chores around the house. It feels good to get a lot of things done when we all work on it together.

We also were planners so we would look at what was coming up and plan for what we did not want to miss. If it worked out, great, if not, that could be ok too.

We liked spending time together no matter how we did this.

We try to take them swimming, but we always do a family video. We've been watching "the life of mammals." The kids love it, as do hubby and I. Popcorn and a movie and some quality cuddle time. ;-)

What is your definition of family fun? For us today, it was legos on the floor with everyone playing, including parents. Family fun doesn't have to mean that you leave the house.

I think it sounds like you did have fun. Sometimes, not running around doing errands is the best kind of fun there is.

I'd say that maybe once or twice a month we schedule a deliberate 'family' thing to do (we have one child--those activities might be a Lego show, the nickel arcade, a movie, or another special outing like a model train show or an exhibit at the museum--we try to be reasonable about expenses), but our family fun is in small pockets... bike rides around the neighborhood, playing a game together, helping Kiddo with his various projects and we work on things of interest to us (gardening, today). We went out to the pub last night for dinner and spent a lot of time focused on playing "hangman", drawing a picture for a cousin who got his first cast, and using geoforms tiles to create group pictures.

I think the fun is more in the attitude and less in the activity! ;)

We go out for family fun every weekend, but I can't stand to hang around the house all weekend. In a weekend we usually do one family type outing, we have church and kids activities, the kids will have friends over and we have a family evening in with a sit down dinner. We do a little of everything. My kids would probably be happy to stay home every once in a while.

We don't usually go anywhere. We are homebodies and have plenty of fun here. Kids actually really benefit from unstructured down time.

Sometimes we go out and other times we enjoy a day at home. Honestly, with our kids being so involved in sports, we rarely get a full day at home. This weekend was busy!

Saturday was basketball practice, basketball game, dance practice, ice cream with friends, and a family birthday dinner at my parents house.

Today we got up and went to DC to be tourists for the day. Then we came home, played outside, and are grilling for dinner.

Sometimes on Sunday we stay in PJ's all day. However, this winter has been so horrible, so we definitely took advantage of the nice weather in the DC region.

this does not compute.
how is a mellow weekend hanging out at home not fun?
when the boys were little they played baseball and basketball and rode horses and skateboarded and a gazillion other things. it was awesome but so, so busy. time at home to veg was so appreciated by all.
still is. my busy busy young men don't have much time to come back to the farm and relax, but this is still their quiet haven when they want to chill out and get away from it all.
unstructured time is a huge blessing.
khairete
S.

I know what you mean about that feeling of regret on a Sunday night. Recently I realized that it was me who wanted to have more adventures as a family so I could make happy times and memories. So, each weekend I try to do at least one thing that is a little different. Sometimes that's close to home though, like a walk to the park with the family or something similar. Most weekends we are very busy and out and about anyway. The kids don't seem to mind a weekend at home and not doing much though, so it's really just me feeling out of balance if I have worked on housework or catching up and not spending enough time with the kids during the weekend.

I love lazy weekends! LOVE THEM!

During the winter, we are pretty much recluses... But once summer hits, we really like to get out. Even if we can't go out and actually "do" something, we will just hang out in the backyard together. Kicking a ball around, and playing in a quick-set pool provide plenty of family bonding for us. :)

Besides, that makes the times we actually do get to go out more meaningful. :)

Why does family fun have to mean GOing somewhere? Sometimes a weekend of just hanging out at home is just what the doctor ordered! Granted, if hanging out at home means everyone doing his/her own thing, then I feel you, but especially with bad weather, we find plenty of fun stuff to do together without pulling the car out of the driveway (cards, movies, board games, cooking projects, last weekend we built a fantastic snowman).

During the summer months, we probably get OUT and do something fun all together every weekend (street festival, adventure park, water park, ballgame, museum, etc.). This time of year we probably only GO somewhere organized once a month. DS goes everywhere with one of us, and we both try to make the everyday stuff kind of fun, but getting all three of us out of the house to do something fun on purpose is a lot less frequent. :)

You don't need to do exciting family trips and events every weekend. Soon enough your kids will be involved in activities that suck up every waking moment of your weekend and you'll wonder how that happened. Enjoy time at home. Read, watch movies, garden, do yardwork, swim in your kiddie pool, make snowmen, whatever...

Why feel bad? Not every moment of down time needs to be a carnival and everyone needs to recharge sometimes. There are weekends where we scrap plans because we just aren't up for it. This weekend DD and I had a visit with a friend for 2 hours and that was the extent of our social out of the house time. You can also ask the kids if they want to do something like pop in a movie or play a board game rather than going out. Ask them how they feel about the family time.

Sometimes, just hanging out is exactly what a busy family needs. I have health issues that have kept us home this school year more than I'd really like, but we play board or card games, build with legos, watch science documentaries and kids' movies, draw/color, try out new hairstyles, cook, sew, have 2 person dance parties, sing Christian Rock, skype friends & family, and play find the cat (this could go on for hours despite living in a 2 bedroom apartment). We have tons of fun without leaving our cozy nest!

When the kids were home and there was no sport involved it was great to just be home and chill out. Running around constantly can wear you out as well.

Down time was great. Sometimes we would just doing individual things or we would go out and walk or go to the park. There were times when we would make cookies or do a project one on one or as a group.

This weekend hubby and I attended the Boy Scout Mulligan Stew function that was an weekend deal for them but a day for us. We were part of the amateur radio club and the boys contacted scouts out of state that were doing the same type of thing. So a few got badges completed. The leftover cut onions and potatoes came home with me and I made French onion soup yesterday and it was very tasty for a first time. Potatoes will be in a soup of some kind next.

Stop making big productions for things to do as a family and enjoy the quiet time together. My kids now speak of those quiet times when we were all together to do x, y, and z more than the big project.

Have a great week.

the other S.

PS I slept good all weekend with all that fresh air.

We go to church on sunday...10-12ish...this winter it has been so cold we have been going roller skating on saturday morning for exercise.. so we go someplace everyday..but it is a few hours. We also went shopping and took a walk to the park today..

Oh gosh....between church, scouts, sports, birthday parties, family who live in Dallas, San Antonio and Austin - we are never home because of all the activities, games, birthdays, and anniversaries. There are way too many things to do in the Houston area like festivals and events to stay home, like the Houston Rodeo. And there are way too many great cultural and ethnic places to eat in Houston to not meet friends for dinner.

If we stay home we usually have someone over for dinner or our son is having a sleepover, or vice versa.

Weekends are too busy but, if we're together we are always having fun. Life's too short!

I definitely get that Sunday evening feeling. Even when we spend the entire weekend together, Sunday evening just feels like the weekend is used up. I read a suggestion in a magazine and am considering setting aside Sunday evenings as a family game night rather than spending it thinking about all the things I need to get done during the week.

Saturday night is family date night.
We alter between:
games
Karaoke
movies
friends over
Wii competition
crafts (usually scrapbooking now)
bowling
movie out
basketball
racquetball
bike riding
roller blading

Anything goes as long as we do it together.

PS: some times life gets in the way...for example, the girls got new phones this weekend, so our family date night was all of us figuring out how to use them! Be creative, it's about spending time together, not always about doing stuff.

B.

We do a family home evening. If you google that phrase you'll see tons of sights that are dedicated to this specifically.

You can leave out the religious aspect of it if you want to but the ideas, themes, and activities are sound and meant to bring the family closer.

We go skiing one day almost every weekend in the winter. We go out to eat one night on the weekend. That's our entertainment. If we just hang out, that's fine too. Weekends don't have to be Disneyland...sometimes it's nice to just kick back.

We all have very buys weeks (adults and kid). So, on the rare occasions when we all end up doing pretty much nothing all weekend, so be it. I feel like we all deserve to just hang around and relax a bit. We are all over scheduled. I find that happens a lot at this time of year. Can't get outside yet and end up just hanging in since we have done as many movies, ice skating and other indoor activities we can handle.

We just had a four day weekend thanks to a blizzard and we were pretty much cooped up for two days and roads are still bad so didn't want to leave the house much. The kids played in the snow one afternoon. We worked on some of my daughter's Girl Scout badges. We watched some of the old Disney Love Bug movies. The kids played. We went out for lunch a couple of days. We made homemade pizzas. It was one of the best weekends in a long time. We have such busy weeks! On the weekends I love just hanging out at home. We might do something away from home, like snow shoeing or going to our children's museum but we spend a lot of time just at home together. I don't think you need to do big things to have fun as a family. It is the little things that can make the best memories.