Stay Out Till Dark Night

With five kids, Darinand I have found we can't be as spontaneous as we used to be, so this summer we have worked at adding in some regular fun with the kids.

The first thing we added to our schedule is Stay Out Till Dark Night.  This is every Tuesday night.  Darin brings home ChickFilA for dinner and we eat as quickly as we can, throw away the trash and head outside till dark!  This is how I learned that I had gotten old.  The kids were playing tag with the neighbor kids and I decided I wanted to jump in and play, too.  Very quickly, all the kids figured out that if they chased me, they could easily catch me and I would be It.  And then of course I could only catch the little kids.  HA!  Now I just watch the kids play tag.  It's funny....Stay Out Till Dark Night has become a neighborhood event.  All the neighborhood kids try to be home on Tuesday nights so they can stay out with us.  On another note, isn't it weird how we have to plan a night like this?  When I was a kid, we pretty much stayed out till dark every night of the summer. 

Other events we have slowly added in are game nights.  This is two times a month on Fridays.  We usually play a card game since board games usually only allow for four people and those that allow for more usually take soooooooo long.  ;-)  Scrapbooking Night is once a month on Friday.  Darin is teaching the kids Art on the other Friday nights.  We also have a weekly movie night with the kids.  Lydia and I run errands on Wednesday nights as well as grocery shopping on Sunday afternoons.  Darin usually works with the boys on some sort of home improvement project on the weekends - we've got plenty of those opportunities! 

We're just tryin' to live "on purpose" with our kids.  It's so easy to let the dirty kitchen and the bedtime routine become the focus of our evenings.  Especially for Darin and me.  We are task-oriented people all the way!  It would be easy to let the bigger size of our family and the extra work that brings rule our days and nights.  The work will always be here but the kids will not.  Our biggest reminder of that is this one.....our first teenager!