Family Night - Olympics

We started our Olympics family night by making the rings out of fruit for our after school snack.  Ok, so they're not circles, but my kids didn't care so you don't have to either.  While waiting for Jon to get home from work, my athletes went outside and got out their "hockey" supplies for a little driveway hockey.

We only have one hockey stick so yes, they were using baseball bats for sticks.  And yes, outside in 40 degree weather in just shirt sleeves.  Cause that's just how we roll in northern Indiana when the sun comes out in February.  

Once we went inside, Sarah was our torch bearer.  She loved the role.  We did crafts while waiting for Daddy, making the Olympic rings out of construction paper.  Sarah glued paper to the dining room floor.  It was awesome.  

Once Jon got home we had pizza for dinner because really, this was a last minute idea and I was not creative enough to come up with an Olympic meal.  After dinner we had the "competitive" events, the highlight of which was the Super Slo-Mo Sock Skate through the dining room.  We're not quite sure who won because we couldn't decide if the person who finished first or last should win.  Regardless, we all got medals because we made them ourselves.  We used dessert sized paper plates, punched two holes in one edge and threaded ribbon through to hang them around our necks.  We all decorated our own and Jon and I wrote words on the back of each kid's medal that described them like beautiful, strong, kind, persistent, etc.

At one point in the evening Evan told us all not to come into the kitchen because he had a surprise.  When he finally let us all in, he showed us what he had been up to.  He found the candy I thought I had hid in the cupboard and sorted it into this.  He's a fun kid.

After Sarah went to bed, we watched the movie "Cool Runnings" with the boys.  Remember from the 80's with John Candy about the Jamaican bobsled team?  It was really fun to watch with them.  It had remarkably few moments of inappropriate language or situations.  That was a welcome change from all more recent films, even those described as family.

This was one of our best nights as a family, themed or otherwise, in quite some time.  The only extra money we spent was to rent the movie ($1.07 since it was not a new release) and $5.99 for the Olympic music downloaded from itunes.  We left that running on the speaker in the kitchen for background music.  Jon and I locked away our telephones and the computers were turned off.  Everyone worked together and we had a great time.  I'm so thankful that we did this and look forward to planning many more.