Family Date Night- Turkey Day!

I wanted to do something as a family that we would all enjoy and I was just kind of stuck.

D suggested we do a theme "date" like we did last week with just D and I but as a family. I thought that was a super fun idea and since Thanksgiving was just around the corner I decided why not celebrate with a mini T-Day!

Here's hour our Mini T-Day went:

We started by cooking a T-Day Meal ala convenience foods to save massive time! I love modern day conveniences!

We made :

Turkey & Gravy from a Jenny-O pre cooked package- Just microwave and FINISHED!

Stove Top Stuffing

Canned Cranberry Sauce

Green Bean Casserole. I had to. What kind of T-Day would it be without it?

After making the mini feast we laid out a sheet on the carpet, plugged in a Thanksgiving Cartoon, turned on the fireplace and had a living room picnic.

Next, While I cleaned up dinner, D & Z made this totally awesome turkey craft from Itty-Bitty Bookworm Curriculum. 

We ended the night on a sweet note making these AMAZING mini "turkey" pumpkin pies! They were so fun and so flippin CUTE! I made the faces and froze them earlier and Zorro had a blast decorating them all my himself!

We had such a FUUUUUUUUUN night! I want to do a special theme night like this as a family once a month and weekly Family Home Evenings on a smaller scale need to be a priority! It makes me happy just thinking about that night right now. :)

FOR MORE THEMED IDEAS CHECK OUT THESE LABELS:
THEME/SCHOOL BOX- Our Playschool Themes
CRAFTivities -Crafts and Activities
KID TRIPS- Theme related outings in Orange County, CA (and So. Cal.)

Date Night- Childhood

D & I hardly get time to really enjoy much time together. Even after Zorro is in bed, we both have a slew of things that still need to get done sans toddler. We've been really needing time to reconnect but dates are not really in the cards for us too often because have you heard how much preteens are making now a days for babysitting?!?!? SHEESH!
I try to beg bargain for free dates like...I'll wax your brows for free sitting!!! Or You watch mine, I'll watch yours! Sometimes it works... But SOMETIMES the heavens part and a totally awesome person will randomly call me and say HEY! I;ll watch Z for you this week so you can go on a date! OK that's RARE but it DOES happen. And it DID! This week!

I was shocked and thrilled and got to work right away planning a fun and DIFFERENT type of date for us. No movies and dinner which had become our standard. It's "fun" but it's kind of dry... We needed something new. Since Z would NOT be at our place for the evening we planned an evening in with a themed night to rock all nights! Our Theme:

CHILDHOOD

You might be wondering why the heck we chose that. Childhood doesn't really scream SEXY. But it does scream F-U-N! And that's what we had!

Here's what we did:

Everything was to remind us of childhood and even OUR childhood.

FOOD: 

We used only children's bowls, plates, utensils & cups

• Capbell's Chicken and Stars
• Chef Boyardee Mini Ravioli
• Dino Chix Nougats
• Tater tots
  
• Pizza Rolls
• Baby Carrots

• Chocolate Milk
  

• Hostess Cupcakes
• Hostess Chocodile
• Hostess  Twinkies
• Animal Crackers

ENTERTAINMENT

• Cartoons- Carebears
• Disney Movie- The Love Bug
• Games- Operation, Life, Yatzee, Chutes and Ladders (we played Yatzee the rest was for decor)
• Some Fave Childhood Books- I grabbed D's fave books since we had them already.
• MASH- That's right! We played Mash! HA! 

DECOR

If we had a larger buget I would have bought some vitage toys and put them around. But the decor was really just all the fun stuff!

PRESENTS

We had to each bring a present for eachother based on the theme and with a small budget.

My Present to D:

Vintage Lunch Box with vintage candies

D's Present to Me:

Rhinestone Hair Clips

(I couldn't get good pics with my cam phone)