A family Drive In..

The pictures of this evening weren't anything huge but it was so fun, I just had to share. Lately I have been trying to think of ideas of how to let loose a bit with Erik. I think I often push him a bit hard and since he is an only child and who knows if more will come I want to parent him perfectly because it is my one shot. I know thats wrong and that is why I turned to our church for inspiration on how to help myself as a mother loosen up a bit, so he could enjoy things more and I wont freak out if he gets mud on his boots.

Ok, ok, its not that bad, but I definitely need to let up some slack. I need to let him take more risks and not always be so rigid about rules. While I was looking for guidance I found myself looking for things on our church's website. There is a section under relief society entitled Mother Education that I was keen to dive into, but my computer just wouldnt let me open the links. So then I decided to just check out the family section. I went under -wholesome recreation.....and behold I was filled with all sorts of inspiration. Basically after reading different quotes and articles from various church leaders...I decided one way I could let go and we could all benefit was to do some more things in our home, simple things! We do a lot of spontaneous things in our family. Lindsay is uber spontaneous and cant sit still for long so we often head out for adventure, but after reading I was realizing it is important to create tradition and fun wholesome recreational things in our home! I want all of our family to want to be home and be excited to do things, so I decided to a friday movie night with a twist.

 Family Movie night....drive in style. Now I didnt come up with this completely on my own, I have seen variations of this on the web, but it fit the bill. I told the family a couple nights prior of my plans and showed Erik how he was going to 'drive' into family movie night in the laundry basket. We were all stoked. It was amazing how something so simple gave even myself something to really look forward to at the end of the week.

The day prior when I was at the shops I let Erik pick out two bags of lollies and we got soda, which I never buy. Friday night we made dinner as a family (yummy macademia-coconut shrimp from this site), went and ran an errand, and then came home for drive in night. Because I allowed myself time to mentally prepare for this event....I had already decided I wasnt going to worry about Erik staying up too late, I wasnt going to harp on him for lolly intake and we would all just have a blast.

Blast we had! We watched Home Alone and it was fantastic! Erik loved watching the bad guys crash and get hurt (I love that he laughs out loud at movies)! We all had some sweets and enjoyed each others company! He stayed in his 'car' for about half the movie. I took the tray away for him after he finished his treats but it was still a bit cramped. Overall success and will be happening in our house again, I am already looking forward to the next one!

Another success- we figured out that night how to change our dvd player to read all regions dvds so now we can watch all our dvds  we brought over but have just stashed away! Win! The missionaries taught us that one-ha!