Family Night – Pajama-Rama!

The night began with one of my all-time favorites: Breakfast for Supper!

Each family member was told that in order to participate in family night activities, they had to report to the dinner table in their favorite pair of pajamas. We had everything from High School Musical, to Star Wars, to Christmas Plaid! ;-)

After enjoying a tasty meal of grits, eggs, bacon, sausage, and fruit, the kids were given a list of items to collect and bring to the family room.  These items included sleeping bags, pillows, and bedtime pals (teddy bears, etc…). Each child was also asked to grab their favorite bedtime story book and bring it, as well. While they were collecting those items, I also found two sets of (one size fits all) bathrobes and slippers (for the Bedtime Relay below).

When all of this had been collected, the REAL fun began.  The evening basically consisted of a series of bedtime/sleep over games that I found on a couple different websites.  We called it Pajama Olympics. :-) Here’s a list of the games we played:

• Musical Sleeping Bags
• Sleeping Bag Sack Race
• Teddy Bear Toss (also called Toss the Toy)
• Bedtime Relay
• Sweet Dreams

Each of the first four games was played with multiple rounds in which winners from each round competed for the “championship”.  It was great fun!  (And a great workout, by the way!)

After the Sweet Dreams Game, we laid on our sleeping bags for Bedtime Stories.  Each child had the choice whether to read their own story, or choose one of us parents to read for them.  Again, we had a wide variety.  Sam chose for Mama to read The Donkey’s Christmas Song, Emilee read Dawdle Duckling, and Jacob did a great job (with a little assistance from Dad) reading Llama Llama Red Pajama… a fitting title for the evening’s theme!

Our last activity of the night was to eat dessert (what else but more breakfast food? cinnamon buns!!) and watch a movie.  The movie of the night was supposed to have been Peter Pan, since the main characters, Wendy, Michael, and John, were all on a grand adventure in their PAJAMAS! However, that DVD has mysteriously disappeared from our collection, so I rounded up an old VHS tape of the movie HOOK.  (A *not so* modern day Peter Pan film – it came out in 1991 – but even better, in my opinion!! Although… there are a few instances of *not so nice* language to be aware of.)

All in all, it was a great night.  Kids had a blast, and everyone was ready for bed when the movie was done!

Here are a few “captured moments” from the evening.