Simply Nurtured: Family Fun Night

We started having regular Family Fun Nights in our house about a year ago, in anticipation of our trip to Disney World. We wanted the kids to have a 'refresher' on the movies they don't watch all the time, and we also wanted a way to make January not seem impossibly far away. We did them every Saturday night. Most were low key, where we just picked a movie, a 'matching' food and dessert, and sometimes an activity or we'd play Disney Cranium. Sometimes we did a little more with decorations, but not often.

Now that our trip is over and we don't have another one planned any time soon, we didn't want to keep doing weekly Disney Family Fun Nights.. but we still wanted to keep the Disney magic alive. So we switched to doing them monthly, and putting more effort into them. We also decided to switch from having the theme be strictly a movie, to an area in Disney World itself. This week the kids decided they wanted to do Tomorrowland - one of the hardest, in my opinion, but we had a great time!

This is a photo-intensive post, so the rest of it is after the cut!

I wasn't able to find a lot of decorations at the Dollar Store, Party City, or Target, which surprised me. We did find a simple circle bunting and some glow in the dark stars, so we created Cosmic Ray's Starlight Cafe. Big thanks to my husband for getting the "Cosmic Ray's" font right.

For those of you that aren't familiar with Cosmic Ray's, it's a counter service (read: fast food) restaurant in Tomorrowland. There are separate windows, or bays, for different types of food. When we ate at Cosmic Ray's, we got the rotisserie chicken, but since they also have pulled pork sandwiches on the menu, we decided to put BBQ on our version of Cosmic Ray's menu.

The kids don't do BBQ, so they chose hot dogs (which are on Cosmic Ray's menu!). We occasionally do 'fancy' hot dogs with bacon, sauteed onions, baked beans, cheese sauce, and other toppings - a nod to one of our favorite restaurants in Rockport, Top Dog. We didn't have time to go all out, but the topping they like the most is the cheese sauce, so our half-hearted 'fancy' hot dogs went over pretty well.

We also served star shaped tater tots that I found at Target (but forgot to take a picture of), as well as Space Mountain Rocks - aka Pirate Booty.

Dessert was Rectangular Mickey Bars - so special, you can't even get them in Disney World! Okay, so they were just Haagen Dazs ice cream bars, but they still tasted good. And here's a shot of the kids' handiwork with the glow in the dark stars.

Our first activity of the day was the Tomorrowland Speedway. The kids all loved this ride, and it just so happens that we live on a very quiet street. We've let them take turns driving around the block sitting on our laps before, but somehow, calling it the Tomorrowland Speedway made it that much more fun. Here are Colwyn and Lachlann driving:

Fiona had never driven around the block before, but she had a blast. Her squeals and giggles were a little loud in the car, but the look on her face was worth it.

Driving was a first for Niall, too.. he didn't even get to do the Tomorrowland Speedway. But this was right up his alley! They all got to go around twice, and each time he parked in front of the house, he exclaimed, "We made it!"

One of the things I had found at Party City was a photo prop of a race car driver. I think it was about $7 and it entertained the kids for at least 45 minutes. Each kid got multiple photos of themselves, mostly making funny faces, and one kid mooned us. You can see we got some of the pets involved, too. I also have about 30 pictures of Fiona's dolls posing as race car drivers, and I feel too guilty to delete them.

My other Party City find was a banner to go with our Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin game. I was amazed that it didn't say "Happy Birthday" but instead said, "Ready to Play!" Perfect! I printed out coloring pages of Zurg, "Z" targets, Little Green Men, and random spaceships. The kids colored them in and taped them to the windows. I also set up little cupcake toppers as "Mega Bonus Points". The kids got out their Nerf guns and went crazy!