Hi, guys!! If you follow me on social media (if you don’t you totally should!!), you already know that at the beginning of the summer I implemented “Friday Family Fun Night” at the Lively house. I wanted to prioritize not only spending time together as a family but also experiencing new things together. I think it’s safe to say that over the summer Friday become our favorite night of the week!
Now that the summer has officially ended and the new school year started, I look back and realize we did a lot of fun things together! Family Fun Night doesn’t have to always be extravagant, over-the-top fun. It can be simple things like flying a kite or making a fun dessert together. It’s all about spending time together as a family and making memories together.
Today I want to share our Friday Family Fun Nights with you. I am hoping it will give you some family fun night ideas and new ways to spend time with your family!
I am not sure if we will continue Friday Family Fun Night into the school year just yet. With both kids in school this year and the extra-curricular activities they are interested in, I’m not sure Friday will be the best night anymore. But my hope is that even if we are able to do it a couple of times a month, just the mention of Friday Family Fun will get everyone excited.
Our Family Fun Night Ideas
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Our Family Fun Night happened to fall on Fridays, but you can designate any night of the week as Family Fun Night! Our fun new Friday night tradition started the first week of summer, which means I have a summer’s worth of Family Fun Night ideas to share with you.
What I’m about to share is what we did for our family fun night and my hope is that it inspires you to have a little fun with your family!
Mini Golf/Arcade/Lazer Tag
The first Friday Family Fun Night was just me and the kids. Grant was either at work or out of town with the Navy. So it was up to the tree amigos to get this new tradition started off on the right foot. What is something fun and new that we could do together? Walther’s Golf & Fun Center came to mind!
Now, I knew Wyatt had played mini golf before, but I didn’t think Reese had, and I knew neither had played laser tag before. If there ever was a perfect idea, this was it! We had the best time!
Swimming
I wanted our second Family Fun Friday to be something a little more simple and a little less expensive. I kinda sorta asked/begged a friend to invite us over to swim in their pool. What was supposed to just be an hour or so of swimming turned out to be a whole evening of fun. We ordered pizza, swam, hung out, etc.
Personalized Popsicle Holders made by Inkwell Printworks!
Bon Fire w/ S’mores
The third week just so happened to fall on the same week I was asked to review a portable fire pit. What better way to take a portable fire pit for a spin than to have a fire and roast a bunch of marshmallows? It was a nice, quiet, low-key, inexpensive evening at home.
We love mixing up our s’more recipes. Check out a few of our favorites here!
Fly Kites
On the fourth Friday, we did something a little extra unexpected. Earlier in the week, Reese had been making paper kites at her craft table. She was so excited and proud of these little paper kites even though she couldn’t quite figure out how to make them fly.
So, in an attempt to really knock her socks off I went on an Amazon hunt for kites. Real kites. How fun, right? I found 2 that were reasonably priced and could be delivered by Friday.
This one looks cool, but this one stayed up the best!
After the kite flying, we stopped by a playground and then hit up a pizza shop for dinner.
Sleepover in Living Room + Fruit Pizza
The three amigos were at it again for this Friday Fun Night. We had been busy all week, so I thought it would be best to find something fun to do at home. What I came up with was making a fruit pizza together and a sleepover in the living room.
I used this recipe for fruit pizza from scratch and it turned out great! If you are looking for something a little less involved, you could easily roll out a tube of refrigerated sugar cookie dough.
For this living room sleepover, we used an air mattress this time and it was a great addition. Highly recommend this one! Having an air mattress on hand has come in handy several times over the past few months!
We had a great night together! The fruit pizza was delicious and all three of us actually got a good night’s sleep in the living room.
Sporting Events
The hottest, most humid part of the summer is the best time for catching a baseball game – NOT! However, that’s what we did for this Friday Fun Night! We scored free tickets to see our local Frontier League play and while it was super hot and humid, it was a really lovely evening.
Dinner With Family
Let’s call this a Friday Family Fun Night on steroids. We had family visiting from out-of-town, so we all got together at my brother’s house for dinner. It included our immediate family, but also extended family.
It was nice just to spend time together.
County Fair
No summer is complete without a trip to the county fair! We actually tried to knock this activity off of our summer bucket list on Thursday evening, but our trip was interrupted by a 3-hour torrential downpour. It actually worked out perfect because we got to do all sorts of fair activities we don’t normally take the time to do, then we were able to return on Friday to hit up all the rides and fun fair foods.
Catch A Movie
Our final Friday Fun Night was spent seeing DC League of Super Pets at the movie theater. The movie was great – highly recommend it!
More Family Fun Night Ideas
We had a great summer full of fun and special memories! However, our list of family fun night ideas is not even scratching the surface of the different activities available! Here are a few more family fun night ideas you might enjoy!
- Drive-In Movie
- Amusement Park
- Craft project
- Make a bird feeder
- Make a dessert together
- Ice Cream Sundae Bar
- Backyard Camping
- Family Hike
- Make your own pizza
- Scavenger Hunt
- Game night
- Puzzle
- Formal dinner
- Theme night
- Go to a restaurant
- Local high school sporting event
- Local college sporting event
- Make slime
- Volunteer together
- Visit the Zoo
- Paper airplane contest
- Play Floor is Lava
- Ice Cream for Dinner
- Water gun fight
- Snowball fight
- Nerf Battle
- Sledding
- Silly String fight
- Plant a garden
- Pick fruit
- $10 shopping challenge
- Build a fort
- Dance Party
- Nature Walk
- Ice Skating
- Roller Skating
- Decorate for an upcoming holiday
- Picnic
- Water balloon fight
- Bubble blowing contest
- Bowling
- Science projects
