Family Fun Night at Home #CBias #RUgame

The kids have had a rough couple of weeks, what with Madison having to deal with the FCATs (man, no one in this house is a fan of that testing here in Florida) and Zachary having to change daycares.  While the kids come home happy, you can still tell that the day has taken a lot of out them.

We try to take the kids out once a week to do something fun and let them unwind from their stress from school, but we decided to try a fun in home family night for a change of pace.  This way, we wouldn’t have to all pile into the car, drive to our destination, argue over menu items, then find entertainment after eating.

I went to AreYouGame.com to search for a fun game that we could play as a family.  There were literally hundreds of options to choose from, and it was a little hard to decide on an age appropriate game (mainly because Zachary is three – we didn’t want a game that was TOO easy).  After searching through the various options, I decided that my top two choices were Disney’s Pictureka and CARS Memory (you all know we adore Disney, right?).  Now I just needed to see if they were available at my local Walmart.  While Pictureka was for 6 and up, I knew that Zachary would have fun guessing the pictures, and Madison, Paul and myself would have  a lot of fun drawing various Disney items.  Memory was a classic game that each of us grew up with (except Zachary), and I knew that would be fun to team up as parents versus kids.

(And between you and me, I was crossing fingers and toes that Pictureka was there because man I wanted that game SO BAD!)

I also wanted to rent a movie for all of us to watch – the kids were asking for a Spongebob movie, while I wanted to rent Happy Feet 2.  I said that the fate was in the Redbox hands, so they would have to wait and see what I would come back with.

I headed to my new favorite Walmart (it’s so clean and pretty!) to grab all of the items that I would need for our Family Fun Night at Home!  You can follow my fun shopping adventures here via my Google + album if you’d like to see how sparkling this store is.

For dessert, I decided to try out the new TCBY frozen yogurt that is now available at Walmart.  I grew up loving TCBY – who didn’t love their golden vanilla?  Unfortunately, no golden vanilla in stock here, but I did find some tasty fudge bars for the kids and a special treat all my own as well.

I also wanted to try out one of the new Freshchetta brick oven  pizzas.  Into the sea of pizza I went!

I ultimately decided to try out the sea salt and olive oil pepperoni pizza.  It looked delicious, I just hoped it tasted as good!

I was thoroughly uncomfortable with these guys.  They kind of feel like they’re staring into your soul.

When I got to the toy aisle, I started searching for the Disney Pictureka…and was sadly disappointed.  Not at this Walmart.  Boo!

However, they DID have the CARS Memory game in stock, so I happily took one of those and headed for the checkout counter.

After paying for my purchases, I stopped at the Redbox to attempt to rent Happy Feet 2.  Every single family movie was out of stock except for 4 – and we owned three of them.  Guess which one was the one we didn’t own, and was in stock?

The kids won.  Spongebob it was.

I headed home with the bags of goodies, and while Paul got the pizza going in the oven, Madison set up the game.  I tried to keep Zachary from immediately hoarding the cards for himself and explained how to play.

Of course, a toddler doesn’t want to listen.  After three rounds of him turning over the exact same two cards in front of him, he got somewhat frustrated and exclaimed, “CARS!  WHY YOU NO CHANGE!” , and all I could think of was this guy:

Paul gave Zachary a big hint where a match may be hiding – and then the kids matched us, one to one.

I ran and got the pizza out of the oven – doesn’t this look amazing?  It only took 14 minutes to come out as a crispy, golden brown.  The pizza felt light when we ate it, and the sea salt gave it a slight kick.  I think in the future we will definitely choose this brand of pizza again!

As we ate, we continued playing – and wouldn’t you know it, those stinkers beat us.  I guess the kids with the steel trap memories are better than their aging parents who can’t pay attention that there are three very different Finn McMissile cards in the game.

To celebrate their victory, the kids each had a fudge bar (Paul skipped dessert) and I had a bowl of English toffee with my magic shell.  There was a slight mishap with the magic shell pouring out way too much into the bowl.  But shhhh.  We won’t tell anyone, right? (I already told Jillian Michaels and her DVD is screaming at me to get off the computer and bust my butt now.)

With full bellies and gloating kids (really, guys?) – we settled in to watch the Spongebob movie.  I’ll admit it: I used to adore Spongebob.  It’s definitely not as funny now, and I rolled my eyes at more of the content that I would have in the past, but the time spent with my family was well worth it.

I am a member of the Collective Bias™ Social Fabric® Community.  This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study forCollective Bias™. #CBias #SocialFabric