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I have this movie on my Netflix Queue waiting for DVD issue in March.

Don’t have family nights anymore but I am curious about the “wild children’s drinks with marbles in the neck of the bottle”.  This sounds dangerous to me.  What is it?

It’s a kind of Japanese Sprite--tastes almost the same.  It has a weird shaped bottle, very narrow in the neck, with a blue top.  You take off a little prong and slap it down on the top.

Boom!  A marble explodes down from the blue cap and makes all the Sprite froth below.  Then the narrow neck prevents the marble from being swallowed by the child.

It even fascinates my 12-year-old going on 17.

Eloisa

We’re all grown now, even though my younger brother & I still live at home.  The only family ritual we still follow is our movie trip on black Friday.  We all have to agree on some family movie to watch, & off we go.  Unfortunately the movie theaters are as crowded as the shopping malls these days.  It’s nice to get together for that one day, though.

My almost-grown son prefers to avoid us whenever possible. I am trying to insist on family dinners a couple times a week.

But I find what works best is when he lets me accompany him on a run. I ride my bike, he runs alongside, and glory be, he actually TALKS to me. It’s so enlightening!

The DH & I never go to movies, but we’ve become hooked on watching old “House” episodes checked out from the library. What a major treat, and one episode is just about the length of my attention span.

martha

When my kids were younger we actually used to go to the movies on Christmas Day, after opening presents and the big turkey lunch. My son even tolerated seeing Little Women with his three sisters once.

Now when we get together, there are card games, dirty Scrabble and Star Wars (the Harrison Ford ones) marathons, usually all simultaneously. Copious quantities of beer are involved.

My kids are 9 and 11 and we still try to have a family night as often as we can.  We don’t make it every week as I would like, but we get pretty close.  We either rent a movie to watch at home, play a board game (Uno, Sorry, Life, Clue, etc.), or very seldomly we go out to the movies.  And every once in a while (when they can bribe Mom), we play Mario Party on Gamecube - I hate video games!  We pop popcorn, make smoothies or throw a pizza in the oven.

I have a girl and a boy and the differences are rearing their ugly heads.  I can see the tastes in movies and games going in opposite directions and trying to please all parties is getting harder and harder!  I’m just thankful that they still look forward to spending time with the old folks!  I’m sure that will change before I’m ready for it.

Last night was suppose to be family night and they both left us.  So, DH and I snuggled by the fire with Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman in Indiscreet.  I guess it won’t be that bad when they flee!

My husband, 7 year old son and I watch movies on Friday nights. I make plenty of Popcorn and we all drink water. We bring our blankets and pillows and make ourselves comfortable in front of the TV. We turn off all the lights and watch a movie rented from Netflix. We just saw March of the Penguins which is simply a wonderful movie.

During Xmas week I took my son and two of his friends to Night at the Museum. I think I enjoyed it the most. Maybe because I also recognized the older actors in the movie. My son loved it too since we had all visited the Natural Museum of History in NYC together during Thanksgiving week. To me it is an entertaining movie worth seeing.

Sepi,
I guess I didn’t say so—but I absolutely agree with you about Night-Movies being worth seeing.  I didn’t love it like some.  But it got my daughter absolutely fascinated about the museum, which is great.  And on the way home I asked, which number president was Teddy Roosevelt?  And everyone knew!

Eloisa

When I was first married my Family Night consisted of my husband and me watching Dallas, or Dukes of Hazard on TV while we cuddled on the couch. Our friends would call or stop by and try to get us to go out but we were “busy” enjoying each others company

Which quickly led me to: Family Nights with Kid Numero Uno and Kid 2.
This phase of my FN was predominately dominated by The Wonderful World of Disney and carry outs.

There was the period in my life that I call the Age of Unreason. That’s when my son hit puberty His idea of a great Family Night was for my DH and I to go out …and leave him at home to guard the house…yeah right…Teenagers are not particularly inclined to be seen alive with their parents. So I had to bribe the dear boy…with the threat that I would never cook again, if he didn’t spend some quality time with us. The only good thing about FN during this Age of Unreason was that I got to eat in a real restaurant that served real food off of plates not made from Styrofoam. OH, Ohhh, and I got to go to a movie that Wasn’t rated “G”.  Ewww, I felt so grown up! 

But just when I started to feel like an adult again…Along come Kid #3, The Baby of the family. The cherub faced, golden haired angle who would smile sweetly…right before she pelted anyone within a half mile radius with her vegetables.  Which led me right back too FN predominately dominated by The Wonderful World of Disney and carry outs.

Part Two,

My youngest is thirteen now. We go out and do things as a family. But she is starting to make excuses not to be seen with us. She claims that see has to do homework, or clean her room, or she’s on the verge of finding a cure for cancer. So we should just leave her at home…alone…Yeah right…Unless we are headed to the mall or a shoe store. Then she luvs being with Mum & Dad… and the checkbook. 

Yes My Dears, Life is a Circle. We always seem to find ourselves right back where we started….If we’re not careful.

Which is why, when my DH and I were cuddling on the couch watching a movie on TV last night….I got up…and sat in a chair…by myself… haaaha…. No more Disney and carry outs for this woman! Ever! Knock on wood…

Ramune!!!

That’s that Japanese soda that your kids had.

I love that stuff

It is perfectly safe, as the marbles are trapped in the glass. Trust me, hard to get out (my friends have tried and failed)

I like Ramune because it’s not as sweet as regular American soda. THey have great flavors too. Strawberry is my favorite, with melon in a close second

We’ve been known to hibernate for days. Mostly when there is a heat wave or its extremely cold (like now!) We get a boxed set of a tv show we all like. Veronica Mars, Desperate Housewives, Grey’s Anatomy. If I’m lucky ER. I make a big crock pot of sloppy joes, bbq or nachoes.
We veg in front of the tv, eat and nap:D And get the house incredibly dirty

Julie—I love your story; it’s hysterical!  And with my son at 12 I can start to see that he won’t want to be in public with me much longer.

And Jenn, we worked to get that marble out for about 20 minutes last night!  No, it won’t come out. 

Eloisa

we don’t really have family nights...Our four year old doesn’t have the attention span for a whole movie that doesn’t have spongebob or Lightning McQueen and there’s only so many times I can watch the Cars movie.  But I do think that when he gets older we’ll do something.  We do eat dinner every night together.  Even if it’s just me and the boy.  We do have a family day that doesn’t happen weekly but it does happen.  We go to the bowling alley where the boy has the attention span for one full game then wants to go stuff money into the impossible Crane Game.  After that we go to the library and while mama’s looking for some books that she hasn’t read yet, the boy and the dad go to the kid’s room and play with the puzzles.  After that we might go to Chili’s (cuz it’s only one of two restaurants that my hubby is willing to go to on this tiny island that doesn’t have a drive through).  It works for us right now lol

We have always had a family night.  Ours is renting a video/dvd, turning out the lights and watching it at home.  Now that our son is in college and working it is harder to have one, but we still manage.

Now here is the funny part.  My son loves our family night because he makes me go down and rent dvd’s like “Cars” and “Over The Hedge”; he wants to see them, but wouldn’t be caught dead renting them because he goes to school we several of the guys at Blockbuster. This makes great blackmail material when we want him to see an older movie that we loved.

One word of caution about these older movies.  We hadn’t seen “Stripes” with Bill Murray for a long time so we rented it for our family night.  We had completely forgotten that there was a shower scene with nude women. That scene come on, I’m grabbing the controller to press stop, but in the dark I accidently press pause.  Ryan (our son) is hollering “way to go Mom!”.  Let me tell you it is embarrasing to be sitting with your son and looking at a bunch of women’s breast!

Our Wednesdays have turned into a family question night.  I think I started this when I brought home a pack of cards called the “Ungame”. Which are basically questions like..If you could travel to anyplace, money no object, where would you go? I use these for ice breakers at our small group at church, but even our 12 year old boy has spoken up, and actually become quite chatty (and smiled!) Most book stores have something like this..it’s fun!

You know, I enjoyed that movie.  I went into it expecting the Ben Stiller typer humor, so I wasn’t surprised or disappointed.

I actually thought Night at the Museum was kind of cute. I liked the T-Rex, I had never seen a dangerous dinosaur portrayed as a dog, LOL. That was so cute. But since I no longer live at home we dont really have family nights much. I go home on the weekends and I go to the movies with my dad for the most part. Last night we saw Blood and Chocolate which was really good. I never see werewolf movies much so this was a nice change instead of vampires.

But anywho.. My dad was like, this is a love movie, isn’t it? And I said, not exactly… But the good thing is he actually liked it. Probably because of all the actions stuff, hehe.

Linda, LOL!!!! That’s what I’m afraid of.  My husband and I almost accidentally sat down and watched The Bad News Bears with our kids last year.  I never saw it and my husband had fond memories of it.  He completely forgot that they launch the “F” bomb quite often in that movie!

I remember going to see Annie Hall with my Mom and Dad when I was a teenager and spending a lot of time at the concession stand!  Very embarrassing!

Krystal,
I liked that T-Rex a lot too!  Very clever detail.
Eloisa

We had family night on Friday and went to see NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM.  My husband, daughter, and I liked it; my 12-year-old son wouldn’t admit to liking it (but he did!).  We had to drag him there anyway.  And it’s getting harder and harder to find movies both kids agree on.  So I made this choice based on reviews and the fact that everyone agreed it was a family movie.  And I love the fact that a a history lesson was painlessly slipped in!

Carolyn,
I hear you!  My 12-year-old son has champing at the bit to go to another movie but we wouldn’t let him.  And he did really enjoy it after he stopped complaining.

Eloisa

I have 7 children, ages ranging between 21 and 4.  Because we have so many children and it seems we are always running in so many directions, I think it is very important that we do have time together as a family.  Our children refer to Family Night as “Forced Family Fun Night”.  That’s right!  We require that everyone participate and if they aren’t having fun the they are to pretend for the sake of everyone else. Sometimes we play board games, or make a bunch of junk food and watch a movie, or we do a family read aloud (my husband or I will read a chapter book to everyone).  Other times we have gone out to dinner and to the theater. 

Hands down tho’, our best “Forced Family Fun Night” was 2 years ago.  We received about 8 inches of snow and took the children sledding.  This was not your average sledding adventure.  We took over a picnic shelter at a locale park, built a fire in the fireplace, and I brought a crockpot of stew (most picnic shelters have outlets) and huge thermos of hot water for hot chocolate.  We spent several hours sledding and were able to warm up by the fire, eat a hot meal and drink hot chocolate.  If you ask my children their favorite “Forced Family Fun Night”, they will all say that evening.

My 21 year old daughter is now married and she and her husband will come over just be apart of “FFFN”.

Julie-Lynn, I love that snow story!

Me too!  My dad used to do that with all of us kids (at times we had 6 kids in the same house), and it’s really a case of the More the Merrier!

Julie-Lynn, you are a brave woman.

Eloisa

I thought it was hysterical, but I have a hight tolerance for Ben Stiller movies.

Eloisa, I liked reading your movie review. I wonder if it’s possible to alternate movie and music blogs for Sundays.

I loved NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM.  My seven year old son and I saw it twice.  I loved Mickey Rooney and gang.  I thought Owen Wilson’s character was funny--and especially liked when he and the Roman were driving the little yellow Hummber.  I worried that they didn’t survive!!  The little poof of smoke and--it was just a great adventure for us.

Kel

I could not believe how *corny* NaTM was. I didn’t know they still made movies that corny! It seemed like a made-for-t.v. special, not a movie to spend $20 on.