Family Huddle #5 & #6

Family is extremely important to me.  It's what makes me smile.  Like the fact that I love being able to watch as my ten year old walks home from school in her big pink winter coat, Coca Cola polar bear hat with a smile on her face as she screams...."Mom, I got a 100 on a math test!"  Yup...family it's important.

So last week I didn't do a "family huddle".  This week I am doing two in one, encouraging you to explore your "creative" side and love on your family.  I wish I could take credit for this next idea but I can't.  I stole it from a friend but since this is going to be a potentially long blog I decided it could be a two in one deal. 

A few years ago my husband turned 40.  I did a "40 Days' of Birthday Fun" for him.  I started forty days before his birthday with a nice dinner at a great restaurant with some friends we had been wanting to get together with forever. I got a baby sitter, took pictures and even grabbed something from the restaurant to remember it by.  I won't list all 40 things I did here, but I will highlight some of them.

• I made a scrap book so I could keep track of all forty days of fun.
• Took the family to Disney's Princesses on Ice...not my sons favorite but we did have fun!
• Had a Star Wars night complete with pizza, a Star Wars movie and some games.  We chose two teams and competed for points by doing a Star Wars word search with so many minutes on the clock; a Star Wars Trivia game; and then each team had to take things I had taken from my crafts to  "make an alien".  We had to name the alien and the planet they were from.  One was Princess Atara from Moldari, the boys made "The Flush King" from the planet of Bladder-ooine...they still remember this night!
• I got creative with change too...like one day I gave him 40 pennies and tried to find one from each year he was born...same with nickels, dimes and quarters.  (I bought him a photo box to keep his loot in!  Let me tell you it got challenging finding forty things to do!)
• One day it was 40 Hershey kisses day.
• We had Josiah day when Josiah made a special picture just for dad...it went in the memory album.
• One day I wrote 40 reasons I love you!
• On Aiden's day she painted a "fireman" picture because her dad is her hero, and he was a fireman for a while!
• Friends started getting in on this plan, one day a friend of his took him to play golf! 
• We had family football night (the original huddle time) when we went to see a friend's son play high school football.  It was freezing cold that night and Aiden said "my toes are like ice-clickles". 
• One day Josiah wrote his dad a poem. 
• One day Aiden wrote a poem for her dad. 
• One day it was 40 reasons you are special.
• Josiah wrote his "dream adventure with dad" which at the time was a Lord of the Rings adventure scenario, lots of Orc killing going on there.
• I wrote a poem on my dream vacation with Randy.
• I had a romantic mad lib one day, and a romantic word search game another.
• I bought him some crayons, because when we were dating we colored with Josiah, a lot!
• Aiden wrote a story about her favorite adventure with daddy.  She wants to head to California with him!
• There was a lunch date with Aiden, a movie day with Josiah, and a guys night out with his best friend.

  I didn't spend a load of money.  Some times I would, like when I paid for him and his best friend to go off for steaks one night.  It was work, but it was worth it.  In the middle of the forty days of fun his Mom suffered a heart attack.  I had to improvise a lot, like some days got changed quickly and I would send his "small" presents with him when he went out of town to Tennessee.  I wrote it all in his memory album, which is nice too, because now we can look back and remember just how sick she was, and how blessed we are she made it through. 

At the end of the forty days I got sneaky.  I had been planning a "huge" surprise party for Randy.  He had no clue, but I had managed with the help of his best friend to find out the e-mail addresses of friends from long ago.  I also had contacted many people from our older youth groups.  Several who were not able to attend made videos of themselves wishing him a happy birthday.  Many sent e-mails which I added to the scrap book.  I told Randy that a big party just wasn't in the budget.  He seemed let down, but he had no clue what was about to happen. 

We had two girls drive all the way from Florida to be with us that weekend.  They were part of the "surprise", but also my helpers.  They supposedly left after our Sunday morning service, but really they went up to the Fellowship Hall where a deacon let them in to decorate for his party.  Friends and family came after the Sunday PM service started and snuck in the back door of the Fellowship hall.   After the first praise and worship song, our worship leader said, "Pastor Randy you are looking a little tired there, are you feeling well?"  One of our friends came from the back running down with a stethoscope in hand and then the church was flooded with a load of people all singing "Happy Birthday"! 

Looking back it was so much fun!  So many great memories of people who took time out, even if it was just to send a card or an e-mail to wish him a Happy 40th!  It may not have been as good as what he did for me on my 40th, but I know we all still remember the 40 days of fun!  Hmmmm, maybe I will have to bring it back when my son turns 18? 

Love on your family this week, maybe even have a Star Wars night, after all it comes out in 3-D this week!