Feed your family Fabulous fish cakes for a fiver. With our Fabulous fish cakes recipe you really can feed your whole family a delicious meal for less than a fiver. This is just one of five brand new purse-friendly recipes from Sainsbury’s. Take a look!
coffee, papers and comics on sat and sunday all of us in our bed in the mornings with milk/tea gardening walks in the park you've been framed going to pizza express
Family shopping outings taking turns to choose which town we go to, Chinese takeaway every Wednesday, Eurovision song contest where we all give points for each song & our winner gets our phone vote.
We very rarely do anything together. I blame having no weekends free. Don't ever get into a retail business with your partner which is open every day of the week and every holiday, it sucks.
Saturday night movie night (with home made pizza and popcorn)
Pancakes!
Day trips in our campervan (even when it's pissing down outside, we cook bacon butties and play crap card games -including Uno - and feel very cosy)
Music festivals
Singing along to The Levellers on car journeys
Storytime at bedtime - milk, biscuits and we all lie on the bed to read the story
The morning cuddleathon - when the boys sneak in and climb in with us - and the cat comes too!
present-wrapping - whoever the present is for has to skulk downstirs and pretend they don't know what's happening while everyone else wraps the presents and gets sellotape in hair etc.
Waterfights in good weather.
Fire-pit nights - wrapped in blankets, toasting marshmallows and chatting.
Seeker - we do seem to have rather a lot of shared stuff...(I nearly cut and pasted your whole list) I didn't put my allotment down though, as they end up making huge mud lagoons and I end up shouting
We actually live on our boat - but it's a bit bigger than yours! And our van is an unconverted Mazda Bongo.
I would love an allotment, but as I can't even keep on top og our very small garden, I don't think it would be a good idea. That's why we grow potatoes - but nothing elseQ
Sunday morning walks on the beach. Sittind down to eat together at the table as much as possible. Sailing in our Drascombe Lugger. Watching Doctor Who. Playing Scrabble.
No, ours is called a Humber Keel. It's like a Dutch Barge but ugly. 72ft long and 17 ft wide. If you google, ours isn't one of the glamorous one with sails - she's a motor barge.
bathing together, naked cuddles, all cuddles (and we call them sandwiches too sometimes but ds is the cheese rather than the ham!). chants of 'it's the start of the weekend' on a friday afternoon. walking to nursery and shooting the breeze, a time I love with ds. dancing around the dining table like loons. family tickle fights (these can get quite rough, but I always win as ds and dh are FAR more ticklish than me).
singing twinkle twinkle to ds before he goes to sleep.
'family sandwich' cuddles - me and dh are the bread and the three dc are the butter, jam and honey all squished up together in the middle
you've been framed on a saturday night
'skip bath' night on a friday
a game of Target in the park (me and dh throwing balls and trying to hit the kids as they whizz past us on their bikes)
lying on a rug in the garden with all dc and dh and reading stories, doing 'flying' and generally lazing around really enjoying physical closeness to my family
Making cakes in the bowl I made cakes with grandma in when I was little. We don't do this very often because I couldn't deal with the consequences if I broke it.
Always giving grandma the benefit of the doubt Singing David Wainwright's Feet Calling apples "abbies" and naked people "boodists" Debating when, ifever, daddy's balsawood plane will get finished Lorina pink lemonade "children's champagne" for high days and holidays Rainy day matinees with curtains drawn and popcorn Taking ds' three-foot cuddly Pikachu on holiday every time even though he is a Big Boy now Consensus that mummy is a champion shopper and daddy makes wonderful curry Tea and biscuits after church every Sunday, catching up with everyone else's busy week Our special walk along the River Darenth Always stopping to rescue bumblebees
family dinner every night where everybody gets to talk about their day (starts with Mummy asking the whole table "Did you have a nice day at the office, dears?")
bedtime stories (though dd is now 11)
picking berries in the forest together
summer holidays with gp's on an island
one short holiday a year with just the four of us, often in this country
switching between languages when we're on our own
silly family jokes
children encouraged to make us breakfast and dinner on Mother's and Father's Day
the night before every child's birthday, Mummy stays up late and sticks up photos from the life of the birthday boy/girl
We used to do:
film night on a Saturday night (will start this up again)
camping in the garden and (every September) in the New Forest- difficult to do now because of dd's disability
days out walking- again, this is something we can no longer do as a family
I don't care if I am not good at mother things.I didn't apply for this job anyway.Just seemed to fall into it. Not enough holidays and you get made redundant in the end.
'we grunt abotu the locaiton of the remote control '
ditto - we lost the kids' sky remote - it was missing for about 2 years, I kid you not, we found it the other week behind the radiator in a mass playroom clear out - it was a seriously unifying moment in the GDG household
Unless you count en masse mean imitation of Daddy's huff-sneeze (RA- HAAAH!!) - but hang on that's fostering family divisiveness isn't it, so the opposite.
and you hear htis mum say" oh we always go and wash out faces in the dew on the grass ont eh first day of may then dance aroudn a maypole ringing little bells"
my MIl dos htis" ohe we always have a tuna sandsich at the top of a mountain" and oyu think BREAK OUT!!!!
I have managed to send my smallest child to neighbours. Hurrah!!I have the streets entire collection of teenagers in my house.How did that happen!! Do I feed them?
ah ok] no beer no snckaing apart fomr fuit soup for lunch wiht crackes( thos no no ones are nice) ea no carbs - like grield fish or meat wiht veg or salad
I think a lot of the things on people's lists are family jokes and repeated sayings that evolved, rather than laboured contrivances That's what I understood from seeker's OP - noting what seems to happen every time rather than issuing a decree
Our cat got blamed for the drawings on our walls .
It is entirely possible that the habit of shouting You Bugger at the cat functions as family glue in the Inferiority Complex. It has just fallen off my desk, with a look of great affront as it skidded off a mass of Important Papers.
I used to be involved with running a parenting course, and we had a session called 'spiritual parenting' where you worked out what your family values were.
The lowest common denominator was to eat an occasional meal together, with the TV switched off, and do things like birthdays.
For us, we eat together every day, and the children get involved in preparing the meal. As a Christian family, we pray together and for one another.
Other than that, we take it as it comes. As a large family, we rarely have common ground, unless forced. We celebrate achievement etc., as and when, but the focus tends to be on the older children as their achievements are more tangible.
They are very good at playign together - for example, right now all five are playing water balloons (instigated by me, who DH just called 'such a child'), while DH and I look on, hoping not to draw too much attention.
We eat every evening meal together, cooked by me and DS (2.7)! Lots of tickling and wrestling "fights" DS sometimes climbs in with us on a weekday morning Lots of running/playing and building sandcastles on the beach - every sat and sun regardless of weather! We are super lucky that the beach is 2 mins walk from home Lots of cooking and baking Visit my parents and DH's father every weekend with DCs, we do one on Sat and one on Sun. Saturday night DH "cooks" tea (cheese on toast) so I can watch Dr Who! Dh baths DS so that they have time for just the two of them
Loads and loads of kisses, cuddles and I love you
All pretty mundane stuff but it helps us make time for each other, and have time out from each other too
Ours have sort of evolved rather than being deliberate but some of them are:
Boiled eggs and soldiers every Sunday morning.
Lots of silly songs ("Little Haggis") and phrases ("It might be the last nice day of the year...") that only we can "get".
Blodwyn The Dragon - stories about a character invented by Dh and loosely based on his best friend. We get a new episode as a bedtime story every time we travel overnight on a ferry (which is pretty frequently).
Dr Who (seems to be a common one) every Saturday night.
Whenever we're having pizza we always have it in the living room watching episodes of Shaun The Sheep. We always have to start with the one called "Takeaway".
Music festivals Dancing madly to folk music (esp Show Of Hands and the Levellers) Borrowing BIL's purple VW camper for the weekend/a festival Out on the narrow boat for a day/weekend Camping Film night and homemade pizza Walking/trekking Bike trips Lunch once a fortnight with Great Grandma Grandma and Grandad's every Thursday for spoiling A gingerbread man on Saturday (one each) Walks on the beach and sharing chips out of the paper afterwards Throwing a rugby ball around Picnics Doctor Who under the duvet Co-sleeping Breastfeeding
Made up stories in bed for the dcs Family lie ins in our bed at the weekend Picnic breakfasts in local park in the summer Cycling to nearby pick your own strawberries Sat on sofa together every night drinking milk and watching Cbeebies Treasure hunts at easter and for advent calendar Names that only I call the dcs (they won't let anyone else use them)
Like the idea of a family debrief when they get a bit older.
Hmm. I'm kind of with Cappucino in that I think that they ought to be things that make your life easier.
Like...DH doing omelettes for DS1 in the mornings when he's not too late for work, so I get to stay upstairs snoring breastfeeding for an extra few minutes.
Oh. And this is poncy. I teach DS1 a French word on the way to school every day. He doesn't know what French is yet, he thinks it's just Mum's weird language.
Footy (them not me, I sunbathe/study) and chips in the park on sunny evenings after school. Family barbecues Hop Festival, 2 days of semi drunkeness WITH kids, and whole town and their kids, never any trouble despite mucho ale and lovely lovely local food. And the sun ALWAYS shines Film nights, sometimes just DH and I, something DH, me and DS1 (15) Preferable with wine (DH and I) Carpet picnics in front of the tv on winter evenings. DH making the whole house smell of the mulled wine he makes at Christmas.
one day out a week where we do one thing that I really want to do (usually window shopping) and one thing ds wants (usually the zoo with all the dead animals, otherwise known as the museum)
muffins at starbucks in the bookshop
watching cartoons in bed on saturday morning, me, ds and the dog
saying "not now, I'm just finishing my cup of tea" about 23 times a day
sending postcards to people for no reason, just to say hi, my mum started this when I went to uni.
sharing a toblerone with the kids on a friday night, after bath but only if they've been good then dancing on the coffee table. Sharing a bottle of wine and green and blacks chocolate bar with husband after kids gone to bed. (i'm a complete chocoholic)
Feed your family Fabulous fish cakes for a fiver. With our Fabulous fish cakes recipe you really can feed your whole family a delicious meal for less than a fiver. This is just one of five brand new purse-friendly recipes from Sainsbury’s. Take a look!
I was hoping for some lovely ideas! 
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