Be careful what traditions you start.  Things can take off on their own pretty quickly.  

For instance...Kyle and I are both major homebodies. Give us a choice and any day of the week we'd choose to not budge from our domicile.  We love just being home with each other. We never run out of things to do.  

I don't think I can remember a time in the last 15 years when I was bored...(15 was a completely random number with absolutely no significance attached to it, by the way).

We rarely watch TV and being married to the "perfect" husband, about the only sports we watch are the BIG games...NBA finals, the relevant World Series games, etc. And that includes the Super Bowl.  I usually am doing good to know who even is playing. In fact, Kyle likes to test my sports mettle by giving me the two mascots and seeing if I can get the right team.  I am pretty good at this, actually. 

It isn't that I don't like sports. I do. I just have no loyalties to anyone. And usually better ways to spend my time than plopped down watching people chase balls like highly-paid, well-trained puppies.  Anyway, that's all completely beside my point which is this: for the SuperBowl game, rather than participate in any multi-family get together, we had a little Family Party. I made extremely hot salsa and accompanying queso, we had several bags of chips, I made the world's largest batch of chocolate chip cookies and we plopped down to watch the big game.

Actually, that isn't true. My cooking activities kept me kitchen bound till half-time, but that was really ok.  I thought Madonna did a great job, though. Not bad on those heels at her age. And Brooklyn was very impressed with her disappearing trick at the very end.

So, now that we have established our "Family Party" idea, the kids LOVE it. They want every night to involve some sort of Family Party. Brooklyn's birthday is coming up (next Saturday) and we already told her, no big party, but we will do a FAMILY party! She's thrilled! We're actually making a day of her birthday, but seriously, keeping it just among us 5. 

And so I warn you, make sure when you start a tradition that it's something you can live with on a regular basis. Cause it could just be a Tuesday, but the kids really feel like it's a Family Party night. It may only involve dinner around the coffee table instead of the dinner table, but it just FEELS so much more festive 'cause between all the guests (me, Kyle, Brooklyn, August and Dorien)...we know how to party!!!