Rediscovering Creativity

Big John dropped the hammer recently. We're getting rid of the TV which since he's really the only one that watches it isn't going to be so bad. The kids used to watch about a movie a day on the computer usually and so for them it wasn't bad news...until Dad said most of the movies are going too. I explained it to them like this: If the Lord says he'll spit us out of his mouth if we're luke warm (in the middle of the road) we should approach other things that way also. If a movie isn't glorifying to God then it doesn't have a place in our home. Realize, about 4 years ago we went through our movie collection and weeded out anything we found that had adultery, foul language, disrepect of authority or parents, drinking, excessive violence, promiscuity etc. We had been challenged that everytime something of this order came on your TV to shut it off for two hours....how much TV would you watch? At the time we didn't get any channels, currently we get 3, so movies were really more of the issue for us and so we applied the same rule to them. So anyway....most of the movies are pretty clean...but were they glorifying to God was the question. My oldest, Opie was the hardest to convince, as expected. He said "What are we going to do? ...open mouthed and wide eyed, like we sit around all day vegged out and have forgotten how to use our legs and arms. Such a silly! So I told him that it was actually an adventure and an opportunity to use our creativity. A friend helped also to encourage and bolster him when he pointed out that without the TV to dumb us down, creativity will flourish. Think of all the great minds that have come before us...and TV! We usually have popcorn night once a week and it was hard for them to figure out how that would work with a 11 month old and a 3 year old and NO TV !! I too have my doubts about board games with babies...but if people survied boredom for the last 6 thousand years...and we were all 11 months or 3 years old at SOME point....well I suppose we'll find a way! If anyone has any great ideas, I'd love some inspiration! The nice part of this time of year is we're all usually busy until sun down and bed time but winter will be another story, That's when farmers come home....and babies are made haha. Seriously though, that will be the deal breaker when we have all of us cooped up through prairie winters and long weekends. Here's hoping I get some great suggestions!