This post has been sponsored Red Baron®. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Even in the busiest of seasons it’s easy to carve out time for fun and togetherness with a Family Pizza and Game Night!

It’s so easy to get caught up in the hustle and bustle of life and forget to make time for family fun, but battling mom guilt is as easy as turning the oven on, throwing in a pizza and reconnecting with the people who matter most.

Mom Guilt

If you’re like me, your days are spent in complete chaos from sun up to sun down. Making food, cleaning food, buying food all in between shuttling kids from school to sports and back again, preventing tragedies and stopping meltdowns. By the time I’m done the last thing I want to do is spend more time with the little people who I’ve been stuck in the car with all day. Stop judging me. Seriously. My kids are crazy. CRAZY I tell you! But, as my oldest enters her Freshman year of high school I can no longer hide from the fact that we have such a limited amount of time with those little crazies before they grow up! Time flies by so fast and each day is a chance to make memories before they are grown and gone. Queue the mom guilt. It usually hits me after a few seconds of alone time…. while waiting in the driveway for kids to finish their 5th trip to the bathroom, while folding laundry at midnight after finally getting them to stop tormenting each other and return to their own bunks for the night, or while I’m locked in the bathroom pretending to need some privacy just to get a moment of silence.

Making Time for What’s Important

It’s during these flashes of mom guilt that I usually devise a plan for a family night. It doesn’t have to be elaborate or expensive, it just has to be able to squeeze into our jam packed schedules. When I think back to my own childhood amongst the memories of juice boxes, Saturday morning cartoons and after school snacks, there are so many good times with my parents and friends, playing games, laughing and relaxing. Channeling that old school nostalgia I decided to pick up frozen pizzas and invite our family friends over for a Family Pizza and Game Night.

I called up my best friend to see if she would be interested in reliving Friday nights from our childhood over frozen pizza and classic games. The difference being that now, 25 years later, we also have husbands and kids in tow. She was in! Over dreams of our kids laughing at our jokes, begging us to play ‘just one more game’ and enjoying being in the same room as their parents we put it on our calendars.

Dinner + Games + Friends

Keeping things simple I mixed up a antipasti salad, asked my friend to bring beverages and dessert then stopped by the freezer aisle of my local Fred Meyer store to pick up an assortment of frozen pizzas. When I was there, I noticed that Red Baron® had just introduced a new brand ambassador .. The Baroness: a little sassy, a little imperfect and a LOT real, she would fit right in with my mom squad.

The antipasti salad plays on the nostalgic pizza parlor salad bar flavors of my youth – crunchy green lettuce loaded up with black olives, ribbons of salami, cool tomatoes and piles of shredded mozzarella cheese.

Red Baron®’s classic crust with crisp exterior and soft chewy inside is my favorite, but also available in Brick Oven and Thin & Crispy, there’s a Red Baron® for everyone.

With food and classic games of dice, cards, chess, checkers, mancala and dominos set out we were all ready for our Family Pizza and Game Night to start.

Embracing Imperfection

The kids did take a break from their own lives for long enough to grab some pizza and run, but they were not at all interested in hanging out with us, other than for the pizza.

Our dreams of family night perfection turned into reality of the kids stopping by long enough to grab a slice of pizza before running off to wreak havoc on the neighborhood.

Maybe playing games with their parents is not on the top of their to do lists, but at least pizza is something we can all agree on.

And the adults had a great time without them.

So much so that next time we’re splurging on a sitter at one house for the kids with an adults only game night at the other. Might not have been the perfect family game night but it was the perfectly imperfect night to me!

Tips for Success:

• Carve out time for family (or friend) fun even during busy weekdays by simplifying dinner with frozen pizza.
• Ask everyone to bring something different – salad, drinks and dessert!
• Serve an assortment of pizza flavors and crusts so everyone can find their favorite combination.
• Know that kids and planning do not always go hand in hand. Embrace imperfection and just go with the flow.
• Turn mom guilt into a mom win by making time for your favorite adult people too!

This post was created in partnership with Red Baron® + Kroger. Thank you for supporting the brands that support me!