Family Game Night

We got a wonderful surprise from Grandmother C. today.  A package arrived with a special treat for each of us.

She knows how I love special things like soaps and lotions for relaxing and pampering myself so she sent me a huge bar of the most amazing smelling soap.  So heavenly!

Rachel got the Melissa and Doug Princess Elise magnetic dress-up doll.  She has loved playing with these types of toys at other children's homes and I'm so glad she finally has her own.


Nicholas got his package opened and didn't quite know what to think of it at first.


It is a game called Fasttrack by Blue Orange Games.  We had never heard of it before but the boys quickly figured out how to play.


The laughter was amazing!


Even Stuart was having a ball playing!


The concept is simple.  Each player has little wooden discs that they have to try to shoot through a small opening in the middle of the board.  They can only use one hand and they must shoot the disc with the elastic band.  The elastic band gives it the force but you are in charge of aiming it.  But don't take too long working on your aim because the first player to get rid of all of their discs wins.


Nicholas worked on trying to perfect his aim.


I loved the "high-fives" when one of them won.

.

The boys were having too much fun to let others play but Rachel didn't mind.  She was quietly sitting at the table playing with her Princess Elise dress-up doll.


Meanwhile, the fierce competition on the other side of the table continued.



Grandmother happened to call while the game was going on.  I could hardly hear what she said for all the laughter in the room.


Victory!


Finally, they decided to take a break and break open the game that Grandmother sent to Stuart.  This was another Blue Orange game called Spot It!


Oh this game is so amazingly fun!


Two cards are played.  Only two pictures on the cards will match and the first person to shout, "Spot It!" wins that match.  It sounds so easy but you will be surprised how you get stumped at times.  


But even Rachel got in on this game.  She was quite good at it and beat Daddy several times.  

We had a wonderful game night.  Thank you Grandmother!



School Book Hunt!

Tomorrow is the first day of school so we had our school book hunt tonight.  

Last year I just hid the books for both Nicholas and Rachel.  That didn't work so well because Nicholas found most of Rachel's books for her and one time Rachel found one of Nicholas' books.  They didn't really know which books they were supposed to find.

This year I came up with a solution. You can tell from their expressions that they were a little shocked by what they saw when they came to play.


This year I made the book hunt into a yarn game.  Do you see the yarn tangled all over the room?


I gave each kid they starting piece of yarn and a cup to wrap it around.


Then they had to follow the yarn to find their school books.


Yay!  Rachel found one of her books!


I made the course a little harder for Nicholas.  He often had to crawl under or over yarn to get to his books.


Success!  Who knew that an English book could bring cheers of joy?!


Nicholas doing the yarn dance!


It took Rachel a while to really get the hang of what she was supposed to do.  I had to keep helping her roll up her yarn and reminding her what to do next.  But then again, she's still only 3 years old!


Nicholas actually enjoys these Perplexor logic puzzles.


That book is almost as big as Rachel!


She's going to like the AlphaTales book set.  We'll use it to review all the letters of the alphabet and the sounds that they make.


At the end of the yarn course, Nicholas found a pencil bag full of goodies.


Rachel took a little longer to find the end of her yarn but by now she had figured out the game and was having fun finding new books.


I guess the boy is happy with his loot.


Rachel found a wonderful little science book that is mostly involves me just reading to her about nature.


Finally Rachel found her pencil case hiding in the drawer of the coffee table.


Lots of Hello Kitty goodies for her.


Well, we will be up and at 'em tomorrow morning!