Pokemon

The little dude has gotten really into Pokemon recently. It's super confusing, but he loves it. The one cool part is that he's started making his own Pokemon cards and games. We played one tonight!

I'm not entirely sure what the rules are, except that he seemed to win most of the time.

Pirate's Gold

The little guy came home from school with a game about pirate gold. You hide gold, and then the pirate tries to guess who has it. There's even a rhyme!

Pirate, pirate, where is your gold?

Your treasure map is way too old.

It was taken by some of your crew.

Guess who it is or it's lost to you!

We played a few round tonight and had a great time. The kids were so funny and bad at keeping things hidden.

They really enjoyed making scary faces and saying "Arrrrrgh."

Puzzling

The kids got a bunch of puzzles for Christmas (yay!!). We put a big floor puzzle together Sunday night-- it was fun! I can't wait to work through the rest of them.

Spot It!

The kids and I played a rousing game of Spot It! after dinner tonight. They played against me so they could help each other. It was really sweet!

Thanks for the game, Chick Fil-A kids meals.

Fun Family Time

A couple weeks ago Emily's uncle and his family stopped by on their way to take their youngest back to a nearby college after visiting the other side of their family. It's always great to have visitors in our quaint little house and to talk about all the exciting things that are going on in the lives of those we care about. The college "boy" was around 10 when I started dating Emily and wasn't seemingly much bigger than my little guy back then. My how the time has flown. He was a good sport when Goose broke out Chutes and Ladders and then proceeded to pull out the victory from... oh, I don't know... 20 spaces back thanks to some "creative" counting. (Those ladders can do wonders when you are way behind and who says you have to go in order!)

The tiny tot got in on the action too with a snuggle on the couch and a book with her great uncle and cousin.

It was a wonderful, but too short, visit. It's nice to have been part of Emily's family for so long that they feel like my family too. I hope she feels the same way.

Okay?

I tried to get a picture of the baby today where she didn't look like death warmed over. This is the closest I came:

The little guy was selling me my breakfast this morning. It doesn't sound like a great deal at first, but he gave me money to use to buy back my own food, so it worked out alright. He weighed the money to make sure I'd given him enough, though. Hilarious!

Don't Rock the Boat!

The little guy got this game for his birthday-- it's really hard! He's "fixed" it by taking off the piece that makes the boat's balance precarious, and now it's an easy game. He loves to put the penguin pirates all over the boat, but he hates to pick up after himself. Luckily, his little sister loves to take the penguin pirates off the boat and return them to their box. Symbiosis!

Fun and Games

We are usually homebodies, but we went out of town again this past weekend-- this time we headed to the beach! The little dude and I started our vacation with a rousing game (or three) of Candyland.

The baby enjoyed her game piece, too. These pictures crack me up. She looks like the Godfather.

I'll make you an offer you can't refuse.

Seriously, she's terrifying!

Leave the gun. Take the cannoli.

Anyway, we wrapped up our weekend by playing three rounds of Old Maid. This is our newest game, and it was a hit. I liked it a lot better than Candyland, so hooray!

While the three of us were playing cards, the baby played with a rattle and chewed on whatever cards were within reach. She'll be able to play more soon enough...

See? She's not always scary.

Is it hockey season?

While Emily was out of the country this week I tried my best to keep the kids alive, and succeeded. Phew! Saturday morning my boy wanted to watch baseball (I love it!) but it was too early so none of the games had started. So then he wanted to watch hockey, but that was over months ago. I checked our NHL channel on the Roku just in case there were still some highlights from the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Luckily there were so we watched game 6 where (spoiler alert..sorta) the Blackhawks beat the Bruins to win. Here are some shots of the game (it's relevant, I promise). Photos from sbnation.com

Stanley Cup logo under the ice

Presentation of the Stanley Cup

After we watched the highlights which included the above presentation the kiddo ran upstair to get his socks skates and hit his pucks around our downstairs. After a few "goals" his lifted his arms and cheered, "We won!" 

Then he ran off and came back with a bath mat and put it down on his "ice". I managed to snap a picture.

"Hey bud, why did you get the bath mat?"

"I had to put a rug on the ice!"

"What?"

"I had to put the rug down on the ice because I won!"

"Huh?"

"I won so now I get the bottle from under the ice!"

"The bottle from under the ice? What are you talking ab.... Ahhhhhh."

Don't tell anyone from Canada my son called the Stanley Cup a bottle.

The sweet girl doesn't know anything about hockey yet, but she does love to stand. Here she is supposed to be going to sleep while mommy reads her brother a book.

Duck... Duck... Baseball?

It has been fun carpooling with Em this week and dropping off and picking up the kiddos from daycare. I usually deal with the big one and Em takes the little one in. It is nice seeing him interact with all the other kids and getting to talk to him about his day on the way home.

Today he told us he learned a new game at school.

"We learned Duck, Duck, Goose today."
"Really? How do you play?"
"You pat heads."
"...You pat heads? Is that all?"
"And you say 'Duck..Duck..Duck..Goose!'"
"Then what?"
"Then you run!"
"Oh, fun. Where do you run?"
"Well you run around! You run and, um, you run to ah, um... third and then you run to second! And then to one-thirty! That's a long time. Yep, that's whatcha do!"

Hysterics ensue.

After dinner we took a walk. The little guy is always picking up sticks and bringing them home. Apparently the apple doesn't fall far. Here's one of his trophies.

By the way, the azaleas are just gorgeous right now. Come visit!

Silly Games

Any time Eric plays a game on the iPad, the little dude asks if he's playing his silly game. Well, look who has a silly game of his own!

I had just wiped off the table from breakfast. That's why it looks so yucky, I promise!

Puzzling

Today the kiddo stumbled upon a couple puzzles that our homeowner's children have and he set out to work them. I don't think he'd ever really worked a real puzzle before so I was anxious to test out his genius. The first one is a map of the US and he was terrible at it. I was only decent at it because I know where the states go. After we worked it I looked on the box and saw it was for ages 6+ so I didn't feel as bad about him not being able to do it. Plus, the puzzle artists destroyed West Virginia so I didn't want to work it anymore anyway.

The other puzzle was for ages 4+ so I thought we'd give it a try. I decided to help a little less, but do more coaching. Who knew you're not born knowing the best way to work a puzzle?

We finally got it finished and I was proud of the little guy. It took a while, but he worked it all himself, finding the pieces and putting them in the puzzle. Here is the almost finished project.

Those last five pieces went the fastest.  Maybe 10 minutes or so.

Spoiled

The little dude and I are both being spoiled rotten this week by Nana. She and the little guy played his Chuggington matching game this morning:

How sweet!

3 More Turns!!

As we documented a couple weeks ago, we've been playing Candy Land in the evenings.  The little guy loves to play.  We even got Pops in on the action Monday night.  The other post understated the amount of the game that the kid will let us get through.  It has been at most 3 turns each.  Being the competitor that I am it is a little annoying, but then I realize that there is no skill required whatsoever.  The only thing that would hinder you in this game is being color blind.

Well I was determined to get through the game tonight when Goose asked me if I wanted to play.  I shuffled the cards and we got started.  Turn 3 came and went for each of us.  Then turn 10, then 15.  "We might get through this," I thought to myself, "and I am winning!!"  I was shoving cards in his face one after the other to get to this point, but then he abruptly said "I'm done," and picked up our gingerbread men.  We were seriously only 10 squares from the finish.  So I noted where we were and played out the game.  (Stupid kid woulda won in 3 turns.  Grr!)

There's the orange square!  Here's your next card!