Happy Friday everyone! Whose excited for a fun weekend? We woke up this morning to some bitter cold temps. Temps are in the single digit with wind chills making it feel like -20. Brrrrrrr. By next week though they are predicting mid 40s. That’s Michigan for you. So lets take a look at some of my favorites from the week.
One: Family Games
So on Tuesday the girls had a half day, and since Wednesday was Global School Play Day, we decided to start early and play a bunch of games.
Pete the Cat and the Groovy Buttons: a simple game were you go around the board collecting buttons for your button jar, or putting them on Pete’s coat. Winner is the one with the most buttons.
Cat Crimes: Technically this is a one person game. Each card has a “crime” and a set of clues on the front as to where the cats sit around the board. You have to figure out where each cat is, and who committed the crime. We had a lot of fun working together to solve the clue. There are easy-expert level clues. We looked at an expert level, but man it was hard!
Apples to Apples Junior: In case you don’t know how to play this game, each player has five red cards in their hand. The judge reads a word on the green card, and you pick which red card most closely fits the green card.
Blokus: This was my first time playing this game. Each player has a color, and they place the shape on the board. Same colors have to touch at a corner, but can’t touch anywhere else. The person with the most pieces at the end of the game wins.
Mr. Mouth: A classic from our childhood (this is actually Matt’s old game). Try to get the flies into the frogs mouth. In our case, if you pic the green you pretty much are guaranteed to win.
After playing some games, the girls asked if they could do some “crafts”. They have gotten quite a few that require some adult supervision, so I said ok. First up was make your own gummies. In all honesty it wasn’t too hard. But we quickly learned to only mix on flavor at a time, or else it gelled up way to quick.
Then… this God awful slime toy. So you make a slime by mixing a powder with some water, the can add sparkles and such to it. Then you use a syringe thing to suck the slime up and feed it to the baby. After you squeeze her belly and make her throw up slime. And then you start all over again.
Now I consider myself a fun mom. We do crafts, paint, I let them use glitter, we bake… but I very much despise slime.
Also, in case you haven’t heard of Global School Play Day, it promotes the importance of unstructured, non-electronic, play in children’s’ lives. I could talk soooo much about the importance of play (and how so much of what is done in lower elementary is not developmentally appropriate) so I love that our school embraces global school play day (for at least 1/2 the day). It occurs the first Wednesday of February yearly, so if haven’t participated, maybe you can convince your school to do it in 2024.
Two: Reading Harry Potter
Last night I started reading Harry Potter to the girls and it makes my heart so happy. I have read the series probably close to eight times, and love sharing my love of Harry Potter to my girls. It is a bit hard since Annabelle is just the right age, but Autumn and Aubrie are bit young. I really want to watch the first movie with them, but want to read the book first. I also know that by time you hit book four the series is a bit… darker, so am not sure how I’ll navigate that.
Three: Simple Valentines Day Decorations and Valentines Day Books
I changed up our winter décor for some simple Valentines Decorations, and switched out some of the winter books for Valentines day books. As a former elementary teacher I have lots of themed books, so we rotate them out based on the season or holiday.
If you are wondering is on the chalkboard, Aubrie insisted on drawing a dog. I let her since she was so excited about it.
You can check out more about the handprint craft here. And yes, I have made two of them. You can find the Be Mine string art here. Annabelle and Autumn both want to make their teachers a heart string art for Valentines Day, which I think is so cute.
Four: What was for dinner
- Sunday: jambalaya
- Monday: frozen leftover prime rib
- Tuesday: pot Roast
- Wednesday: left over chicken
- Thursday: chose your own leftover
- Friday: Chinese take out
- Saturday: dinner with my inlaws
Once again, I think I did a pretty good job at being on top of not letting leftover food go to waste. Is it a weird flex to be proud of how empty your fridge is the day before grocery day? LOL.
Five: Random pictures from the week
Little snowflake. While I love packing snow, I also love when it is cold and you can catch snowflakes and see all the different shapes they are.
Aubrie. This girl has a style all her own. We were on our way to dance (hence the tights). But boots, leg warmers and sunnies… all her. I also think her boots are on the wrong feet, but she doesn’t care
These cats. Whiskers is always bathing herself as well as bathing Pearl.
Then Pearl just plops on top of Whiskers. I think they were both mad that I had my laptop on my lap.
Well that’s it for our week. I really had a lot of fun playing all those games with my girls, so hopefully can continue the trend, particularly since I made it a goal. In case you missed it, this is what was on the blog this week: