Unforgettable Childhood

In the middle of September Unforgettable Childhood will have a new home.

I am moving my Girlfriends Get Real site to Wordpress and I will have a special “KIDS” page that will have daily updates on creating an Unforgettable Childhood for your kids.

I am busy crafting and creating with my kids to make this a fun place to give you inspiration. I will let you know when the site is up and running. The goal is September 15th. See you there!

Last week when I took a little trip to Barnes and Noble I found this awesome game. I had played it once with my girls and they really loved it, but I had not been able to find it to purchase it for our family.

I was so excited when I went into the game section and they had one left. We have played it at least a half a dozen times since I bought it a week ago.

My seven year old is not to young to play, in fact she beats us half the time.

Our four year old is the keeper of the blocks so it keeps her busy even though she is too little to play.

Our nine year old doesn’t think she is too cool to play this game and it challenges her more than a lot of the games we play.

It is a game that our entire family really enjoys. We have also played it with my mom and sister and they loved it, too.

Sometimes a new game is a flop, but that is definitely not the case with Qwirkle. The concept requires matching of shapes and colors with a little Sudoku twist.

During the fall and winter we have a lot of family game nights and I am sure this will be a family favorite when the snow flies.

Do you have any favorite family games?

Before we headed on vacation we received an awesome package from Patch Products. It had their new 3D Sneaky Puzzle Singin’ Sea Creatures.

We love puzzles in our house and super big ones that come with 3D glasses, how cool is that?

My four year old did the puzzle twice in a row as soon as I took it out of the box. I don’t think you are supposed to actually put the puzzle together while wearing the glasses, but she thought the glasses were really neat.

The quality of this puzzle was great. They are nice big, thick pieces and the picture is really colorful and bold. The bonus. . .the entire alphabet and numbers 0-9 are hidden in the puzzle. We had a lot of fun finding everything that was hidden in the picture.

I helped her with the outside pieces, but she did a great job putting in all of the center pieces.

A few days ago we pulled out the puzzle again to do with her sisters and grandma. It was just as much fun and challenging this time.

I am so excited to buy this puzzle as a gift. If your family loves puzzles, this is a great step up from the little 50 piece puzzles. I was flipping through the Patch Product catalog and they have more Sneaky Puzzles that we can’t wait to try.

They have puzzles the same size as this one that are 2-sided for twice the fun.

Patch Products is letting me giveaway this awesome floor puzzle. All you have to do is go to their site and let me know one other product that your family would love to try. The giveaway will run through Thursday, June 17th at midnight. I will announce the winner on Friday.

Saturday started out as a gloomy, rainy day. Everyone spent most of the day in the house.

Late afternoon the sun began to shine and we took full advantage of Family Game Night outside.

We started with a game of Croquet. We love playing this as a family because even little one can join in the fun.

Nadia had just as much fun running back and forth to the swing set as she did hitting her ball.

Another one of our favorite outdoor games is Boochie. We discovered this game last year. It is kind of a kid’s version to Bocce Ball. Each person has a ball and a hoop. One person throws a bigger foam ball out and then everyone tries to get their ball and hoop close to the orange ball.

The orange ball helps determine points. Each person has a wrist band to keep track of their points until one person wins.

This game is full of laughter and silliness. Perfect for family outdoor fun.

We couldn’t pass up this beautiful night without gathering around the fire pit. Some of our favorite family moments are around the fire. And of course, you can’t have a fire without smores.

The wood was still a little wet from the winter so starting a fire proved to be a little difficult.

Marshmallow down, between Madi shaking her stick and blowing out the fire, the marshmallow had no hope for survival.

Not sure where Nadia found the Santa Hat.

What a perfect Family Night! Have you started spending time outdoors as a family?

I spend a lot of time playing games with my 4 year-old. She really likes to win. When it is just her and myself, I give her a little slack and most of the time I let her win. I am realizing that maybe that isn’t the greatest strategy.

Tonight the three girls and I had some family game time. The first game we played was Guess What I Am.

We all love this game. It is fun to stick our faces through the holes and make guesses like, “Am I an animal? Do I have feathers? Am I a girl or boy?”

This game went pretty well. No tears. Little one kind of did her own thing.

Then we played the new Connect 4X4. Nadia did not want to be blocked. She did not want to wait her turn, She wanted to win. Her sisters are not quite so easy on her as I am. They wanted to win, too.

This almost turned into a game of war. This is usually when the tears come. Luckily tonight we all laughed.

I will never forget when we had some friends over for a night of games. Their then 4 year old lost a game and said, “I hate myself”. We laughed back then and couldn’t believe that our kids would ever act like that when they lost. . . Fast forward 5 years and I am the one that isn’t laughing at my 4 year olds behavior.

So how do you do it? How do you get a 4 year old to participate and not always think they have to win?