Tag Archives: Games

Family Fun & Dinner

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Every once in a while I try to do something to bring the family together whether it’s a movie, a game, or some sort of outing but there is a huge challenge in that. The challenge is trying to find something that will make everyone happy from a toddler, a tween, and two teens…. you’re laughing aren’t you? Go ahead… you can laugh because I would too. It really is difficult but once in a while I do succeed.

So I rented the Disney version of Just Dance from Redbox for Couch Critics and I have to say that it was a lot of fun! I enjoyed it and I know that my younger two kids did too…. the teens well they watched for a few minutes and moved on to something else. And I do have to say that it is so much better than a game of Monopoly…. that is a long… long… long game that nobody but my husband wins at.

dancing with Disney

Maybe the game was a flop with the teens but dinner well, that was a huge success! Homemade broccoli cheddar soup, bread, shrimp cocktail, and the kids favorite… mini corn dogs.

mini corn dogs shrimp

I’ll be honest… I kinda like corn dogs too but I skipped eating them simply because I wanted the soup more and I was really trying to watch what I eat.

Dinner at our is important to me and it’s the one time of day that we all sit down together at the table with no cell phones, television on, or any other distractions. It’s when we can talk over our day and share a bit about what we’ve done, it’s a time to connect as a family and spend quality time together every day.

It’s important for so many reasons to sit down together as a family too. It’s a time where you can engage with your kids which is important all on its own, but there are health benefits for us as adults and kids too. It can also be fun!

It’s incredible how many laughs we have shared together at the dinner table whether it was something the toddler did or tried to say after hearing something that one of his sisters said.

broccoli soup

The soup was great! The kids all loved it, I loved it, but my husband… well he didn’t. I think that it was the veggies…or that it was soup (both he doesn’t like).

Do you have family dinners together? What about family games?

I shopped at Walmart for our dinner and you can check out my Google+ album. You can check out Redbox on Facebook & Twitter if you want to learn more about them.

 I am a member of the Collective Bias™ Social Fabric® Community.  This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias™ #CBias #SocialFabric

Yahtzee!!

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This week, we want you to recall the games you played when you were young.
Did you love Monopoly, Yahtzee, or Uno? Or did you prefer backgammon, Trouble, or Scrabble?
Write a piece that explores one of your memories.

I’ve been missing for a while from TRDC prompts and really have no reason why, but I’m jumping back in today.

Many years ago when I was just a little girl my family and I used to take long weekends and go up north to St. Helen, Michigan to visit my grandparents on my moms side. I loved going up there for so many reasons, but most of all I got to spend some time with my grandparents and usually got away with a lot more than if I were at home.

Every evening after dinner (often polenta, sausage, and a marinara sauce) I would take a bath and use the Irish Spring soap, the traditional green and white marbled bar. Even today the smell brings back all sorts of fond memories of my grandparents house and the times that I spent with them. After my bath my grandma would french braid my hair into two long and really tight braids on either side of my head. I’m amazed at how tight she was able to get them! Seriously… sometimes it hurt. But I endured it because I loved the way they looked so much and my mom couldn’t braid.

Yahtzee

Image via Wikipedia

Once all of us kids were in bed the adults would all gather in the kitchen with their snacks and wine to play Yahtzee.

They would all take their seats at the table, passing out the score sheets, pencils, and gathering the cup and dice at first. And this is when the fun started. They’d shake the cup letting the dice rattle around a few times before letting them roll out of the cup and on to the table all in hopes of getting that elusive Yahtzee. Again and again the dice would be tossed into the cup, rattle around, and then fall onto the table.

So many times I would get up and tell them that I couldn’t sleep because of the dice, but really I just wanted to watch or even to play with them. Of course I was always sent back to bed where I would lay and listen to the fun.

As the night progressed they would laugh, talk, and carry on. Always having a great time and yelling out “Yahtzee!!” in a gleeful manner when someone managed to get the five dice to all have the same number showing. They would play well into the night it seemed or probably something closer to 10 or 11pm.

During the day my grandma would pull out that old Yahtzee box and play with us kids. I remember the box, it was worn very much use throughout the years and held shut by a single rubber band. We would have so much fun playing with my grandma.

As I think back of all the times that they played I can still hear the sound of the dice rattling and my mom laughing. Looking back things were much simpler then.

I remember this so well and it’s such a fond memory that even today my sister and I love to play it when we get together.