Friday, December 06, 2019

The Best Games for the Whole Family


Games are one of the best things you can give your family! Board games are super easy, inexpensive, and an easy bonding activity. My kids love games, we have quite the collection from cooperative games for littles, to strategy games every one loves!

These first three are fun pattern recognition strategy games. Acuity is a quick thinking game where you race to find a a pattern match on the board to the card you've pulled. In Qwirkle each player pulls tiles to create matching columns and rows based on color or pattern. In Qbitz players race to see who can flip their cubes to match the pattern card the quickest, it comes in Jr., regular, and extreme editions. Rummikub is a classic numbers and strategy game that my parents taught me around 6 years old, and it's still a favorite, and I love seeing my oldest play it with my parents.   








Quiddler is an excellent word game in which you try to spell words of varying length for the highest point score. Think a quicker paced scrabble that's way more fun. Phase 10 is another fast paced card game where each round is a different run challenge. Settlers of Catan is another fun strategy game.

For the younger kids Sneaky Snacky SquirrelHoot Hoot Owl, Jumping Jack, Digging Doggies are some of our favorites. They all work on fine motor skills, counting, and a bit of strategy. We particularly love the cooperative games for the younger set Hoot Hoot Owl, Race to Treasure, and Dinosaur Escape are excellent.  
   
For Middle grades we love Battleship, Mole Rats in Space, KingdominoLabyrinth, and Eye Found It are all super fun. 
      
These are a few of our favorites, in addition to the classics, like Jenga. What are your favorite family games?
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Sunday, December 01, 2019

Christmas Traditions: Part I

Hello December, you beautiful month. 
December is such a magical month! We kick it off with our Elf (Olaf) showing up on December 1st with the Nativity, and a note reminding us that Jesus is the Reason for the Season. Our Elf is a little different from the traditional Elf, he is here to help us "Light the World with Good Deeds". He doesn't do anything naughty, but has lots of fun, and brings us a mission, or a message of kindness and love.  
Here are a few fun things Olaf has done in our house. Feel free to follow along for more ideas at GrantedByTiffany on Instagram, where I'll post Olaf's daily adventures.
Olaf Ziplining 

Olaf having a snowball fight with the stuffed animals

Olaf going for a ride

Elf Ball Pit

Elf's new shoes
This next one is a favorite in our house! Olaf hides candy canes around the house and they kids get to find them and add them to the Christmas tree. It's a super easy activity. If you want you can turn it spiritual and discuss the Shepard's cane.

It's Elf O'Clock

Reading his Biography 
Another one of our favorites is the Gingerbread House. Every year we get the Trader Joe's Chalet. I put it together the night before, and then Olaf brings extra candy for us to decorate it with.
All of the Elves' food groups.
When Olaf leaves he always leave a note for the kids telling them how much fun he had with them, and reminding them to be a light, and do good deeds year round.
Another thing we kick off today is our Christmas Book Advent. We've got a giant pile of Christmas books, and we read one or two a day. Check out some of our favorites here. But this is our starter stack for the year!
And tonight our kids will get their Christmas jammies. This year I let my 7 year old choose the Christmas jammies, and he picked these cute Hanna Andersson StarWars Jams. 
Tonight we will set up the tree, listen to Christmas music, and have fun decorating the rest of the house. Normally the kids would get their new ornaments when we decorate...but I'm a bit behind and the boys ornaments haven't arrived yet, so we will hold off until they all get here. I hope you have a magical December, and a very Merry Christmas. 

Thursday, November 28, 2019

Christmas Books We Love


If you haven't figured it out yet, we love books, and we love holidays! So it's no surprise how much we love holiday themed books!  For Christmas we place a stack of Christmas themed books under the tree and read a few a day.
There are so many good books to choose from. Let's start with the ones the boys really love -  Dinosaurs' Night Before Christmas,  Cookiesaurus Rex, Dino-Christmas, Construction Site on Christmas Night, Dear Santasauras, Little Blue Truck Christmas, Pirates Night Before Christmas, to name a few.

How The Grinch Stole Christmas, Olivia Claus, Who Makes the Snow, Olive, the Other Reindeer
And since we live in Idaho, we have to throw this one in there - it's really fun!
I Saw Santa In Idaho
I know, it's a lot of books, but if I had to pick a top 5 it would be: