Family Night

Once a week we take turns to get to pick a game for family night. I have fun memories of playing games with my family and know the kids are growing up fast and won't always love them so much but for now they look so forward to them. I thought it would be fun to make a note of some of our favorites!

Tonight it was my pick so I did Chinese knives, which was a childhood memory. I told Jon the secret to see if the kids could figure it out. I took 6 butter knives from the drawer and we all sat in a circle on the floor. Jon left the room and we pointed to someone whose name I would write in "Chinese" with the knives. We started with Seth. I acted like I was thinking hard and made a design with the knives, the kids were very impressed that I knew Chinese. Then I posed my legs just like Seth and Jon had to walk in and look to see who I was imitating. Seth was kind of squatting with one foot turned under so it wasn't easy and I thought it might be obvious to the kids but it wasn't. Jon said, "Seth," and they all gasped. We kept playing until Tanner got it, then Maddie, then we were very obvious with our legs sprawled out and Max got it. We finally told Seth who had to run out of the room to take his turn to "read Chinese."

Last week it was Maddie's pick. She learned a game at school called Alibi. Maddie went out of the room and we picked someone that was the "liar" which was Jon. Then someone else had to think of a problem like "Somebody broke the chair." When Maddie came in we told her the problem then she asked each of us what we were doing when the chair got broken. The liar (Jon) said something like, "It wasn't me, I was cutting my toe nails." We each had a turn giving our alibis. Then she went around the circle again and we had to say the exact same thing except for the liar (Jon) who changed it to "It wasn't me, I was cutting my finger nails." She has to listen very carefully to all of us and we have to remember exactly what we had said the first time. It was pretty fun.

A game they love that we play all too often is Corners. We number the corners in the living room 1-5, like between the couch and wall is corner 1, between the other end of the couch and the fireplace is corner 2 and so on. The person that is it closes his eyes and counts to 10 while everyone runs to a corner, more than one person can be in a corner. Before the person opens his eyes he yells a number, "Corner 2!" If anyone is in corner 2 they're out. The game contiues like this until there's only one person left. That person gets to be it. One of Seth's favorites.

Another game, when we have more time, is Sardines. This was also a favorite of mine growing up. We turn off all the lights and have to stay on one level of the house. Everyone counts to 100 while one person hides. When someone finds that person they very quietly hide with her. The last person to discover where everyone is hiding is it. Sometimes it gets pretty crowded if they choose a small area and it's hard not to laugh but you have to stay quiet so nobody else will find you. It's pretty fun but everyone wants a turn to hide so it takes us a while.

I don't know the name of this game but I'll call it Word Association, (real catchy). Tanner will think of any word like "watermelon" and whisper it into Maddie's ear. She will then say the first word that pops into her head like "Summer" and whisper that word into Max's ear...and so on. The last person then says the word they're thinking out loud to everyone and it's interesting at how far or how close the word is to the first word. One time Maddie whispered "cookie" into Seth's ear and he ended with "Crumbs in my shoes" which was pretty random but cracked everyone up.