Scenes From Our Week - Week 18, A Penguin Snack

I guess we had a busy week because I only took one photo this whole week. I had planned on taking some shots at Patrick's basketball tournament, but then I ended up keeping stats and running the clock, so I couldn't take pictures.  So, the only picture I took this week was.......

Friday was Reagan's snack day at school.  She had seen in her AMERICAN GIRL magazine these penguin snacks and had been begging to make them.  We decided to make them for her snack and she was so excited. They were also a huge hit with her classmates!

We used regular oreos, snack size oreos, and frosting (white to seal the oreos and yellow for eyes and beak).  I will say, it wasn't as easy to break or cut the oreos in half and I was glad I had purchased 2 packages to cover for all the broken wings.  But, they were relatively quick to assemble.

I will do my best to get some better photos this week!

Family Time February - Balloon Lagoon

During the month of February, I am featuring games that our family has enjoyed over the years.  February is a great time of year to get cozy with your family and play some games.  I guarantee there will be lots of laughs and memories made.  

Today I am featuring another great Cranium game.  Sadly, it is also discontinued, but still available on Amazon.

 
BALLOON LAGOON is definitely one of our kids' favorite games.  Playing this game is just like being at a carnival but without the crowds! There are four mini games to complete.  As you complete each "challenge" you collect balloons to put into your game piece.  The person with the most balloons at the end is the winner. The four mini games include a slot-machine like game where you match pictures on a card (like the four pieces to a shark), flipping frogs into the pond, fishing for magnetic letters to spell words, and a dice matching game.  You have to complete each mini game before the song/timer runs out.

We have great memories playing this game.  I always struggled with the frog flipping and the kids always thought it was so funny that they could do that better than me.  They loved fishing for the letters.  This is such a great game that includes both cognitive and physical abilities.  The game states it is for 5 + years which I think is pretty realistic.  This is a relatively more expensive game at $34.99, but our family has gotten several years of enjoyment from this game.  This is one of those classics that we will hang on to forever.  

Family Time February - Mouse Trap

During the month of February, I am featuring games that our family has enjoyed over the years.  February is a great time of year to get cozy with your family and play some games.  I guarantee there will be lots of laughs and memories made.  

Another game from our childhood as well as one we enjoy now is MOUSETRAP.

Because the set up is more work for the parents, it may not always be our first choice, but it still is fun!  As you play and move around the board, you build pieces to the contraption.  You collect pieces of cheese to use as payment once the entire trap is built.  Then you try to trap another player's mouse in the mouse cage as you release a marble through the contraption maze.

 I remember when the boys were really little, they would get so excited to watch as the marble wound its way through every part of the maze and eventually dropped the cage on the potential mouse.  This game teaches patience for the building process, teaches the science of how to get the marble to drop to engage the next process, and is always good for laughs.

The game states it is for ages 6 +, but I expect most 6 year-olds would need help from a parent in building the maze.  The game is available on Amazon for $18.15.

Family Time February - SkipBo

During the month of February, I am featuring games that our family has enjoyed over the years.  February is a great time of year to get cozy with your family and play some games.  I guarantee there will be lots of laughs and memories made.  

Today's featured game is SKIP-BO from Mattel.

I don't remember how this game came into our family, but it started with my husband and I playing it together.  When the kids were little, we would put them to bed and play a few rounds of Skip-Bo.  Now we have taught our kids how to play.

The object of the game is to use your cards along with the other player's cards to build stacks of cards in sequential order.  You must use strategy, planning, and luck in playing your cards.  The winner is the first to get through their own stack of personal cards first.

The game is appropriate for ages 7 to adult and can be played with 2 or more people.  You do need to have a flat surface to play it on due to the stacking of cards.  This game retails for $6.99 and can be found at your local Target, Wal-Mart or toy store as well as Mattel's website HERE.

Losing It

A week ago I started Weight Watchers.  My cousin is doing the online version and I decided to join in.  10 years ago, after having our second child, I started Weight Watchers and lost 40 pounds in about 4 months.  I had a 2 year old and a 1 year old so I am sure that had something to do with the weight loss too!  But, I really liked Weight Watchers and how their plan worked.  It has changed some since then, but still an awesome program.  

Well 10 years later, nearly all of that weight had worked its way back onto my hips, thighs and stomach.  Bleh! Before Christmas I had gotten sick and wasn't able to eat for a few days, so that kick started my weight loss.  In that time, I lost 8 pounds.  Christmas partying put 3 pounds back on, but I kept off that first 5.  Last week I lost an additional 2 pounds! I want to have 10 pounds gone by the time I hook up with my cousin for a weekend in March.  I feel strongly that I can do it!  Only 3 more to go!

So, while I was on Pinterest one night, I saw this FAB AB FEBRUARY and thought, I can do that.  What a great way to amp up my treadmill/healthy eating/weight loss.  I thought maybe some of you might want to check it out too.  You still have plenty of time to get it done today!

Family Time February - Cranium Whoonu

During the month of February, I am going to have a new feature titled, FAMILY TIME FEBRUARY.  I plan to feature board games that our family has played over the years and maybe even some from our childhood that we just loved. Even though February is the shortest month of the year, sometimes it can feel like the longest because we are all cooped up due to the cold and snowy weather.  What a perfect time to get down on the floor and play a game with your kids.

Our family LOVES to play boards games.  As as kid growing up, I loved playing board games, but since I didn't have any siblings at home to play with, I would often set up my dolls and stuffed animals around the board and play against them.  I know....sad.....but I loved to play them so much.  I would get board games as gifts which was pure torture because I would have no one to play them with.  Yes, my mom would play with my sometimes, but not as often as I would have liked, of course.  So, as a parent, I tend to buy a lot of board games for our family and instill that love in our kids as well.

Even though our kids love to play on the iPad or the Wii, they still love to play board games.  One of our favorite games to play is WHOONU.

I like this game because you don't have to sit around a board, you can sit comfortably in your living room or even in a car and play this game.  This is a game that can be played with people you know or don't know very well.  The object of the game is to guess out of the four cards in your hand which item the person who is the "Whoonu" during that round, would like best.  So, if I had Roller Coasters, Ebay, Drive-Thru's, and Spiders on my cards to choose from and my son, Bennett was the "Whoonu", I would choose Roller Coasters. (Because of those four items that is what he would like best.) Then everyone else would choose a card from their hand as well.  Then Bennett as the "Whoonu" would take all the cards (not knowing who put in what card) and rank them from best to worst.  Then we get coins with points on them according to our ranking.  You keep going around the room until everyone is a "Whoonu".  The winner is the person with the most points in coins.  Essentially the person who "knows everyone best".  It is fun to play with people you know as well as you don't know.  You learn about them either way.  There are always a lot of laughs whenever we play this game.

The game states it is appropriate for 8 years to adult, but our daughter has played for a few years, so it just depends on the abilities of your child.  Unfortunately, this game has been discontinued by the Cranium company.  But it is still available on Ebay or on Amazon HERE.

What is your family's favorite game to play?  What do you do to pass the time in the winter?

Book Review: The Yellow House by Patricia Falvey

THE YELLOW HOUSE

By Patricia Falvey

Published: February 15, 2010

*****

THE YELLOW HOUSE delves into the passion and politics of Northern Ireland at the beginning of the 20th Century. Eileen O'Neill's family is torn apart by religious intolerance and secrets from the past. Determined to reclaim her ancestral home and reunite her family, Eileen begins working at the local mill, saving her money and holding fast to her dream. As war is declared on a local and global scale, Eileen cannot separate the politics from the very personal impact the conflict has had on her own life.

She is soon torn between two men, each drawing her to one extreme. One is a charismatic and passionate political activist determined to win Irish independence from Great Britain at any cost, who appeals to her warrior's soul. The other is the wealthy and handsome black sheep of the pacifist family who owns the mill where she works, and whose persistent attention becomes impossible for her to ignore.

I got this book back in 2010 when I won it from a blog.  Unfortunately, I didn't keep track where I won it from though.  Since then it has been sitting on my To Read shelf, patiently waiting.  Then a few weeks ago, I saw it listed as the Kindle Deal of the Day for $2.99.  I had recently started a mini book club with two of my friends and since they both have Kindle Fires, I thought this would be the perfect book for us to read.  So THE YELLOW HOUSE got bumped to the top of my reading list just like that!

As you know, I LOVE Historical Fiction and this book gave me plenty of it. I love reading books and learning about parts of history that I never even knew happened.  Since I grew up and have always lived in America, I had very little knowledge of the political and religious uprisings that occurred in Ireland.  This was another book that gave me a greater appreciation for the country and era that I grew up in.

The story was also filled with family secrets and struggles that I think most of us can relate to.  Eileen and her family loved each other deeply, were hard working, but also had a bit of the past that prevented them from moving forward.  Some of the twists in the story were expected but others made me drop the book and gasp in surprise.  You also can't have a story without a little romance and the author kept the love lives in the story interesting!

If you would have been eavesdropping while I was reading this novel, you would have heard laughter, gasps, sniffles, and even a few sobs.  This novel kept you focused and interested.  All the characters were easily imaginable and Eileen was someone I would have loved to have been friends with as well as been afraid to cross! She definitely made life interesting!  This would be a great choice for book clubs as there are a lot of topics worthy of discussing including: family loyalty, politics, religion, war, friendship, love, dreams, values, grief, and parenting.  This book has it all.

Another thing I loved about this book was that it was the author's first novel.  It thrills me to find a new author and then to fall in love with their first novel.  I'm always excited to hear of their next novel.  Since it took me so long to read this one, Falvey has already come out with her second novel, THE LINEN QUEEN, which is also set in Ireland and has been added to my To Read list.  Falvey is also working on her third novel.

Courtesy of www.PatriciaFalvey.com

For more on Patricia Falvey, check out www.PatriciaFalvey.com or check out her Facebook Page HERE.

To purchase a copy of THE YELLOW HOUSE, click the photo below:

Thanks to the publisher for sending a copy of this book for review. If you choose to purchase this book through the above link, I may receive a small commission without you having to pay a cent more for your purchase. Thanks for supporting SincerelyStacie.com.