Family Game Night

The kids requested a family game night Thursday but it wasn't a good time so I promised we'd do it Friday and do it special. And so we did.

First, we had a fun dinner that we do on rare occasions. It's not healthy but we enjoy it. We had a variety of finger foods: dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets, seasoned curly fries, pizza rolls, taquitos, and jalepeno poppers. I didn't do as much variety as I usually do but it was enough. In addition to that, I let each child have a full can of soda to enjoy while we played games. Normally, when they get soda, they have to share a can.

Once we got the food out of the way, we pulled out a game of their choice. They chose Hungry Hippos first.


Josh wanted to get in on the action so I sat him in front of me and helped him work our hippo. He thought it was lots of fun.

It didn't take him long to figure it out and be able to it all on his own. In fact, he refused to share his hippo with me once he got it down.

Sometimes he'd quit feeding his hippo. The older kids, however, weren't quitting for anything. See how intent they are?

Here's everyone, even Josh, in the midst of an intense game. Meanwhile, I was snapping photos and baking a carrot cake. We sampled the recipe recently featured on Pioneer Woman Cooks. My daughter thinks her recipes are awesome, especially her mashed potatoes.

After we tired of Hungry Hippos, we had some cake and played a mean game of Sorry. Mika won. I came in second. Then Sam and Scott spent forever pacing their last piece back and forth, up and down the final home stretch. They'd go up 2, up 1, back 4, up five, back 1, up 1, back 4, up 2, up 3, back 1 and so on and so on and so on until Sammy finally made it home. Scott kept drawing cards. I'm happy to say that he finally, many cards later, drew a series that got him home.

It was a great night. Lots of fun and laughter and not too many issues with poor sportsmanship and tears.

Do you have family game nights? What are your favorite games to play?