Day 4- the fun we have as a family

Last Sunday we were trying to figure what we wanted to do as a family. No one felt like going for a walk or playing board games or going for a drive. We all started brainstorming and came up with this fun idea:
We went out into the front yard with the kids sidewalk chalk and drew a giant gameboard that wound up and down the length of the driveway. We bundled Emma up and put her in her saucer to watch the fun. We each came up with different things to write in the different squares of the board. Some squares had a physical requirement such as: Do ten jumping jacks or Take a basketball shot. Other squares had a family members name on them like Hunter or Brenn or Grandma and if landed on would require an answer to a trivia question about that person. Other squares were random trivia such as: spelling trivia, math questions, or choose your question. The kids had fun coming up with their own square ideas. Hunter made a "SWAMP" square where you would get stuck for a turn. Avery wanted a square where if you landed on it you had to sit and make cow sounds while waiting for your turn to come again. She still loves cows by the way. Once almost every square was filled we grabbed a dice from one of our board games and started to play. The winner would get a Bahama Bucks (a yummy flavored ice treat that we all love).

We started to play taking turns rolling the dice and making our way around the game board. Hunter landed on Aunt Brenn trivia and couldn't remember her favorite vegetable when asked which if you know Brenn is very obvious :) Avery got random trivia and quickly gave the names of three Disney princesses when asked. She kept saying, "Mom this is fun, I like this game."Questions about his sister in laws kept making Deke move back a space. Deke was asked to list the middle names of all of my sisters and had to go back a space when he couldn't remember Eden's. When asked to name two extra curricular things that Brenn had done in HS he could only name one correct one. It was cracking me up. To his defense though he knows the girls really well it kinda warms my heart. I had several spelling questions and got stuck on a couple of swamp squares and had to lose a few turns. Deke got a random trivia question and Hunter volunteered to ask the question. "Dad, this is a tricky one, what is the last name of Martin Luther King?" he asked him. Deke and I looked at each other confused and he answered, "Uh Hunter you already gave us the answer buddy it's King." Hunter absolutely beaming answered, "Nope. I told you it was tricky...it's Junior." Deke and I laughed and then proceeded on with a brief discussion about prefixes and suffixes. Later in the game Deke again landed on random trivia and Hunter asked me what he should ask him. "Ask him to name five presidents in correct order" I told him. "Mom that's pretty hard I don't think he'll know that one" he said. "Why don't you ask him" I encouraged him. He turned to Deke, "Okay Dad this one is really hard I don't think you'll know this one but can you name five presidents in order?" Hunter sat there in admiration as Deke proceeded to name pretty much every U.S. President in order. It was so cute when he turned to me shocked and said, "Wow Mom, Dad knows them all." As we continued down the gameboard we laughed and laughed both trying to come up with questions and answer questions. It was great to test the kids on spelling or math and make it fun for them. It was neat to see how much we knew about our family members. What is Avery's favorite preschool song? or What is Emma's favorite food right now?

The square with physical activities were fun too and really got the kids giggling. Avery was laughing so hard when Hunter landed on a square that said, "hop on one foot until your next turn". He got tired halfway through and asked to switch feet.
Down the driveway we wound until neck and neck Hunter passed Deke to the finish and won the coveted dessert prize. It was sooooo much fun. So nice to be out in the beautiful weather, something different and silly and fun yet still learning new things and review stuff that we already know. A great way to great some energy out and just be together as a family. I love this kind of stuff. I love that we can just pick up some sidewalk chalk and create two hours of fun for our family without spending a dime. That is so special to me.