Oh the Memories

We first played the boardgame Settlers of Catan several years ago with our friends.  Our group enjoyed the game so much we even had regular tournaments. When our kids were old enough, we could not wait to introduce them to this game, and it soon became a favorite of our family game nights. You get resources and resource tiles that you can settle on.  It's tied to the roll of the dice, and you can build with your resources and get points.  There are several ways to get points actually.  You get to trade resources with other players to help you along your way but it's competitive because the first with the needed number of points wins.  You need 3 -4 players and say it's best for ages 10 and up.  You can buy expansion sets that add other features and even expand the number of players.   

Catan

Catan Expansion Pack 5-6 players

Catan Seafarers

Catan Seafarers Expansion Set to 5-6 players

Catan Cities and Knights

Catan Cities and Knights Expansion Set 5-6 Players

Sandra Boyton Board Books - An absolute favorite of ours

Sandra Boyton board books were a favorite of ours when the kids were little.  We read them on repeat. We read them so much my kids even when they couldn't read could 'read' them from memory.  They are catchy and simple.  So much humor and fun!  They now come in box sets to easily collect them for your home library! Grab the yellow, blue and green boxes!  

Box Set Includes:  

The Going to Bed Book; Horns to Toes; Opposites; But Not the Hippopotamus

Box Set Includes:

Moo, Baa, La La La!; A to Z; Doggies; Blue Hat, Green Hat

Box Set includes:

Happy Hippo, Angry Duck; But Not the Armadillo; Dinosaur Dance!, Are You A Cow?

Other box sets include:

Box Set includes:

Snuggle Puppy!; Belly Button Book!; Your Nose!

Box Set includes:

Perfect Piggies!; Fifteen Animals!; Barnyard Dance!

Box Set includes:

Peekaboo Rex!; Dinosnores; Oh My Oh My Oh Dinosaurs!

Box Set includes:

Night-Night, Little Pookie; What's Wrong, Little Pookie?; Let's Dance, Little Pookie; Little Pookie; Happy Birthday, Little Pookie

Hello Friends! It has been a minute...

 The years have flown, and the kids have grown! Entering a phase of life where I have time to sit and ponder over the fun times the kids and I have had throughout the special time of childhood.  The bookshelves are packed with the reads we have enjoyed along the way. Here's just a small glimpse of our ever-growing collection. I am picking up right where I left off and would love for you to join me on this journey.  I will share memories, favorite reads, fun activities and more!  For now, I'll close with letting you know I'm thrilled to be back!

 

  

Family Game Night!

Salutations!  I wanted to share just a bit again about why I blogged and why I am back to it now.  I love sharing my passion for children's books but it is also to have a catalog of all our favorite reads from over the years for my own memory all in one place.  So I have a lot of work to do!  We are BIG library fans so many of the fantastic books that we have found do not grace our personal shelves.  Also well loved favorites become well worn, or get lost or donated when out grown over time. 

Today I have a little different of a focus for my subject for this post and am going to be more broad then just books going forward.  I may include a favorite games, toys, activities, crafts, trips and all sorts of great memories that I want to save here. 

So often I see on the mommy pages I frequent request for favorite games so I thought I'd start a fun little post series aptly titled Family Game Night.  I plan to go back to the younger ages and of course share those that frequent our game time picks right now.   I wanted to start with the new hot game of the moment in our house.  We got it last summer for my daughter's birthday and it is still going strong.  It's called Sleeping Queens, and is a Gamewright game.

It's a card game played with two decks of specialty cards.  The goal is to wake up queens until someone collects 5 queens or reaches 50 points.  Each queen collected has a point value.  There's lots of fun twists to the play such as stealing a queen from another player or putting someone else's
queen back to sleep.  Game play is fairly quick and easy.  It's recommended 8 and up for 2-5 players.  Younger players could play if they have a grasp of simple addition as there is some adding beyond totaling the points of your queens that helps with your game play strategy.

Another fun note is that it was created youngpreneur who at the age of 6 invented this game! There's note in the instruction explaining all about her and how she came up with the idea.  I love this!

Hope you enjoy as much as we do should you decide to add it to your family game night line up!  

Snowflakes ❆❅❄

I love snowflakes...well at least looking at them.  Making snowflakes has always been a favorite activity for my kids.  We've made so many over the years and they are simple and fun to do.  Though as the kids get older making more elaborate snowflakes keeps this activity still going.    You can find some great templates for imaginative designs in Cindy Higham's two snowflake books. 

Snowflakes:Creative Paper Cutouts and Snowflakes for All Seasons which keeps the snowflake making fun continuing year round!

 

If you'd rather sit back and enjoy the beauty of snowflakes without all the mess and work these are two of my favorites.

First up is a beautiful pop up book of paper snowflake art titled Snowflakes by Jennifer Preston Chushcoff and Yevgeniya Yeretskaya



Then I also love enjoying the snowflake photography of Kenneth Libbrecht.  I have this book of his, The Little Book of Snowflakes.



Hope you enjoy the beauty of this season! ❆❅❄

Interactive Stories

Hello Friends!  I wanted to share about interactive story book apps and add some of our favorites to our growing lists of good reads we've found along our way.  The kids are a bit older since my last post but recently we were remembering favorite stories together.  My daughter noted some interactive story book apps that we used to enjoy.  We downloaded them again to our Kindle.  They were still fun to listen to and click around on that we looked to see if our favorite had any new storybooks to download.  If you are looking for entertaining and interactive story book apps here's what we have liked best. 

First up is IckyPen's Mr. Icky Fox stories were an instant favorite.  The story lines are short and simple but the art work and the ways to interactive are fantastically fun!  There are four available but their Facebook page indicated a little bit ago that they have been working on something new.  The first we downloaded was The Icky Mr. Fox and quickly wanted more.  We have since added Icky Mr. Fox's Rainbow, Missing Friend, and Icky Animal Alphabet.  They range in price from free to $1.99.

 



















































The Trip Little Critter Reading Adventure, was another favorite.  Sadly it looks like it is no longer available.  Many of the other 'Little Critter' storybooks by Mercer Mayer are available to download but they are not very interactive, more just read along.  The Trip, had route decisions you could make, you searched for and collected items.  This is what we are looking for in interactive storybooks.

I took sometime and did a quick search and tested out a few books that came up when I did a search for interactive storybooks.  I continued to not find many options but I did like were Sandra Boyton's book apps.  There's a fair amount of animation that you can create with a tap on the different pages.  They have that whimsical, and engaging quality that we are looking for.  I downloaded the free collection of books to try out.  You can download a couple different individual stories too.



I think interactive storybooks are a fun way to enjoy a story.  I really wish there were more readily available and easy to find.

If you have found any that you love please add in the comments below!

It's been awhile but I just had to share

Well, as the title says it's been awhile but I just had to share a recent book find, I love it so much!
It's titled ' Mother Bruce' and is written and illustrated by Ryan T. Higgins.   It's a book about a bear, a bear that happens to become the proud parent of some baby geese.  Besides Higgins humor I love that the book has a fresh modern feel and references in it.  It takes our modern day lives to the woods.  There are fun surprises to find on each page through illustrations and subtext.  I can't wait to check out Ryan T. Higgins other books now and may just be back to post about those here soon.