Things We Love: ZINGO!!!

I know that Christmas is still five months away, but Im always on the lookout for great ideas and really like to put some thought in way ahead of time, so I thought Id share one of our familys favorite games that my oldest son received last year as a gift. Zingo (http://www.amazon.com/Think-Fun-7700-ThinkFun-Zingo/dp/B00006408Q) is a lot of fun for the whole family. Everyone from my three year old to my 33 year old husband has fun playing this game! The premise is simple, and yet fun. The object of the game is to get all the tiles for your board and then you yell ZINGO! There is a red tower that has all the tiles in it and then you move it back and forth and two tiles appear. It might be an owl and a dog. The first one to say dog gets that tile and the first to yell owl gets that one. There are pictures as well as the word on each tile so if you have readers, early readers, or little guys who need the pictures still it works. If no one has any of the tiles, then they get placed back in the top for the next game. Each game card is double sided and up to 6 people can play. Its a really fun game to play when you have little friends over as the rules are simple and everyone gets excited when their board begins to fill up. It builds on reading skills, logical thinking, and social skills. For under 20 dollars, this game has lasting value and is a wonderful family game to add to your collection!

{Places to Play in PA: Daniel Boone Homestead}

The kids and I took advantage of the beautiful sunshine one afternoon following church service and took a picnic lunch out to the Daniel Boone Homestead. Its a lovely stretch of fields, historical buildings, and a sparkling lake. On this particular visit, we ate our lunch under a nice shady tree and then the kids played some kickball/soccer game while I fed the baby. Then we went for a nice walk down to the dam and lake. After all our walking around (not to mention our legs were a little tired from a hike the previous day), we opted to skip out on most of the historical areas. We did visit the visitors center where there were some neat Daniel Boone facts, but our little band of explorers was pretty tired so we decided to call it an afternoon. Even without the historical tour area, we still spent over two hours there. If you choose to do the historical area there are timed tours as well as a small admission fee (I think maybe 3 dollars a person) to explore that area. There are over 500 acres of land so there is plenty to explore and much land to be hiked which makes it a lovely outing for a family. Check out their website for more information as well as for special events that they have going on throughout the year: http://www.danielboonehomestead.org/. Also, don't forget you can always search this blog for more Places to Play in PA-- happy travels!

Dance Fever!!

I would like to take the time to let the reader know that I love to dance.

Loving to dance and being able to dance are not the same thing, but thats a minor detail and there's really no point in splitting hairs.

I love to dance and have felt it essential to pass along this love to my children. We car dance, we living room runway dance, we disco, we do the bop, we twist, and occassionally my husband will intervene and put something from the 80's on.

That is why when we were at the Pittsburgh children's museum and they announced a DJ dance party, we literally spent more then 25% of our time at the museum dancing. i also like math, but that's another post entirely.



I was the only mama dancing, but that's okay-- as the DJ reminded us every 3 songs, dancing is good excercise and we should dance (he might have said excercise here, but again, lets not get all detailed) 30 minutes a day.


My kids made me proud too-- they new the YMCA, Happy and you know it (it was a kids museum), selena gomez, the twist, and Justin Bieber-- yeah, you know it!! I know it's against kid museum policy but I don't think a little Lady G would have killed anybody, but we did dance for ever! It was great-- the disco ball, the bubble machine all the things I imagine are in our living room. Perfect!

However, I did out dance my little guy. He said "No dance mommeee!" and then procedded to flip al the theater chairs up so noone could sit down. Then he proceeded to reflip them as he was pooped.



Then he was literally so tired, he couldn't bring himself to get all the way onto the chair.





It was at this moment when I, ahem, actually had no clue and kept dancing with the older two and then they two bailed on me and I had to finally do the decent mommy thing and leave the dancing for another day and snuggle all my tired little dancers.

More on pitts trip to follow....