A Holiday Game For Kids

A Find It type game with holiday toys. The kids love playing an type of hide n' seek game, but things can get rather crazy when ten kids attempt to hide throughout the house. To cut down on the craziness (we have PLENTY of that already, thank you), I hid toys around the house. The object of the game was for the kids to find them all in a set amount of time. First I showed them a picture of the toys I hid so they knew what they needed to find.

 Then they spent the next 45 minutes excitedly looking for each Rudolph character. I hid them pretty well if I do say so myself!

                                    I hid one inside of the cat. Oddly it's the first one the kids found.

This game had the kids working together to find the toys and really got them flexing their problem solving skills. Best part about this game was that it kept the kids interested for a long time (and several more times throughout the day). I hid and re-hid the toys and only stopped when I ran out of hiding places!

I'm keeping this game in mind for holiday get togethers when the kids find themselves overly excited (aka--irritating!). It would be just as easy to do with candy canes or any other type of object/toys. As long as the kids know what they are suppose to look for, anything works.

The Weekend Before Christmas

T'was the weekend before Christmas and all through the house, the kids were going crazy, crazier than a mouse.....

Ya know that crazy, hyper energy kids seem to accumulate this time of year from all of the excitement? Well my minis were bursting with it. I can't really blame them though when we decorated sugar cookies, celebrated two family Christmases and played with new toys.

Our second round of sugar cookie decorating. The minis got very creative: Max decorated a Captain Underpants instead of a plain gingerbread man and Elizabeth used the icing to the best of her ability. Now the cookies are sitting in our kitchen and the kids are refusing to eat them because "they look too awesome!"

While the minis napped Saturday afternoon, I got a start on wrapping the presents....that were to be unwrapped two hours later. I'm a procrastinator when it comes to wrapping presents.

Christmas at Grandma and Grandpa Harmeyer's. It was a whirlwind of excitement and wrapping paper.

My parents put one of Harrison's gifts in an empty Corona box. Harrison opened it up and exclaimed "ooohh, I got beer!"

My sister and her Chip cup. I'm rather proud of myself for this gift and insist on showing it off.

                                                    I had help unwrapping my gifts.

 Delicious dinner.

Tiniest chocolate shot glasses I've ever seen. There was controversy about the shot glasses and the three of us breaking into them early (apparently we were suppose to wait for everyone). The kids and grandma and grandpa did their own toast instead. Oops!

Sunday morning the kids were engrossed in building their Lego's, coloring in their new books, and playing with Barbie's.

 Sunday night we went to Grandma and Grandpa Sheaffer's to celebrate. Their favorite part (or so I'm told) was playing with their flashlights Grandma and Grandpa got all of the grandkids. 

                                         I was pretty enthusiastic about our celebration apparently.

Both Saturday and Sunday we drove around and looked at Christmas lights. Saturday night was wonderful and several locations had Santa's passing out candy canes. Our recent 50 degree temps have made it hard to get into the holiday spirit, but seeing everyone else spreading it, caught me.

Reality of the holiday season set in Sunday night when we changed our Santa Stops Here In... blocks to 5 DAYS! 5 days until Christmas! As excited as the minis were this weekend, I have a feeling that this week will be filled with overly anxious kids.