Introducing Game Night......and a tire swing.

You may (or may not) know that we are a family of hockey fans. It started with my husband who grew up in a Midwest state that turns into a sub-zero frozen prarie several months out of the year. He spent his days shooting pucks for hours on end. The memories he has surrounding hockey are some if his favorites from childhood and the love of the game never left him.

In our early days together I decided to become a hockey "fan" too. I didn't understand much about the game itself, but figured it was the only major sport fast paced enough to hold my attention. Plus, I loved skating too (figure skating is a sport......don't listen to my husband)!

Now our two older boys play hockey and I have a feeling once the littlest is 3 he's gonna get padded up and sent out on the ice too. 

So what does this have to do with family game night? I'm getting there I promise. But first......

(That's his hockey face)

(He fell asleep in his Wild jersey during playoff game 7, they still won ;)

So when we first moved in to this house in September I VERY reluctantly agreed to getting cable. I'm not a tv person but my husband really wanted to be able to watch hockey season now that we live in the same region as his favorite team, Minnesota Wild. So I said okay, but we cancel it at the end of hockey season. It's round 2 of the playoffs (btw, I now understand a good deal of the game and have been known to yell while watching the game) and the season will be ending in the next few weeks. Which means family game night will be replacing hockey night (the boys finished hockey last week and have a 2 month break). 

We bought some new games since we didn't have too many that were fun for all of us. It's so fun having kids old enough to play games that parents find fun too ( I can only stand so many rounds of Candy Land). We bought Yahtzee, Family Trivial Pursuit, Clue, and Uno. I'm so excited to start doing this!!! Do you have a family game night in your home? What games do you enjoy?

Oh and we now have a tire swing!!! Though both boys will use it, it was an 8th birthday present from Oma to our middle son. He is loving it. 

Look at that big 8 year old of mine! He's such a sweet kid :)

He had a wonderful birthday, complete with a rice crispy treat scorpion (he wants to be an arachnologist) custom made by daddy.

Birthdays are always a little bittersweet for me. It's hard to know your babies are growing up, each year represents one less year of them being little, wanting to hold hands with me, or climbing in our bed when they have a bad dream....but it's also pretty incredible to watch them grow and see who they are becoming independent of us. I'm lucky, they still hold my hands, crawl in bed (sometimes) after a nightmare, and cuddle up on the sofa with me. They are good, loving kids. 

This middle boy of mine, he is so smart. He will work at any project till he has it just right. He's always happy and willing to help around the house. He loves to run around, ride his bike, and play outside for hours on end. I could go on with a very long list but I'll end with my favorite thing about him; he is an amazing brother! He is so caring and empathetic. I've never seen anyone who can get a baby laughing the way he does with his little brother. He loves spending time with his older brother too and is always trying to come up with things they can do together (this is not always appreciated by our oldest, but such is life with siblings).

Happy Birthday sweet boy! I love you to the moon and back again times infinity!