Family Game Night

 We like to play games as a family.  I realized a few nights ago that we had not played any games for a while.  I asked the girls what they wanted to play and they came up with Jenga.  It is a great game to play with children!  Especially children who tend to sometimes be a little clumsy!  I thought it sounded like fun and had to have the camera out to catch some of the action.  Sarah wanted to watch a movie instead of playing, so it was just Emma, Riah, Leah and Daddy to play.  Brooke was out running errands.  Leah didn't stand much chance of not knocking it over by just getting within 3 feet of it, so she became a spectator.  She is very good at that!  Although, she did kind of come and go.  She would watch the Jenga tower being built for a few minutes and then would go keep Sarah company watching her movie for a few minutes and then come back to check on the progress of the game.

 She was quite happy to point a blocks now and again and tell her big sisters that they should get that one.  Her main job, as is her main job all the time, was to be cute and funny.  She excels at the cute part and is usually quite funny with the things she tries to do.  She does have her moments of, shall we say, unfunniness, but we don't need to talk about those today.

 The first round of Jenga, lasted about 5 minutes and here is the end of the game!  As you can see in the picture, Riah was not happy that she knocked the tower over.  She likes to see it fall, but does not like the crashing noise it makes.  She would prefer to have it fall when someone else is taking their turn so she can have her fingers in her ears.  So when we started game 2, on everyone else's turn, she would stand and watch with her fingers in her ears, just in case it fell!

 We started a second game.  Emma and Riah get really cautious after I pull all but a single bottom block out at the start of the game. They are sure that it was going to fall right away.

 They got really serious and amazingly patient for 9 and 6 year olds!  Look at the concentration.

 Here, Riah took a couple minutes to pull out this block.  Then I would scare them by flicking a corner block out of the tower without even grabbing it!  Emma tried it once and almost knocked it over early in the game.  She decided that was not a good way to get a block out.

 Riah became very steady and careful, which, if you know Riah, she is usually very jumpy, bouncy and not careful as a person can be.  The tower in game 2 was getting quite high and lasting a long time.

Leah cam back to visit again and give Emma some advice.  Emma learned that advice from a 1 year old is not something that should usually be followed.  The tower almost came down, but some how it stood back up.  She may have bent the rules a little bit by how much she was touching, but I am not sure so I did not worry about it.

 Riah got another one out and back on top.  It is getting really tall now!  Emma and I each went another turn and then it was back to Riah.

 She looked at it and thought about it for a while and then went for her block.  She barely got her hand on it and CRASH, it came down again.  It was a fun night of playing games with the girls. 

 The next night, we all played the board game "Life".  That is another one of our favorite games.  Emma and Riah had a couple of bad games that time though.  They both kept landing on bad spaces and having to pay out all the money they got.  When we finished the game, Mommy had won with over 2 million dollars, I had 2 place with 1.8 million dollars followed by Emma with 700 thousand dollars and then Riah with 150 thousand dollars!