Fun Times (with Lots of Learning!)

What a fun day we had yesterday! Brenna and I spent all afternoon playing board games. You should have seen the pile of boxes that we accumulated in the living room. I think we brought out just about every game we own. Brendon was home from work and was at the dining room table on his laptop most of the day catching up on things that he missed while he was in Connecticut. The only thing he heard pretty much all day was laughing and giggling and squealing. I'm sure we were pretty distracting but I know he loved it. :)
Brenna learned how to play Monopoly yesterday and she was actually quite good at it. I never realized what a wonderful learning tool that game is. She counted out her money, first with a little help and then she progressively became better at it and she added the dice in her head to determine how many spaces to move (all of her games have only one die). She learned strategy and also how valuable it is to save money for important things and not be so frivolous. Very good 'life lesson'. LOL
We never did finish the game because she became a little bored after almost an hour but we determined that she won because she had the most money as well as the most expensive property. I guess one reason the game is marked for ages 8+ is because of how lengthy it can be. When we started it I did not expect her to finish. I thought she did pretty good for lasting as long as she did.
We also played Battleship (good at teaching rows, columns, strategy and grids!), Sorry!, Hungry, Hungry Hippos, Connect Four and Littlest Pet Shop. We didn't get around to playing all the games we pulled out (we have tons!) but we're planning another game day today at some point.


It was nice yesterday putting off any kind of housework and doing things that I thought HAD to be done. Guess what? It will still be there tomorrow. And it is. LOL I need to start doing that a little more often I think and not be so anal about my house always being perfect - there are more important things then that. I think I've come to the conclusion that there are 'good messes' and 'bad messes'. Good messes consist of Brenna's toys and games and art stuff cluttering our house and bad messes, of course, are dishes, laundry, ect... LOL Today though I DO need to get some dishes done. :)

Anyway, so far today Brenna has created, drawn and named her own animal species (very interesting and creative!) and we made a four generation family tree. She's also made a Barbie museum and set up little scenes with her Barbies along with labels such as "Cowgirl" (Barbie dressed appropriately riding a horse), "Bath Time Barbie", "Fishing Time"(she made a boat out of paper), "Where's That Skateboard?" (with Barbie searching in her closet) and "Your Majesty" (Barbie dressed as a princess in her castle with another Barbie bowing toward her). She had a lot of fun doing that and she says that she's going to do a lot more today.

Brenna's had a cold the past couple days along with a fever so today we're not doing much and will probably relax at home again. She does have her Musical Theatre class tonight that she will probably go to because she has not had a fever since yesterday afternoon. She really, really enjoys it and so far it's been her favorite thing that she has tried. Her last basketball game is this weekend but she has no plans on returning to it next season. She will do kickball starting in a couple weeks so we'll see how that goes. I'm just happy that she tries as many things as she does, even if she ends up not caring for it too much. So far she's been in gymnastics, ballet, tap, karate, soccer, basketball and musical theatre. At least we can never say she didn't try things. LOL :)
Okay, I'm off to play with Brenna!
Till fingers and keyboard meet again.....