Lately, I have been taking note of what a fun little family the four of us are. There is a lot of laughter and creativity in our home most days.

Here are two recent moments that come to mind:
After almost 4 hours in the car, driving up to Northern Michigan to go camping a couple weekends ago, we were all a little tired of driving and just wanted to get there. Erin had climbed in the backseat to comfort/feed Eva and entertain Ella, so I popped in our infamous “Sing Along Songs” mix CD I had made for a road trip a few years ago. We all started belting out the lyrics to the songs as best we could (none of us are great singers, but we have hopes Ella can overcome her parents tone deafness – how I ever sang in show choir and musicals is a mystery to me). And then as one of us got tired of a song we would shout “NEXT SONG” and I would skip the CD ahead to the next sing along tune. Even Eva started babbling loudly as if trying to join in the fun.

At dinner one night, I decided to bust out an old drinking game that I thought could be converted in to a family-friendly dinner table game. It is called thumper, everyone chooses an animal pose to represent themselves, for instance I chose Moose which is done by creating antlers on your hand with each hand. Ella chose Lion where she holds her hands out and roars. Erin chose Elephant where she throws one arm up in front of her face like a trunk and makes a snorting noise. We all began to play the game, where you drum (thump) the table in rhythm and then someone does their pose followed by someone else’s in order to “pass” to them, where they then have to do their pose followed by someone else’s to pass it again. Anyway, Ella caught on very quickly and we played for a awhile laughing at the person doing the poses. We then stepped it up a notch by changing animals to Snake, kangaroo (Ella’s Kangaroo was adorale) and Chicken. It was loads of fun. Of course in the original game when someone messes up or pauses they are supposed to drink up, instead we would shout for the person to “eat your broccoli”! Who says drinking games wouldn’t come in handy parenting? Lemonade Pong anyone?