Having Fun Together

Today's gift is having fun together!

We had such a fun weekend together playing!  My daughter LOVES to play hide and seek; however, I think we should call it "boo".   She has to always find us, as she prefers to be the seeker and whenever she finds us she says "boo" and then we have to say "boo" really loud to her.  We can play this for hours!  I honestly never thought I would like hide and seek so much, but knowing she is playing a game, she understands it and she enjoys it is all I need to keep hiding!

It is a great form of family time for us too as we can ALL do this together.  I think my favorite part is watching her go back to the places where she knows we have hid and try to find us and watching her walk slowly around corners as she sneaks up on us!  Seeing her having so much fun melts my heart and I will hide for hours, if it makes her smile!

If we are not playing "boo", then her next favorite game would be "ball".  She used to love kicking the ball around, but since her tendon lengthening surgery in the fall, hitting the ball volleyball style has taken the lead!  I think she has found some new techniques from watching the Olympics!  Wow!  We can play this for hours as well and again it is something we do as a whole family!

I even took it a step further earlier this summer and made up a game I could play with all three of my children.  I sit them all down on the couch with even distances between them and then I give them each a number...1, 2, 3....and when I say the number their number I gave them, they know the ball is coming to them and they have to be ready to hit it back to me.  Then once we do numbers, I will introduce the letter of their first name and now they have to remember their number and the letter of their first name.   I keep adding more things for them to remember from their middle names to their favorite colors.....and my daughter with special needs is on it each time like bees on honey!  I am usually the one who finally gets confused and throws the ball to the wrong child when I call out their middle name!  She amazes me!  And sometimes we get crazy and add Daddy into the mix too!

The two games above are how we have taken something that kids play all the time and just tweaked it for our daughter and they can be played anywhere!  If you don't have a ball, a balloon works well too!  We ALWAYS travel with a ball as it is just one of those things we DO NOT leave home without it!

She has one true game that we also play daily and that is connect four.  This is also a nice game for her to play alone (she just fills up all the spaces) while I need her to have some down time without me.   But we always play this together too!  I have to say, this one is not my favorite though, as I prefer to see her laughing and running around!  However, connect four has it purposes!

While "boo", the ball and connect four bring her great joy and allows us to have great fun together as a family, I have to say her favorite place to play would be in a pool.  She LOVES to swim and loves being in the water.  No matter what pool we go to, she will always move towards the kids that are constantly jumping in to tell them to "go".  And then before you know it she has started a little game where they look at her for the "ok" before they jump!  Recently, she added saying "d" into the rotation which means you have to go underwater when she says "d"....d stands for down.  You can always tell when my husband has played this game over and over and over again with her, as his eyes get all bloodshot from the chlorine.   I think some goggles are in his future!

I just love the fun we have together and I am so thankful she has shown us how to have fun together as a family.  We may not be able to play board games or Wii together as a family (we do play these too sometimes, but most of the time these require hand over hand) all the time, but the games we do play together are priceless!  I wouldn't change what we play for the world....all that is important to me is that we are playing and having fun together!

Today's quote is....

Today was good.  Today was fun.  Tomorrow is another one- Dr. Seuss