33 AWESOME games LOVED by our family

A friend of my son’s once told me that our game closet was like the door into Narnia.  I laughed at the time but it was a pretty accurate description.

When we play a game together as a family we step away from the cares of the moment and focus on something fun and enjoyable.  It is the best stress relief out there!  Fun & laughter plus family memory building works wonders.

Playing games teaches life lessons to all ages

From a young age we played games with our children.  It has taught them many things.

• to take turns

• hand eye coordination to move their pieces on the board

• that loosing happens & it is ok to be sad but not ok to be mad

• also that winning is fun but you need to be kind in your celebrating

Family Event

Usually when we get together as a family there is at least one game played.  We recently celebrated Steve’s birthday and we played 5 Crowns with the kids and Steve’s parents.  The kids were being crazy and it was a lot of fun.  On Thanksgiving, we played Password while waiting for the turkey to be ready.

I was sad over Thanksgiving that I couldn’t play more board games with the kids but sitting in a hard upright chair is pretty much impossible.  It is something to am looking forward to doing after surgery.

HUGE list of Card, Board & Random Games

I seriously can’t believe how many we had but well . . . we love games.  Birthday & Christmas gifts are often games both for kids & adults around here.  

So if you are looking for some good games to give to your kids this Christmas, I hope this list is helpful!

1. 5 Crowns (card game)
2. UNO (card game)
3. Authors (card game) or get a set with scientists, composers and inventors too!
4. SkipBo (card game)
5. Dutch Blitz (card game)
6. Blink (card game)
7. Set (card game)
8. Hit the Deck (card game)
9. Rook (card game)
10. There's a Moose in the House (card game)
11. Bohnanza (card game)
12. Pass the Pigs
13. Quirkle
14. Password
15. Rack-o
16. Apples to Apples
17. Mouse Trap
18. Outfoxed
19. Connect 4
20. Blokus
21. Stratego
22. Ticket to Ride. This is the original but there are many versions. We love the original, London and the USA.
23. Carcassonne
24. Yahtzee
25. Sequence
26. Eclipse
27. Aquire
28. Scotland Yard
29. Masterpiece
30. Settlers of Catan\
31. Clue
32. Kerplunk
33. Rushhour

These are games that we've played pretty consistently with our children from age 10 & up. 

Several were played at much younger than 10.

One way we would do this was to pair a parent or older child with the younger child so they can learn the rules and have advice on how to play.

These teams can be hysterical.  The series of pictures below show my boys teamed up in a game of Settlers of Catan.  At 9 and 19 they were NOT agreeing on how to play! 

Can you tell who won the argument?

These are not ALL the game that we own but these are the ones that we have played the most often.

Games build memories & for us that has been a very good thing.  I'd love to hear what games your family plays & enjoys.  I'm always on the look out for a new game that we haven't tried . . . . yet.

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Blessings of the Week volume 15

Sadly this is the last Blessing of the Week post that I will be doing in 2015.

On Monday, I will have 2 weeks left until my hip replacement surgery.  I will not be posting as often in December.  Mainly because of surgery but I also want to slow down & enjoy the time with my family.

This whole finding joy in everyday life is a challenge right now.  My family has been wonderful.  

I hurt.  Constantly.

All I want to do is whine and complain.  They just keep encouraging me and handing out hugs.

I’m choosing to focus on the fact that I have SO much to be thankful for!

1.  Elizabeth’s improvement from healing her leaky gut

When we moved her home over a month ago, she & I were in about the same shape.  Hurting, tired, unable to do much for very long.  In fact I think I was a little better off.  I was still carrying stuff up and down stairs. She wasn't.

In the past week to ten days that has changed.  

Changes & Improvements

• Doing multiple activities with little or no fatigue
• Physical therapy doesn’t wipe her out for the day
• Shooting baskets and walking around outside
• Traveling with little pain
• Volunteering to help

None of these are big things alone but when we look at the whole picture this shows me that our current food sensitivity diet is helping her to heal. 

 

2.  Good Will finds

Steve & I stopped at the good will last weekend. 

He likes to get cheap books.  I’m not so specific. 

Lately I’ve been pretty lucky!  

• $4 jeans(these make me so happy!)
• $3 sweaters
• Costumes for play kids were in
• Calvin & Hobbes collections
• $40 Cute chair for living room------------->
• $8 Huge cat tree for Elizabeth’s new cat

3.  Thanksgiving meal at Michael & Rebekah’s

My wonderful son & his wife volunteered to cook this year.  It was such a blessing to not be standing in the kitchen for 2 days.  We wouldn’t have had such a good meal to share if I’d had to cook.  We brought the pies & they did the rest.  

4.  Cecily

Snuggles, giggles, playing, flying with grandpa, toothless smiles.  We miss her so much and love getting to visit.  I'm thankful that they are only an hour & a half away.

5.  New Dish Cloths

Yeah I know seems silly but these colors make me happy.  And all my nasty stained cloths are GONE!

6.  Pumpkins

I'm slowly cooking our pumpkins from this year and freezing the mashed up pumpkin for later use in cookies, pumpkin fluff, & pie!

7.  My camera

Before Cecily was born, we invested in a new Lumix camera because our old camera has serious issues.  I'm so THRILLED with the quality of the photos we are getting.  It's still simple enough for the kids to use when I hand it to them(mom's gotta be in the photos sometimes you know) but lots of options for not letting the computer do all the adjusting.

8.  Getting ahead is working

Before surgery I worked out a plan to get ahead on cooking, shopping for Christmas gifts & cleaning. 

• The pantry & freezers are stocked.  I have a short list of things to get in the next couple of weeks and I want to make menus for December but we are prepped for food in December. 
• Yesterday Steve & I started shopping on line(LOVE!) and today I’m going to make the list of what we need yet to do. 
• The house is cleaner & I have a list for the family to work on so they know what needs to be done each day.

9.  Slow mornings & being ready

I'm so grateful that I don't have to be anywhere early these days.  The worst times of the day are early and late.  I have dreaded this surgery for years but I think I'm ready.  Ready for not hurting.  Ready to be able to do things like walk, bend, put on my socks.  Yeah I know it's sad but hey just keeping it real.

10.  Sleep

I know several of my friends have been specifically praying that I could sleep better.  It's working guys.  If I can sleep then the days are easier.  Not as grouchy.  Don't feel down & depressed.  Healthier.  It is all good and I'm very grateful.

I'm so blessed.  So now it is your turn.  What blessings are you counting this week? 

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The challenge of trying to heal a leaky gut

All disease begins in the gut. – Hippocrates

Over the past two years we've had long journey of healing a leaky gut and determining food sensitivities.  It has been difficult.  If you are having problems similar to my daughter's then my biggest advice for you is to keep searching for answers even if it seems like you are hitting a wall.  Today my daughter eats all foods again except for gluten.  She's still battling for a normal life but we still see slow progress in her energy and abilities (Update Nov 2016)

A year ago . . . Celiac Disease

Last December(2014) after several months of severe gut pain and other symptoms, my oldest daughter was diagnosed with Celiac disease and has been wheat free since then.  For two months life was great.  

6 months ago . . . mysterious joint pain showed up to join the party

A rheumatologist said she had Benign Joint Hypermobility Syndrome and so she did physical therapy all summer.  We saw improvement in her pain levels but not a lot.  

2 months ago . . . an experiment of eliminating dairy.  

She felt SO much better after two weeks off dairy. We thought we had found the problem.

For about a month . . .then the pain and fatigue was back.  

We went back to her primary doctor who diagnosed her with fibromyalgia.  She is 19.  It seems beyond comprehension that she would be this sick at this young of an age.  Since then Elizabeth has avoided taking the medication recommended for living with fibromyalgia due to the possible side effects.

People with fibromyalgia are typically treated with pain medicines, antidepressants, muscle relaxants, and sleep medicines. (source)

A few weeks ago . . . New Medicine & food sensitivities

There is no way to describe how exhausting pain is to the body.  It just zaps all of your energy and drags your attitude down in the process.  The pain was beyond bad and we were so frustrated with the situation.  Instead of visiting the ER for stronger pain medication Elizabeth chose to start Gabapentin which is a medication that affects the nerves in the body.

Over the next few days she gradually saw the pain decrease.  HUGE blessing!  At about the same time we felt led to do more research into autoimmune diseases. 

 Most autoimmune disease is caused by the immune system losing the ability to differentiate proteins belonging to your own body with proteins belonging to a foreign invader (like a bacteria, virus or parasite). What causes symptoms is the build up of damage to cells, tissues and/or organs in the body–damage caused by your own immune system attacking those cells. Which proteins/cells are attacked is what separates once disease from another. In Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis, the thyroid gland is attacked. In Rheumatoid Arthritis, the tissues of your joints are attacked. In psoriasis, proteins within the layers of cells that make up your skin are attacked. However, the root cause is the same. (source)

Food Sensitivity Testing

A friend of ours has been having severe digestive issues for several months and went to get food sensitivity testing done.  I went along and felt that this could possibly be the answer for Elizabeth.

We have suspected that the source of her problems was in her gut.  The only real improvement we saw was when she avoided different foods. 

So to find out what foods were causing her problems she had the testing done.  We hoped that it was a short cut to know which foods are lighting the fire of inflammation(pain) in her body.

There are other options like the GAPs diet and the Auto Immune Paleo(AIP) diet that would have worked on healing her gut at the same time as finding what foods she was sensitive to.  These are a lot of work and take time. 

Since I am facing surgery in December we wanted to balance helping her heal with not overloading me with time in the kitchen standing on a hip that is already unable to do much. 

Elizabeth has been avoiding rice, corn & eggs in addition to being gluten and dairy free for 3 weeks. She didn’t test sensitive to dairy but is hesitant to add it back in yet.  The reality of surviving while you have food sensitivities is not fun.  It seriously limits the enjoyment of eating.

Update 3 weeks after limiting foods

We are seeing improvement. 

The fatigue is less.  She is back to physical therapy.  I see more smiles and less depression.  There is hope.

Plan for the future

I hesitate to make any bold statements of healing because we've seen her feel better before only to have her relapse.  The goal is to do this for 3ish months.  The Gabapentin is still helping with pain and she is going to keep taking it until we feel her gut has a chance to heal. 

There is no reason to add foods that she has an inflammatory response to until her gut can handle it.  We are still hopeful someday she can have some of her favorite foods again.

It's a downer to do this in the midst of the holidays.  Many of our favorite recipes have to be scrapped. 

We do more looking for new recipes than revamping old ones.  Nothing tastes the same without the old ingredients.  Last week we found 3 YUMMY recipes with NO gluten, dairy, rice, corn or eggs and it was HUGE blessing. 

A gluten, dairy, corn, rice & egg free Thanksgiving menu coming soon!

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Blessings for the week volume 14

Well it wasn’t that I wasn’t thankful last week.  I was . . . Really.  I was just exhausted from activities and being out of town.  So this is my list of blessings from the past two weeks.

1.  Learning

There’s a lot of learning going on in our house these days. 

• I got to run away to a conference to learn some business related things last week with a friend. So fun & WARM to be in Arizona(it’s snowing here right now—ugh)
• Learning to cook without eggs, corn, dairy, rice & wheat is a challenge. 
• School marches on despite the desire to be done for Christmas break. 

2.  Classes ending

• Megan & Joshua have been a part of a drama class since the beginning of September.  The performance was last week & they did a great job.  But we are glad it is over and we can reclaim some time. This is the weirdest picture but shows the both of them in costume.  Joshua's head really isn't shaped this way. 
• Megan’s college classes are off for Thanksgiving break and she’s thrilled to not have anything to do for a week.  Just a few more weeks until classes are completely DONE!  This is one way we prepare our children for independence.  College classes while still in high school.

3.  Healing

We are seeing some progress in Elizabeth’s healing.  She has more energy and is more “herself” lately.  I can’t even start to tell how thankful I am for this.  Watching your child suffer with pain and fatigue  is torture when you can’t help or make it go away.

4.  Progress

• School marches on.  Even on days I feel like crawling back into bed or sitting in my recliner and binge watching Netflix.  I’m so thankful that we aren’t behind and that we have a plan for the next couple of months. 
• We’ve also been preparing the house for surgery.  The master bedroom is cleaner so I can get around with a walker at first.
• We’ve gotten in to a routine of keeping the kitchen clean on a daily basis which is a major stress reliever for me. 
• The “Things that are driving Mommy nuts” list has been taken care of by various people.  Really that was a list on my counter for a while.  It kept me sane.  Really.

5.  Good food

I finally got to make more pb cups this week!  It's lways a blessing to have those in the house.

We've found foods that work and taste good. 

Last night we had a pumpkin “pie” that everyone liked and I managed to make donuts that Elizabeth declared “the best donuts she's ever had.”  Her reasoning was that they didn’t make her sick.  Ha! 

Food isn’t easy.  But it is healthy and we haven’t had as many fails lately.  

As we go into this Thanksgiving week I challenge you to also count your blessings. 

Not just the normal ones of friends and family but go deeper.  What really makes you have joy and that you might just take for granted?  Make sure you don’t ignore them because they are important.

Have a blessed weekend and Thanksgiving week to come!

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