A Day on the Farm

On Friday last week, my five year old niece, Rebecca, called and invited me to her house for a game night. We used to get together at least weekly for games and activities throughout much of her youth, but that changed when her family moved to Layton (33 miles each way, which is a lot of gas when finding an extra $5 for a prescription at the Smith's store is frequently too much). The whole blow up about Prop 8 and Equality Utah's Common Ground Initiatives in the Legislature didn't help either, but that is not the focus here. The point is, Rebecca had issued an "Operation and Candy Land Throw Down" and as I had been "served," I simply couldn't stay home.

Being clever as I try to be, though usually unsuccessful, I arranged for the whole party to "go down" at my brother's house instead of my sister's. This allowed us to include my niece, Londyn (age 3), in the games and to see my newest niece, Irelynd (yes, they are saving Antarctyca for their next baby).

The kids were super cute. It ended up that Operation (the original plan for the evening) was shelved because Londyn didn't like the loud noises it made (the new version has the guy sneezing at the most inappropriate times just to throw you off. When I played it with Rebecca at the New Year's party, it was not long before I wanted to throw the whole game into the dumpster.). We did play Candy Land (Londyn won) and Hi Ho Cherrio where I was the victor. Rebecca didn't care. She was more interested in just spending time with all of us, though she was already planning a rematch before the night was over.

For Christmas, I gave Rebecca a set of hand puppets and a stage from IKEA (LOVE that store). This was my first time to see the puppets in action, though it was Londyn and not Rebecca who had the most fun with it. The puppets are a pig, frog, chicken, horse, cow and a lamb. There were also a collection of safari finger puppets. Not sure at this point which pictures will make the cut. They were all cute, but Londyn stole the show.