Happy New Year!!! Happy 2018!!!
my parents, my niece, my sister, my brother in law, my brother, my twin
This is technically from the night before New Year’s Eve . . . on Saturday. It was Kerry and Madison’s last night in town so we went to my older sister’s house (Lisa) to have a super yummy dinner. We also played Left Right Center. My parents had never played before, but we all brought our money and we were ready to gamble!
By the way, my family doesn’t really gamble unless we are in Vegas and taking over a Craps table, and my mom is winning, and we are all causing such a scene that an empty table becomes a full one.
So anyway, the first round went really quick and so we all put MORE money into the pot and then my mom won it all.
For someone who has only gambled twice in my memory (meaning my entire life), my mom wins a lot.
My mom and sisters
In all honesty, I cropped the heck out of this picture because I felt like I looked extremely chubby.
We spent New Year’s Eve with our friends, Jason and Stacie. We played “The Hat Game”. This is a game you can play with anyone, anywhere, even if you don’t have a hat. It’s the game in which Jason and I were accused of cheating because we won, although we didn’t cheat DURING the game, we just cheated in order to be on the same team, but no one listens to us ever about that so now we are never allowed to be on the same team ever again.
I KNOW.
So any who, here’s how to play in case you need a game for anything you have coming up in the future or if you’re just hanging out with your family tonight and need something to do besides watch Netflix and look at your smart phones.
Hand out small strips of paper to each player. You decide on the amount. On New Year’s Eve, we each had ten. On each slip of paper, write down someone famous. It can be a singer, athlete, actor, politician, cartoon, living or dead, etc. Fold those papers up and stick them in the hat.
We had four couples playing so we had 80 strips of paper in the hat, which was one of those cardboard New Year’s Eve top hats, but seriously you could just use a basket or a bowl.
We played girls against guys. When it was the girl’s turn, one of us went up and had one minute (the boys used a timer on their phone) to give clues to our team so that they would guess whoever was on the strip of paper. You want to get through as many slips of paper as you can in that one minute because you get a point each time. We made up a rule that you only got one pass per round.
Then we would switch to the boys.
And I am here to tell you THE EXCITING NEWS!!
After years and years and years, THE GIRLS FINALLY WON!!!! We don’t know how, but we did!! We basically freaked out. We might as well have won the World Series and the Super Bowl for how we carried on.
Here’s a pic of the guys guessing:
Steve is in the middle.
I seriously do not understand how calm they are.
It’s a good thing no one took a picture of us girls guessing because I am telling you right now that I can’t sit down or sit still or stop myself from screaming the answers in the highest decibel possible. It is physically impossible. There is nothing I can do about it. It’s like a reflex.
And I’m not even competitive.
😉
Oh, and one person at our party, who shall remain nameless, did not understand AT ALL what he/she was supposed to write on the strips of paper which meant every so often, after giving clues about Jennifer Aniston or Vin Scully or Popeye or Britney Spears, you would then have to switch your thinking and give clues that would help your team guess water bottle. Or fork and spoon. Or kitty.
🙂 TRUE STORY.
Now THIS is a picture I can get behind. I mean, don’t I look so cute in this picture!!?? 😉 And just look at Steve and Murphie!
Remember when I told you to get a Bitmoji? Well, now I’m telling you to get this app!
I first saw it on Babbling Abby’s Instagram and about fell over from the cuteness. But seeing as how I was lying about lazily in bed, I didn’t fall over. I was already down.
Sooner or later, these little pics started popping up all over Instagram so I spent the better part of New Year’s Day creating mine. You can really get sucked in, let me tell you. It appears as if there are a lot of options when you’re creating these, but honestly, once they started popping up all over the place, it looks like several of us are all married to the same man.
Shoulder shrug.
This is from an app called Rhonna Designs and then you pay .99 for a couple of in-app purchases by Alexa Zurcher. I felt like spending upwards of $2 was worth it.
If you want one for yourself (and seriously, how could you NOT?), Katie at Teacher to the Core wrote a tutorial. Which is way better than me writing a tutorial because one) I didn’t even think about it and two) my tutorials tend to have way more information than you really need and three) who has time to write a tutorial when you spent the majority of the day creating your picture, sending it to everyone you know ever in all the land, and eating snacks?
Here’s Katie’s tutorial if you need it!
I *FINALLY* saw Wonder! My sisters and my niece and I went together and we all loved it. I had read the book, obviously, and I was worried it wouldn’t live up to the book, but they did a really nice job. When it was over, I wanted to sit there and watch it all over again. I can’t wait for it to come out on Netflix or Apple or whatever the format is so that I can watch it however many times I want to. If you still haven’t read the book, I highly recommend it!
We also saw The Greatest Showman and I liked it, too, but don’t kill me when I say that musicals aren’t really my thing. I mean, I like them. I do. Songs are great. They are. I love singing, in fact, even if I’m not very good at it. The sound track to The Greatest Showman is fantastic, and I should know, too, because my niece downloaded it immediately and it’s pretty much all I heard for a week. 😉
A couple of my favorite musicals are Annie and Mama Mia. I sing the song Tomorrow into an expo-marker-turned-microphone more times than I can count at the end of the day to my kids. I can really belt it out!
But sometimes . . . mind you, only sometimes . . . it’s just weird and a little uncomfortable for me when two grown men are drinking shots in a bar and then they start singing and dancing together to make a business deal.
I’ve just never seen that in real life.
Maybe I don’t go to bars enough?
Is that what it is?
Hmmmm.
People.
I have started to do a teeny bit of work.
I still have an entire week and one day left of my break — I KNOW!! We don’t go back until January 16th!!! — so I figured I should balance my relaxing time with some work time.
I am updating my Sight Words Fluency pack so that it will include Dolch Sight Words (in order) and I am adding a Fry Sight Words pack. This is something that I get asked about in my store THE MOST so I figured I should do it. I’m a people pleaser, what can I say?
I’m also going to be working on some Listen and Learn packs.
But also I would love it if you could tell me what you’d like to see! What do you need for Listen and Learn? I have been asked about an Ending Blends pack and a Shapes pack . . . I need both of those for my own kiddos so they are my to-do list. But what do YOU need? Let me know!!
Have a great great great weekend!
Picture me singing that . . . . HAVE A GREAT GREAT GREAT WEEKEND!!! . . . . with a big crescendo.
🙂