Log Your Memory - Family's Favorite Pastimes

As I started last week, I am posting from the weekly challenges in my Log Your Memory book. This week's challenge has to do with pastimes are your house. Thankfully my kids are now at reading age so that opens a whoel new bunch of games and pastimes from the non-reading Candy Land and such.

The kids love, love, love to play games and will find any spare moment ro rope one of us into a game. The current favorites at our house are checkers, Twister, Don't Tip The Waiter, Disney DVD Bingo, Uno and the newest is Phase 10 for Kids. It is so fun to see them using their minds for good stuff like that.

Reading is also a frequent pastime at our house. Chase is hooked on the Magic Treehouse Books and reads usually 2 of them a week. I loves to read them to us and it is so great to hear how well he is reading. I have always read to the kids a lot and they love to have me read to them, in fact anything less than 45 minutes of reading is not enough for them. Mackenzie is starting to read too and loves to sit with her Number 1 readers and practice whenever given an opportunity.

We are also a big puzzle family. Quite often in the winter months, there is a large puzzle (500-1000 pieces) on our dining room table. Chase is a natural at puzzles and neither of the kids are afraid of helping out on a big puzzle. If the puzzle is a pretty one that we really like, we use puzzle glue and Papa makes us a frame to put them in and we use them for art around our house (the picture above is one that hangs in Chase's room).

We have an evening ritual that is part of our "bedtime routine" that makes it all go smoothly (most of the time). The kids love to have movie time so after dinner, we all get in PJs and congregate in the living room for movie time. On odd days Chase pics and on even days Mackenzie pics the movie. For a long time we have done Disney cartoons over and over and over but in the last few months, the kids have started to enjoy movies with real people in them. Having Netflix helps to keep a variety of good kid movies available instantly or by mail. The kids currently love any movie about dogs and recently discovered Willie Wonka and The Chocolate Factory.

During the summer months, our family spends a lot of time at the lake or in the pool as we all love water. The kids would exist in swimsuits all summer if we would let them. It doesn't hurt that we live in such a great area for summer fun in the sun and water.

What are your family's favorite pastimes? Are they the same or different than a year ago? Are there things you would like to add to the pastimes you enjoy?