Tyler is 28

Tyler turned 28 this week. He asked for board games. He really loves board games. The new ones he got are Rampage; Rock, Paper, Wizard; and a Coup extension pack.

Rampage is a game where you destroy buildings and collection figures. It's a fun game and would be good for ages 8 or 9 and up.

Rock, Paper, Wizard is a little more confusing and younger children would lose interest quickly.

His other favorite games include King of Tokyo, Coup, Tsuro, He finds new games by watching a game review channel on You Tube.

What are your family's favorite games?

Best photo

Since I didn't get a lot of feedback on the photos in the previous post, I submitted 7 of my photos, instead of the normal 3 the instructor wants. At the beginning of each class, she shows the photos each person sent (some of the class members didn't send any) and the class comments on them and chooses the favorite for each photographer. With mine, they were split between four, with the top two being the favorites and the second two close contenders.

This one led their eye to the beach, and to most of them, it looked like he had the pole in his hand. It's actually firmly "planted" at the beach.

They liked this one for the lines and also the mood created by my using "burlesque" when I edited it.

It was the light breaking through that captured their eye on this one.

This one had stronger lines, and they liked the black and white effect.

It's hard for me to judge. I thought some of the photos the others had taken were outstanding. Some of them looked really professional.

The homework for next week is night shots of any kind. Most of them are planning to shoot the unusual moon tomorrow, but I am not. I am going to go with light painting. She didn't cover it that much, but I did it in another class with her a couple of years ago. I just need to find those photo to get the exposure times and such.

I have some updates, but it's hard to know how much to say in an open blog. Some people want to know what it's really like to parent adopted children (or even birth children with issues) while others just want the happy stuff.

We were going to go to St. George Island tomorrow (no school due to teacher work day) and climb the lighthouse, but two of the children have had behaviors lately that tell me we need to wait on that trip.

If my night photos come out well, I'll post them.

Top Ten: Favorite Games

Sometimes in circle time we pick a top ten topic and write a list in our yearly notebook. Our first top ten list this year goes along with the question I asked a couple of posts back. Board Games. It's really hard to pick. Sometimes how fun a game is depends on who you are playing it with it. And there are some I played growing up that I don't play anymore for no real reason.

I won't share everyone's Top Ten List, but I'll put the top two favorites.

Kayla: Rummikub, Freestyle Apples to Apples

Kaleb: King of Tokyo, Tsuro (Ty just got this one for Christmas, and we played it for the first time this week. )

Jasmine: Escape the Curse of the Jungle, Tsuro

Escape is a co op game where you have to work together to escape and survive.

Tyler: King of Tokyo, too many tied for second place

Ty is the one who finds most of the new games. He watches videos about games and learns about new ones he wants to try. Lately He discovered King of  Tokyo, Get Bit, Roll for It and Tsuro this way.

Me: 

I have a hard time choosing two favorites. On one hand, I love children's games and can't wait until River and Winter are old enough to play games. Candy Land and Shoots and ladder will be the first ones.

But the games I choose most often now are:

• Rummikub
• Roll for It (another of Ty's Christmas presents)
• Yahtzee
• Dominoes
• Battleship (I played it tonight literally for the first time in about twenty years)
• Boggle
• Catch Phrase
• Tsuro
• Apples to Apples(If I'm in the mood and we have the right group)
• Sorry
• Princess UNO

I haven't played Scattegories since I got married, so that's almost 30 years. It requires a lot of people to make it fun.

Ricks' favorites are Rummikub and Yahtzz

Your turn! What are your top two, or top ten, board games? And does your list change by who you are with?

2016 Reading List

I posted this on my teen blog, but thought I'd post it here too.

At the beginning of 2016, I posted a list of the books I planned to read. That list is HERE.

Below is a list of what I really did read in 2016. I should put "read" in quotes because in reality I listened to the book on CD in most of these cases. I listened to the whole Harry Potter series and most of the Alex Rider series while driving my kids to school and on errands. A couple of the books I read from my phone while stuck in waiting rooms or lines.

All the Bright Places  review HERE
13 Reasons Why review  HERE
8 Notes to a Nobody Author interview HERE
Hunger Games- Read Bryan Davis' review HERE and HERE
The Fault in Our Stars review HERE
Harry Potter: The Sorcerer's Stone 
City of Ember review HERE
If I Stay
This is How I Find Her review HERE
The Outsiders
Tiger Eyes
The Boy in Striped Pajamas review HERE
The Chosen One
I Was Here review HERE
All Fall Down
Gathering Blue
The Messenger
8 Keys
No Such Person
The Face on the Milk Carton
There You'll Find Me review HERE
The Dare
Four
Divergent (Twice)(while driving from FL to NC to Cincinnati, to IN and back to FL)
The Dark is Rising (Same trip as above)
Counting by 7's (Same trip as above) review HERE
The Summer I Saved the World in 65 Days review HERE
How I Became Skinny, Famous and Fell Madly in Love review HERE
10 Steps to Girlfriend Status
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
The Hate List review HERE
Just Listen
Because of Winn Dixie
Prisoner of Azkaban
Goblet of Fire
Order of the Phoenix
Half Blood Prince
Autism,The Invisible Cord, A Sibling's Diary
Fan Girl
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Stormbreaker
Point Blank
Skeleton Key
Rules
Eagle Strike
Scorpia

Books we read in family time:
The Giver
Gathering Blue
Messenger
The Son
The Castle in the Attic
Harry Moon: Halloween Nightmares
The Cay
The Year of the Dog
Honey Moon
The New Kid at School
The Case Time Forgot

Other books I read (non fiction and adult fiction)
It: Nine Secrets of the Rich and Famous That Will Take You to the Top
Dick Van Dyke: My Lucky Life In and Out of Show Business
Duck Commander Family: How Faith, Family and Ducks Created a Dynasty
Write Your Novel from the Middle
The Gift
One for the Money
Blind Alley
Next Thing on My List
If I Run


I will probably reread a lot of the books on the list for three reasons:1. I have short term memory damage so until I've read a book a few times a lot of it is new to me.
2. I reread my favorites anyway.
3. The library has limited books on CD.

Which books on my list have you read?
What are you reading right now? I am finishing the Alex Rider series in the car. Listening to a James Patterson YA novel in the house.

Which Photo

Spur of the moment I stopped and took some photos of Jasmine in front of a warehouse that we've taken photos at before. I posted about 18 of them on facebook asking which they liked best. Several of them got multiple votes.

Here are the top ones. Which one do you like best? (It's going to be her facebook profile photo)

Photo Shoot in the Park Part 1

I took advantage of the beautiful weather to take photos in the park. Jessica and I took a short community education photography class and wanted to practice using our manual settings, so she came along. The park is a little challenging due to all the shadow from the trees.

I had each person dress to their personality and preferences.

 Jasmine has this look, but she also will occasionally dress up. As long as her attitude is good, I'm not that picky about what she wears.

Which photo of Jasmine should I have enlarged for my wall?

 This is how we often see Ty, so I took the picture.

 Jessica took one of us together.

 Kaleb isn't big on clothes and style. He pretty much wears what I set out for him.

From a different angle. See all the shadows behind him? Not quite sure how to deal with them. Fill flash?

 Jessica was really starting to show when I took these. A little different to see my baby girl ready to have her baby girl. I'm sure we will be taking plenty of pictures of River for our next class.

 These two get along so well.

Kayla

In a tree is Ty's favorite place to be photographed.

 Which photo of Ty should go on my wall?

I have more photos, but I don't want anyone to go into photo overload, so I'll post more in the next post.