Vanilla Joy - Family * Motherhood * Me

Board Game Review: Photosynthesis by BlueOrange Games

Photosynthesis is a beautiful game by BlueOrange Games. BEAUTIFUL. It’s one of my favorite new games of the year. I LOVE the tree theme, play is so unique, and the design is gorgeous. We have many games from BlueOrange and they are all so unique. I love a game that has a strong theme, especially […]

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Board Game Review: MindBlock by BlueOrange Games

Games

Meet MindBlock, brain game extraordinaire, AND made from wood! I LOVE wooden toys, games, serving dishes, plant pots…so so beautiful. I’m from a tiny logging town in Southern Oregon so wood is just in my blood and I love games with wooden components! ANYWAY… We play math games at least one day a week instead […]

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GAME TIME Blue Orange’s Planet

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If you’ve been here long, you’ll know that our family loves board games, and one of my favorite homeschool tricks is to pick a board game and build a unit around it. This week we took a trip through the solar system and learned all about the planets, made paper mache models of most of […]

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Board Game Review: Mystic Market

Games

If you’re looking for a beginner level strategy game, Mystic Market is a great choice. It’s got all the great components of a good strategy game – multiple ways to earn points and thwart other players, shifting point values, different actions to take on a turn, and ways to win. It’s got that advanced strategic […]

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GAME TIME Dog Crimes

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This year we started studying logic using The Fallacy Detective book and we have complemented our book study with this fun Thinkfun game, Dog Crimes. Coincidentally, they are both dog themed! We’ve had a lot of fun with both resources and have learned to recognize fallacies and some predictable logical patterns. It’s been a new […]

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RECIPE Favorite Nutty Breakfast Granola

Food

When we first had kids we had cold cereal for breakfast, but I only bought Wheat Chex and Mini Wheats on the regular. Occasionally I would buy other things, but not often. Several years ago I completely stopped buying cold cereal except for Christmas. Everyone gets a big box of cold cereal and their own […]

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GAME TIME Qwixx Card Game

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We had the pleasure of trying out another fantastic Gamewright game – this time we played Qwixx. There are two versions – dice and cards. The dice game sounds super fun, but we played the card game and it was easy to learn but fun and challenging for all my kids (ages 13, 11, 8, […]

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Westward Expansion Wrap Up

Homeschool

We’re studying Westward Expansion this unit (I get my rotation schedule here, we’ve been doing this schedule for a year and are loving it so much.) We finished up our readings about the Erie Canal, the Pony Express, Annie Oakley, Tall Tales, Davy Crockett, Native Americans, and more. The 19th century is such a fun […]

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Quilty Quilt Love

Crafts

Quilting is my thing. Well…one of my things. I have a lot of things. I love cutting fabric up into little pieces and putting it all back together. Some might say this is crazy but…isn’t that what building with wood is too? Cut up a piece of wood into littler pieces of wood and put […]

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GAME TIME Trash Pandas

Reviews

Introducing…. TRASH PANDAS!! We tried out this game this week and Gamewright does it again! Some of our favorite games are made by Gamewright (Sleeping Queens, Quixx), and we love this one too! I especially love card games because they’re easy to learn, but Gamewright always puts a really fun spin with the artwork and […]

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