Spot it!

What is it about being five? Before Courtney's birthday, she ALWAYS brought some of her own toys along to play with when she came to Grandma's on Tuesdays. It wasn't that I didn't have things here for her to do. I think she just liked to bring things!

Well, since her birthday party, despite her promises to bring something "next time", she has not brought ONE THING along for Grandma to play with (that teeny light-up tennie she brought this week didn't count)! Boo hoo... I wanted to play with her new Legos or dig into that huge jar of craft supplies! ;) I don't get it. 

Anyway, I occasionally pick up something new that I think she'll like, just so I have something "for a rainy day". (I didn't mean that literally, but it actually did rain all day Tuesday!) So this week I got out a new game I'd heard about on a blog somewhere.

It's a bunch of cards in a neat little tin. And although it's recommended for ages 7 to adult, I thought she might be pretty good at it anyway, as it's a matching game, and she's very good at playing the memory game.

So here's our dealer, shuffling the cards:

All shuffled and dealt... one card per person... remaining cards face up:

Then we turn over our cards and the first person to spy one of the figures on her own card that matches one on the pile, gets the top card on the pile. And on it goes... the person with the most cards wins.

Sounds pretty easy, doesn't it? It's not as easy as it sounds!! There is one match per every pair of cards. The matching figures are the same color but can be different sizes. Look at this pair and see how long it takes you to find the match!

This was one of the more obvious ones. Or at least it seems so once you've found it. Sometimes it's a figure-by-figure process of elimination! Courtney loved the game and did well, although she wasn't very fast, and sometimes she needed a hint (for above I'd say "think green"). I'm sure with practice she'll get lots better and will beat Grandma in no time. ;)

There are several other games you can play with these cards, but they're more complicated, and so far I haven't even bothered to read the directions. Maybe someday we grownups can play them.

On a different subject, I just had to show you another shot of one of our icy trees this morning, with the sun shining on it. There was some melting yesterday, but there's still a lot of ice out there. The camera didn't quite do the sparkles justice (and it didn't help that I took it through a plasticked window), but click on the photo to enlarge it and I think you'll find it pretty, anyway.