Monday night is family night at our house. Along with our typical family prayers, we add a family meeting, some sort of a “lesson”, we sing some songs and we play some games or do an activity. It’s a lot of fun.

Last week we played the old school game “telephone”, where one person whispers a sentence into someone’s ear, who then whispers it into the next person’s ear, and on and on down the line, until the last person blurts out the sentence, which has undoubtedly changed considerably from what the first person said.

Playing this game with small children is hilarious. Playing this game with a child with a heavy accent is also hilarious. Throw in a sweet little girl with a speech impediment, and boy oh boy, are you making things interesting.

“I love my dog Rascal” turned into “My dog is my uncle.”

“Mercy loves her sister Maggie” turned into “Mercy likes her feet smell funny”.

“Mom and Dad love each other” turned into “Mom ate Dad’s brother.” (I didn’t…promise).

Ridiculous amounts of giggling…and lots of “WHAT?????”

Good times.

This week we were talking about setting good examples for those around us and who were good role models to follow, so going along with that theme we played Simon Says.

We have the full range of skill level when it comes to games like this…Marcus runs around like a loon the whole time…Maggie does whatever you do whether you say “Simon says…” or not. Amanda does a little better. And then you have to be pretty dang tricky to get some of those older kids out!

Ben had never played Simon Says before and thought it was a blast. He would get very upset with himself when he “fell” for one of our tricks, but he actually ended up winning a round, even beating me and all of his older siblings. Simon says do a victory dance!

The funniest parts were when we let the younger kids be Simon. We gave them each a few turns, and then Josh would take over if they were having trouble getting people “out”. (Although in the spirit of honesty, it was my dear husband who came up with “Simon says put your finger in your nose”).

Well, Shane (seven years old on Oct. 20!) was very excited for his turn to be Simon. He started off with some basic strategies… “Simon says touch your nose…Simon says pat your head…STOP!” We’d already been playing for awhile and everyone was getting smart…no one fell for it.

So he tried again…”Simon says raise your hands… Simon says put your hands down…Simon says put your hands up…PUT YOUR HANDS DOWN!” Again, no one fell for it (well, ok, Maggie fell for it, but like I said, she fell for everything!)

So, Shane changed his strategy.

“Simon says do jumping jacks”. We did jumping jacks. A lot of them. An eternity later he finally said, “Simon says stop.” WHEW.

Then my sweet son said, “Simon says do more jumping jacks.” We did more… a lot more. We started to lose our form…we started to sweat…lots of giggling…some whining.

Finally, Shane said, “Simon says stop. Oh wait, Simon says do 20 more.” And on he went. One by one we collapsed on the floor…unable to do any more jumping jacks…even if Simon said we should.

And, that is how Shane got the entire family “out” at Simon says. He might not have been able to trick us, but he was able to exhaust us.