This is how we do... gifts

You know how you spend a TON of money on that one gift that just turns out to be a novelty item your kids discard shortly after? I felt the same way when we bought our Xbox Kinect. It was great at first. My stepson loved the graphics and all the cool features. Then the weather got warm and it became a glorified DVD player.

Now that my smallest is bigger, she LOVES this thing! Not only do I work out from home a lot (Biggest Loser, Zumba, and Dance Central are my favorites), we can use it for so much more. On snow days when we can't really go anywhere we have bowling marathons. We dance when we are bored. We play Twister the really cool, really fun way if friends come over.

Depending on your kids, you can get lots of different games. The ninja game was NOT a big hit, but Disney is. My daughter can walk around Disney, get autographs, play games with individual characters and so much more. Since she is like me and definitely likes to move, we use the Kinect a LOT when it is too hot, too cold, too rainy.

I doubt that we will invest in many more games now that my stepson has gone off to college. My daughter seems pleased with the games that we actually have. I am sure some day, they will come up with something new to draw her attention in. For now, we really like to do Xbox adventures. Our favorite feature is the snapshots of you in live action. You can save them to your account to laugh at yourselves in all that free time that's lying around...

Featured here is my daughter attempting to smack my bottom during an intense game of Xbox adventures. We were trying to plug the holes in a ship and I am pretty sure we laughed more than played, but for 20 minutes, we were together. Laughing. Creating memories. Having a grand ol' time.