Gaming Night Food

I am always looking for good game night food ideas.  I think things that are appealing to many people, easy to eat while playing  and hold up well to sitting around.  Obviously anything you can put in a crockpot and leave works well.   I often do meatballs.  I usually pre-make them (with moose meat...this is Alaska!), freeze them and then just plop them, still frozen, in the crock pot, with a jar of spaghetti sauce (I also toss in some Italian seasoning and sugar), for about 3-4 hours on high and I am good to go. I usually serve with mini buns. 

One of my most requested foods are my pizza puffs.  I love that I can put anything in them and I usually do a vegetarian version for my non-meat friends.  These also taste great at room temperature!

One of my new favorite are pepperoni 'n' cheese crescents.  These are also very versatile!

I also loves these chicken wontons, just they are little more futzy.  These bacon-cheddar pinwheels are much the same. 

I have more options, but these are what I can consider my "best hits," both with taste and ease of making.

Kid Gaming

We encourage our kids to play and we don't just make them play "good" games, but we play all kinds!  My oldest loves King of Tokyo, but we also play things like Go Fish with our youngest. 

King of Tokyo

Go Fish

Operation - so by the way...this games seems MUCH easier than it was when I was a kid. I expected my kids to do a lot of "buzzing," They didn't. They are just either just better than I was (totally could be true) or the game has been made easier.....(also totally could be true)...anyone know?

Operation...oh at a museum Outside I saw a full size table version of this - pretty cool!

Twilight Struggle

We've had Twilight Struggle for a while, but finally got it to the table.  This is a great two player, very indepth, great historical aspect.  It is a longer game, but well worth the time!  We actually blew up the world so neither of us won.  Yep, we nuked the world...go us.....definitely a learning curve here and I think both of us needed to learn how it worked as much as play through it.  Hopefully next time we can avoid that!

Run, Fight, Die

So I think this is the only zombie game we own. We don't like zombie games. But this is just FUN.  Seriously, it is cool.  The dice aspect is great and Ray really enjoys it plus the different characters are really into their stereotypes and add a lot.   We did a kickstarter expansion that will get us more characters, so excited about that! If you don't like zombie games, this is the zombie game for you.  It is just a cool push your luck game where you get to shoot at zombies as they keep attacking you!

Dice Masters

 

Ray is really into Dice Masters and he was teaching Adam to play it.  We are hoping it will help with his reading as he has to read each card.  Ray loves anything dice related!

 

My biggest problem is that it is "collectible," and so getting the dice you want is a problem.  We ended up buying about $20 in boosters then using Cool Stuff to buy what we wanted. 

1812

This is 1812 out of Academy Games (in the same series as 1775). This works does 5 players.  This is different enough from 1775 to let you want to own both.  Another great historical option!! 

1775

I love the historical games out of Academy Games.  The "Birth of America" series we pretty much own all of! We've recently played several games of 1775, which plays really well 2 player as well as 4 player.  I am committed to making the British win!  Last game, we tied and France got it all! :)  [I have an entire rant on the American Revolution if anyone is interested...]  This is a great war game that isn't too "war gamish," and the historical content is EXELLENT.  Definitely worth the time!

The Stannards vs the non-Stannards (my brother and I against our spouses)

France took it all....

We realized after about two games that we were missing some cards out of the British deck!!  Anyway, they were great about getting them right to us. Hopefully will increase my winning chances....

Board Games Make you Smarter?

This is a neat article about how board games make you smarter! I certainly think this is true of our kids!