Olympic Games

When the Winter Olympics rolled around this year, our extended family thought it would be entertaining to have an Olympics gathering of our own. So, my siblings and I, along with our spouses, organized an evening of Olympic events for our kids. I borrowed lots of ideas from my amazingly creative cousins, Marcie and Becky. The evening was definitely a memorable one!

I re-used all of our Olympic decorations from Jaden and Cody's 4th birthday party to make our house look festive for the events.

When our family arrived, all of the cousins designed flags for their own country (or just with their names).

While the kids were waiting for others to finish their flags, they had a chance to participate in the first event-- Snowball Ring Toss. The objective was to toss marshmallows so that they landed inside the small Olympic rings. The rings that I made were a bit small for this activity, but the kids didn't seem to mind the challenge (especially when they were allowed to snack on some of the marshmallows!).

Once everyone had completed his or her flag, we lined up the group for the Parade of Nations.

Jason turned on some Olympics theme music, and then he announced the kids' names one-by-one as they waved their flags and marched across the room.

The parade, led by Jason, then continued around our house. The rest of the adults stood nearby and applauded each of the contestants.

Then, it was time for the Olympic torch relay and lighting. Ian, representing Teddy Nation, was the first to begin with the torch.

Each of the cousins, in age order, had a chance to run with the torch for a short distance before passing it off to the next runner.

Nathan's handoff to Isaiah was the cutest ever. :)

Once the torch reached its final destination (the top of our entertainment center), it was time to... Let the Games Begin! Our first official Olympics event was the biathlon. First, the kids each "skiied" around our dining room table while holding onto their "rifle."

Then they used their rifle/Nerf gun to shoot at two targets.

The next event was slalom skiing. Uncle Andrew had the most ingenious idea to make his own skis by attaching a couple of his old pairs of tennis shoes to boards. His skis looked awesome!

There was a bit of a learning curve for the kids as they tried to maneuver across our yard in these skis. It was even more challenging to add the slalom aspect and ski around the cones! So, this event took a while, but all of the kids finished the course and seemed to be quite proud of themselves for doing so!

 

You may be wondering what little Adley was doing during all of these events. Well, she was having a grand time hanging out with family...

playing with her outdoor toys...

and getting into all of the various Olympics equipment!

Little Noah hung out with his mommy during most of the evening and was a superb cheerleader!

The next event was hockey shooting, organized by Aunt Kim and Uncle Matt.

The kids had quite an enthusiastic fan club whenever they scored a goal.

The next event, ski jumping, was initially going to be done with Andrew's homemade skis. After seeing how tricky these were for the kids to use, however, Andrew modified the event and simply had the kids jump over a line of cones. They absolutely loved doing this! Way to adapt on the fly, Uncle Andrew!

After that event, we gathered indoors again for the figure skating. Uncle Jon has his own DJing business, so he was the perfect relative to organize this event. When each kiddo came out onto the "ice rink" to do his/her own choreography, Uncle Jon played clips of songs that were unique for each child. The kids loved hearing their music and were actually more creative than I had anticipated when it came to doing their own dance moves. A few times I even saw Jaden and Cody attempting some moves that they had seen actual Olympics figure skaters do (like trying to spin around while grabbing their heel).

There was definitely a lot of laughter with this event! :)

Uncle Jon and Aunt Chelsea led this next event, too-- curling! The kids slid bean bags across our wood floors and tried to earn points based on where the bean bag landed.

The very last event was the favorite event for many of the kids. Uncle Matt and Aunt Kim had the kids imitate the Olympic luge event by sliding down our staircase in a sleeping bag. Sooo fun! We saw lots of smiles during this one! The addition of a neck pillow was a very wise plan by the event organizers.

After this final Olympics event, we ate dinner, complete with a special birthday dessert pie for Grammy. We were thankful that Grammy was willing to let us fill her birthday evening with a bunch of silly Olympic games! Happy birthday, Grammy!

 In addition to Grammy's birthday dessert, we served some Olympic themed cupcakes.

Finally, to conclude our Olympics festivities, we handed out medals to each of the kids and highlighted one aspect of the events that each of them had done well.

I think the first Schleicher/Walquist Olympic Games was a hit! 

We'll have to reconvene for Summer 2020. :)