I’m sure you are well aware that the holiday season is upon us and rapidly closing in…right? Or did I just cause you a panic attack? I hope not. We all get quite busy this time of year. I always make an extra effort for finding family fun this time of year. It not only helps me de-stress a bit, but it reconnects us as a family. Both things seem to be needed this time of year and also seem to help my kids get out of their ‘gimme’ focus.
If you have been reading my blog for a while, then you likely know that I love finding active family fun. I love finding active things to do with the whole family to help us all burn off some energy and keep us all active and fit in fun and different ways. When I agreed to give Just Dance 2015 a try, I knew we would have fun, but I had no idea how much of an active fun family time this would be. I quickly realized that we needed some refreshment to go along with all our fun. I decided to give a layered drink a try for this family activity because they just add some cuteness and fun to our time together…and that pretty much always goes over well in our house! 🙂
Just Dance 2015 (Amazon affiliate link)
is so fun! Now let me just keep it real here, I’m no great dancer. I’m sure that if I had made a video of us playing the game it would be hilarious!!! It doesn’t matter. The game shows you the moves to make and lots of them are repetitive moves, so after the first couple of tries, I could figure them out. Keeping up with some of the fast songs…well that’s another story.
My girls did great at learning the dances, but even when they didn’t quite get it, they still had fun letting loose and making up their own dance moves. Just Dance 2015 has actually partnered up with Stomp Out Bullying to encourage kids and teens(and moms, too) to do just that…let loose and be themselves. It is a fun way to do just that as a family. My oldest daughter actually gets to practice this at her school as well. They have clubs for the 6th, 7th, and 8th graders and she is in the Just Dance club where they play this and the other versions of Just Dance. She has had such a great time in her club dancing and letting loose with the other kids doing the same thing.
We love the song selection. They are lots of current popular songs as well as some old favorites. There is even a Tetris song, which was my husbands favorite game for a long time! We had to play that one.
I’m telling you, you will get a great workout and have a blast playing this game. My girls didn’t want to stop despite being hot and sweaty. As you play the game, you earn additional songs and bonus versions of songs. You also earn points with which you can select additional songs and/or versions of songs.
My girls love to see the new avatars we unlock as we play.
In my opinion, this is such a fun way to spend an hour or whatever time you have as a family. It is a great thing to do during the holidays as well because we all know how many sweet treats and such and so on there are this time of year. Burning a few calories and having fun together can only be a good thing!
To help cool us down and refresh us, I made these layered drinks. I tried to stick with natural and organic juice/drinks like we usually do. I also added an electrolyte replacement drink because my girls rarely drink those and thought the blue color would go well with our layers.
We selected drinks that were flavors we would like as well as colors that we thought went well with Just Dance 2015. When you select your drinks to make these, pick things you know your family will like, but look at the sugar content and make sure you have 3 distinctly different sugar contents.
There are two secrets to making a layered drink.
- The heaviest sugar content goes on the bottom. The least sugar drink goes on the top.
- Fill your glass with a small amount of the first drink. Fill the glass full with ice and pour your remaining drinks on to an ice-cube one layer at a time.
We made our drinks with a yellow layer (that you can barely see at the bottom), pink layer and blue layer. The layers were organic lemonade, organic raspberry lemonade and an electrolyte replacement drink in blue.
You can barely see the yellow layer in ours. I think the bottom two layers were a little too close in sugar content to work well. They were 32 grams and 28 grams of sugar respectively. Any which way, they were yummy and hit the spot so we could get back to dancing.
The layered drinks were delicious and only helped add to the fun of our family time together. We have played Just Dance 2015 a couple of times together now and I’m looking forward to playing again. I know this will be part of our Family New Year’s Eve this year…we already have a dance party, why not make it a dance/game party for one of the hours. I’m also thinking this would be hilarious to give a try when my parents come visit later this week. Can’t you just see my 70 year old Mom and Dad, who are both active and fit, having fun dancing to Happy by Pharrell Williams or Black Widow by Iggy Azalea? Lol! Though there are a few classic songs they really might enjoy, so we probably will play together. You ready Mom and Dad?
What is your favorite active way to have some fun together as a family?
More great family fun for you:
I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls Collective and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.
I just adore this. I’m also a mother of girls, and I think about bullying all the time. They are still young, but I hear things from them, other kids and other parents that make me uncomfortable even now.
I’ll be honest, we haven’t pulled out the Wii in years. I kind of miss it and Just Dance would be perfect for the girls (and myself!). I’m sure I can get the Mr into it too.
I saw your states on the wall. I know the AZ connection, but what’s the Oregon connection? I’m from there originally, and move back there in a heartbeat if the Mr was on board. You and I have too much in common!
I totally hear you on the bullying. Because we homeschool, we haven’t had to deal with it much, but I have friends who really deal with it. It is so sad.
I think you and your girls would have so much fun with the game! My girls and I have had so much fun. We just played it with parents tonight as well as they are in town. Had so much fun!
As far as the states, we lived in Oregon. That was the last place we lived before we moved here. I’d move back in a second as well. LOVED it there! We sure do have so much in common. We need to meet in person…maybe at SNAP? Would love to convince you to come!
This is great! I love that you shared the information about Stomp Out Bullying – I didn’t know about that. I’ll make sure to share it with my mom and sisters, since we love Just Dance. And that’s such great advice about the drinks as well; I’ve always wondered about how to layer drinks. Thanks for sharing!