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Thank you for visiting Unhurried Home: Life in the Slow Lane! I hope this post helps make your next game night a little more fun. If you enjoy this post, be sure to check out my other top blog posts from 2016.

About a month ago, my eight-year-old complained that it’s not fair that she has to go to church on Sunday morning when she is tired from watching movies on Saturday night. I can’t see the connection myself, given that she’s up to all hours of the night reading anyway, but I was fine with switching movie night to Thursdays instead.

At first, both girls were happy with this new night (because I’m pretty sure the whole conversation took place on a Thursday afternoon), but when Saturday evening rolled around, they were both upset that there was nothing to look forward to. And that there was no popcorn on the agenda.

Enter family game night.

We’ve been collecting a lot of board games over the year – mostly cooperative games for Harbour from Peaceable Kingdom. I wanted something a bit more challenging to play with River so I sent James out to buy Settlers of Catan Jr, which is a simplified version of the regular Settlers of Catan. It was instant love.

The rules were confusing at first, but only for a moment. Once you start playing, it’s easy to catch on. River and I played on Saturday night, and then we played again on Sunday night, this time with James joining us. It was fun, and I was happy.

We played each Saturday night for a few weeks in a row. Sometimes five-year-old Harbour joined in as the designated “ghost pirate” mover; other times she sat beside me and we played one of her games at the same time.

After about a month of playing the Junior version, I brought the regular version of Settlers upstairs from the basement. James and I bought it years ago, but I honestly don’t know if we’ve ever even played it at all. I went to the Settlers website and watched the little game demo, and then I showed River how the game works. Since we’d been playing the Junior version for a month, she picked up the rules without any trouble at all. We made some popcorn and started a game.

And it was great — I’ve been looking forward to playing board games as a family ever since River was born, and sitting around the table with my girls and my husband was such a satisfying experience.

We all loved the game – EXCEPT FOR ONE THING.

In Settlers of Catan, you arrange the hexagonal pieces differently each time you play so that your game is always fresh and new. But the pieces slide around when you bump them and it’s SOOOOO irritating. Especially when your five-year-old is “helping” you put pieces on the board.

Fellow Settlers fans: I know this picture makes you cringe.

Settlers of Catan: How to Keep the Pieces Together

Last week we went to Ikea and James was determined to buy a piece of glass to set over the board.

Really? A random piece of glass? And just what would I do with it the rest of the week? I had visions of one-year-old Forest finding it and running through the house, holding the glass up high over his head while the rest of us ran after him. But James had decided that we could not play another game without some sort of board protector and so every time we passed a piece of glass, he measured it to see if it was big enough. I thought I was doomed when he found something that could work beautifully – until we arrived in the picture frame department.

That’s where we saw the glass-free Saxnas frame, which is as cheap as they come. We paid $5.99 Canadian, so given the exchange rate, I can only imagine that Ikea in the US actually pays it’s customers to take them home.

On Saturday night, we set up our Catan board with the hexagonal shapes and the number discs, then we placed the frame carefully over top to keep everything in place. It fit perfectly. Like, so perfectly that every future Settlers game should come with a $6 gift card to Ikea. We played our settlement and road pieces right on top of the plastic and everything underneath stayed put. If you play Settlers of Catan, get to an Ikea and get yourself a Saxnas frame right away.

For the rest of the week, the frame hangs on the wall in our hallway. We decided that the winner gets to put a picture behind it for the family to enjoy until the next game — I thought the girls would get a kick out of adding some of their artwork. But as luck would have it, James won the game on Saturday and he picked a picture of Steve McQueen.

So this is what I see every time I leave the bathroom:

I’m not sure how I’m going to top that, but I have at least a week to figure it out. Any suggestions?

If you enjoy this post, be sure to check out my other top blog posts from 2016.