Thank you to Ubisoft for sponsoring this post. Please click here to learn more about Ubisoft. I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls Collective. #UbiChamps
Happy Thanksgiving! Today kicks off the final sprint to the end of the year—a joyous and frenzied time that has been known to leave me feeling frazzled. Then too, there are all those seasonal goodies threatening to expand my bottom line and make me feel frumpy (and look lumpy).
But this holiday is going to be different, and my salvation has been found, believe it or not, in a video game. The epiphany came last week when I was stressed to the hilt with a to-do list that seemed to go on forever. I felt like I had no time for anything…no time to work-out, no time to play with my children, no time to chill. But then my 4 year-old begged me (yes, I am ashamed to admit she had to beg—I had been putting her off all morning) to play JustDance with her. (Even without the Minnie ears, which she has recently insisted on wearing daily, she is very hard to resist).
Fast forward to half an hour later and I’m sweating and laughing. It was awesome! I got a work-out in AND I was spending time with my daughter, AND I was having fun! We zipped through a series of songs including Carly Rae Jepsen’s Call Me Maybe (my four year old’s favorite), So What from P!nk and On the Floor by J.Lo. After those and a few others my heart was pumping and I felt like I was burning some calories!
Then last weekend, my 9 year-old daughter Miss A was invited to a sleepover party and she took Just Dance 4 with – the game was a hit! All the girls got into it and had fun…the host mom texted me a pic with a thank you for keeping all the girls entertained.
And Miss A felt pretty cool because, “even my friend’s big sister wanted to play, and she’s in HIGH SCHOOL!” Here’s what else Miss A had to say about JD4:
As the days get colder and colder, it’s getting harder to get the girls to go out and play afterschool. I was delighted when the other day we came home from school, and instead of the usual routine of fighting over who gets to watch what on t.v. the girls put JD4 on and enjoyed a fun afternoon.
So instead of sitting zoned out on the couch or beating each other up for the remote they were exercising and getting along?!? Woo-Hoo! 2 points for Mama!
After the big meal tonight I was tired from making all that food, painfully stuffed from eating it, and cranky from washing all those dishes…when I popped JustDance4 into the Wii for the girls I thought I was going to sit and watch and be a little bit grumpy. But soon enough, the inherent fun of the game got to me, especially after seeing the character for the Rick Astley song, Never Gonna Give You Up. I don’t want to spoil it for you, but all I’m going to say is “orange underpants.” Also, some crazy stuff happens in the background of this video, causing my 4year old to react like this:
It was also pretty funny to see my husband dance to the B-52’s Rock Lobster. He picked the song, and our daughters thought it was very weird indeed.
All this dance time earned my family enough “MoJo” points to move up a level and unlock a bonus—in this case it turned out to be a Mash-Up video of Call Me Maybe. The husband was done, so I stepped in for this last dance. I wasn’t sure what to expect from the mash-up, but it turned out to be crazy fun. The song stays the same, but the dance is performed by a montage of JustDance characters, Miss A was excited to see the return of on her favorite dancers from JustDance2 and I was giggling when underpants man (see the above note about the Rick Astley song) made an appearance. Before the mash-up the girls were getting tired and ready to call it a night, but they had so much fun with the new version of the song they wanted to keep playing to earn more points and unlock more fun stuff.
Speaking of unlocking fun stuff, JustDance announced they are releasing a special “extra” you can download, and get your groove on “gangnam style.” Find out more via this video:
If you want to know what other songs come pre-loaded and ready to play, check out the song list on the JustDance official website.
And I know you’re going to want one of these for your house too, so hop on Santa’s lap and tell him to slip JD4 into your stocking. If you don’t want to wait that long to practice your Moves Like Jagger, head over to Toys R Us and grab it (they have some great promotions, you could stock up on all the JustDance games!)
Don’t want to leave the house but still want the game? Order JD4 from Amazon and you can sit there at your computer, in your orange underpants if you like.
Melonie Johnson 