We got a bunch of new games for Christmas this year. We have been in an all out game playing marathon this week. I’ll give you a quick rundown on a few of them. Family game night has lots of options now! Anyhow, here is my impression of a few games…

Apples to Apples – holy moley, this is an awesome game! Basically, each person gets 5 cards, each with a word. Each person puts down their card that most closely describes the “target word”. It’s a lot of fun…especially with small kids. For example, once the target word was cuddly. The submissions were basketball and lobster. As the judge, I had to decide which was most cuddly. Interesting game for sure!

Guess Who? – sort of like Clue with out the murder. You get 25 people and have to eliminate faces based on characteristics like eye color, beards, etc. We’ve had a bunch of fun with this one.  Abigail is a master!

Life, Pirates of the Caribbean edition – If you know the regular game of Life, you pretty well get this edition…just add a parrot on your shoulder and say “arrrrr” a lot more.  You pay in dubloons rather than dollars!

Dominoes – this has been our big time winner. We’ve played just under one million rounds of Mexican dominoes in several different variations over the past week. The kids have a fun time playing this although I think the adults (we’ve played with everyone) have had the most fun. I had no idea dominoes was actually a cool game!

We are working hard to institute a regular family game night.  We play games a lot but I suppose as the kids get older that it will be more difficult.  I figure we’ll start a tradition now if we can and hope it sticks.  Do most people have a family-something night?

We had a great Christmas this year.  We spent lots of time with family and enjoyed tons of great food and gifts.  The kids were pretty calm on Christmas eve and went to bed before too late so Santa could come at a decent hour.  On Christmas morning, the kids even slept in until 7 or so (I was never that kind on Christmas to my parents)!  I think kids really are the most awesome at whatever age they are at.  I remember being so excited for my 2 and 6 year olds to open presents, but it was even better for my 5 and 9 year olds.  My Mom always said she liked us best at whatever age we were and I think I agree.  I am not sure that the same rule applies into adulthood though.  Of course, she can send us home now instead of just to our rooms.  Anyhow, I think I like my kids best at whatever age they are too!

Abigail had strep for Christmas but she is now mending (after 4 days on an ineffective antibiotic, she got a new type which worked).  I only mention it because we had to wake her up on Christmas morning.  Isaac was eager to open presents and we knew Abigail would be mad if he didn’t wait.  So, we woke her and the kids started opening stuff.  By the way, motrin is magic – it makes the most awful strep/sore throat/fever bearable for everyone!  Anyhow, I loved how our Christmas morning this year.  Rather than just fly through all the presents, the kids stopped and played with each gift before moving on to the next.  We didn’t prompt them to do so, but it let us know that Santa had done good research.  It took us 3 hours to open all the gifts (and there weren’t that many)!  We were exhausted by lunch time!

I’ll post some more pics tomorrow of one of the gifts that Isaac and I each got…but I need time for the bruise to properly finish developing before I show it off!

I really like ginger stuff.  My mom used to make gingerbread and lemon sauce (sounds iffy but it’s great!), I like gingersnaps more than just about any other cookie and I have explored medicinal uses for ginger brandy (uh…sure…medicinal uses).

When Mommaw and Granddad invited us over to make gingerbread houses, I was likely more excited than the kids.  None of us has the patience to make a full-blown 3-D gingerbread house.  Patience runs so thin amongst us, in fact, that Isaac didn’t even have the patience to ice his gingerbread house.  He said he liked it as it was, though I think he really just hates crafty stuff that much.  Anyhow, Mommaw found a simple recipe and a house cookie cutter so we were set to go.

You can see that the kids used the flour with gusto and had it all over.  The very best part of this fun was that it was at Mommaw and Granddad’s house!

We iced most of the cookies a little but we really were excited to get to the eating.  After only 24 hours, we have finished all of the cookies!  Yes, hibernation weight is coming along nicely!

I have mentioned before  that I love Instructables.com.  I was browsing the other evening when I came across a post about cutting intricate paper snowflakes (holy moley, sorry for all the links!)  I don’t think I was ever particularly good at cutting paper snowflakes but I thought I should pass along the frustration of cutting them to my kids.  I had barely finished describing what we needed to do when Isaac declined any further involvement…so, that leaves Abigail to drive to madness!

Typically, when I cut snowflakes, I just started in on the paper in my best Edward Scissorhands imitation.  Like most things, I had no plan or desired output.  It never occurred to me to plan ahead but the instructable changed my mind.  We decided to fold the paper as usual, but then draw a pattern ahead of time.  It made me think about what I wanted the end result to be.  Cool!

Abigail didn’t really get the excitement of “the edge”.  It’s the “mother-edge” I told her, the edge from which all snowflake life flows.  “Ok Dad, can I cut now?”  Ah, sweet…she’s feeling snowflake frustration!  Anyhow, she drew a number of shapes including some trapezoids and parallelograms to see what would happen.  As she unfolded her first snowflake, she began to understand the “edge from which all blessings flow”.

We decided to hang our snowflakes on the front door, but Mohinder, our cat, didn’t like them there…blocked his view I guess.  We had to raise them up so he couldn’t reach them. 

Anyhow, we are pretty proud of our work.  I expect that we’ll make one each night for awhile.  She loves to do arts and crafts projects and this is right up her alley!  I expect that it won’t be long until we learn to make paper-mache or 3-d origami-like ornaments or tissue paper ornaments, etc.

Abigail is also pretty generous and wants to make enough so that we can give them to people for Christmas…I like the way she thinks!

This works…you’ll never believe it, but it works.  We made cinnamon applesauce Christmas ornaments this weekend.  These ornaments are cool and they smell awesome!  We started with 1/2 cup of applesauce and added an equal amount of cinnamon.  At first, it mixed up pretty well and seemed right (whatever that is!) but we quickly found we needed more cinnamon.  We didn’t measure but I’d say we ended up with another 1/2 cup of cinnamon.  Anyhow, mix the two ingredients until they form a fairly dry, thick, clay-like consistency.  Roll them out between sheets of waxed paper until they are 1/4 inch

thick.  Cut out shapes with cookie cutters and start them drying on a clean sheet of waxed paper.  We poked holes in them to run a string through for proper hanging.  Once they have dried about 24 hours, you can flip them and move them to a wire drying rack to finish.  I think ours will be dry tonight (48 hours).  Let me tell you, they smell awesome! 

When I walk in the door at night, the cinnamon fills the air.  I sort of want to lick them but I know better…

Just so you know, they do not taste as good as they smell.  Isaac likes applesauce with cinnamon – a lot.  He reasoned (as I always do) that if a little is good, a lot must be awesome.  He tried some of the dough but quickly downed a bunch of water after eating a small bite (who am I to discourage a little first-hand experience?)  Before Isaac’s bite, Abigail decided she would wait on her brother’s experience before she tried the dough (who am I to push her into reckless behavior?)

As with many crafty things, Isaac was mainly in a hurry to get things done.  He did tough it out because it all smelled so good.  We discovered that appley cinnamon leaves a pretty good stain on your hands but it washes off pretty easily.  We also did a little science related to soil testing – Emily’s Dad is a civil engineer so he was able to rate the consistency of our dough compared to soil.  I think he mainly enjoyed slamming balls of dough onto the waxed paper to see how much it compacted!  It made a great cinnamon thump!