Game Time

Age of Empires III

Adam and I got kicked out of the house this evening, Drew, Tom and I went to Rocky Mountain WingShak for dinner. Mmm, wings.

We played Age of Empires at Drew's house, I brought 2 computers. Tom, Drew, and I played 3 computers to start, the computers didn't fare too well. Then we played a couple of Free for all games, I won the first, Drew won the second. We are headed into Xbox 360 land for a while at this point...

One more Christmas picture

I think what she is trying to say is: "Did someone really wrap up a package of socks and give it to me thinking I would be excited by them?" Classic picture, Tom.

Tom's Gifts

I tried to get a picture of Tom with his presents. (For Mom...)

Other pictures of the Christmas morning mayhem

OK, so the mayhem was pretty controlled for six kids...

New coats

The girls got new coats. Tom, our expert Christmas photographer, was on had to document.

Santa brought Emma a turnip for Christmas...

This year, Santa decided to include some stew ingredient for the kids stockings, in addition to the normal fruit, candy, Little Ceaser's gift certificates, and coloring books they normally get. Kate got celery, Mary got carrots, Emma got a turnip and some rolls, Ruth got potatoes, Lily got onions, and Adam got yellow squash.


I added some stew meat, garlic, salt, pepper, paprika, and oregano to the mix, and the stew turned out pretty nice. We called it "Santa stew", but it has a different context than the "Easter Bunny Roast" I hear my family did one year after I moved out...

Electric Guitar

Grandma Payne send Emma an electric guitar for Christmas. Emma Really enjoys it.

To Emma's shagrin, Lily also enjoys the guitar, and steals it when Emma is not looking...

Adam

The slobber is because he is teething. The surprised look has more to do with the fact that the vacuum is running than it does with my taking his picture...

Lily's birthday

Lily opened some presents tonight. She had been waiting all day to tear into them..

The highlight of the night was the big giant box with the baby doll accessories. Several fights have already broken out about them. (Ruth also likes Lily's presents.)

Hoodlum Reindeer

I think the sucker was a nice touch on Emma's part.

Gingerbread house festival

Mary and Emma both made Gingerbread houses at school this week. In this picture you have just missed the part where Mary had an entire side of the house in her mouth trying to get pieces off... (We were too slow with the camera.)

Requisite pose, but not before pieces were missing.

Emma's pose, she was able to hold off before pictures were taken...

Emma did a pretty good job with hers. They are both gone now, as happens to all good gingerbread houses...

2009 Christmas Cookie lineup - Week 3

AKA "Small plate week"

I made some chocolate stars, but forgot about them, they didn't get on the plates. Tara liked the stars so much she went out and got some different molds tonight for me to make more. I've got one fan at least...

This week's "cookie" lineup:

• Banana bread
• Chocolate chip cookies
• sugar cookies - now from a mix! - save an hour or so...
  
• coconut encrusted thumbprint cookies with either apricot, raspberry, or marionberry jam on top
• chocolate covered pretzel sticks
• candy cane

The deliverees:

• Bell
• Botts
• Bright
• Bullock
• Capps
• Carlisle
• Cole
• Gonzalez
• Heftel
• Howell
• Keele
• Kelley
• Mackay
• Marble
• Martinsen
• Niccoli
• Oakes
• Perazzo
• Reece
• Wilde