Christmas with US!

I hate to brag, but Christmas is just soo much fun with US! It isn't just one day of fun it's many days and/or nights hanging out, making treats, playing games. There was so much going on and unfortunately, I don't have many pictures.. too much hanging out I guess. Here are the highlights, in no particular order.

PUZZLE CHALLENGE!

I think that this year shouldn't count, it wasn't fair since we didn't ALL have the same puzzle. This year we had the puzzle game at my house. That way we could get the little ones to bed and not have to worry about waking them up. Unfortunately Dad wasn't feeling very well so he layed on the couch. We had 3 teams: Larry, Gage & myself; Tiffany, J2 & Jared; Mom, Josh & James. During the two hours it took us to complete ALL 3 puzzles this is what happened....

Amelia woke up so Larry left (I am a better puzzler so he went) to get her back to sleep. J2 was having a hard time concentrating so he stepped out.. more than once to take a break. Oh, and did I mention Lilly was awake for the first 45 minutes? She wanted to help us instead of work on her own puzzle so after "helping" my team & grammy's team, we finally put her in bed. So, it was NO surprise when Mom, Josh & James WON! Did I say anything about her chocolate trick? Yes, she gives us all DARK CHOCOLATE RASBERRY sticks to distract us from puzzling.. and it worked!

Just kidding Mom! They won because they were great puzzlers. My team came in 2nd place but I DO have to admit that Tiff's team definitely had the WORST puzzle! Until next year...

AIRSOFT

One of these days I'll get out and play with them, but for now it is just fun knowing that they are out there having fun. Okay, so I wouldn't play out in the snow regardless, that's insane in my opinion, but maybe when it is nice outside I'll play. Larry, Gage, Gabriel, Josh, James, Jared, J2, Dad and even a couple of Josh's friends ventured out in the snow to play Capture the Flag. It was fun to watch the chaos of them getting ready. Boots, Beanies, Bullets.... a flurry of traffic until they were ALL finally outside. I DID take pictures which was fun. I used Dad's camera and put on Josh's snowboard boots, wore my Dad's mask (so I would get hit) and hiked out in the snow in an attempt to get an action shot. I don't think I even looked at any of the pictures so maybe I'll have to look at them next time at Mom's and upload some if they were any good.

I still can't believe they could have so much fun when it was soo cold but they did. They ran, they shot, got shot.. tagged out and went back in for more. TOUGH BOYS! When they did come in they were exhausted, hungry, and cold. So wouldn't you know.. while they were out Mom, Tiff and myself (a little) were working on getting dinner ready cause we anticipated the hunger.

FAMILY TALENT SHOW

I don't think I would say 'talent', I would describe it more a 'sharing time'. The opening ACT this year was Quinn dancing. His dancing motivated Lilly to want to dance but she didn't however Amelia DID get up and dance. Her dance was going in circles until she got soo dizzy that she fell over. Lilly shared her great puzzling skills, she put together a 36 piece puzzle ALL by herself. And yes, I think puzzling MUST be a Tanke trait. Gage played a couple songs on the guitar that he's learned this year. Jared sang the McDonalds RAP which he had memorized. Mom & Dad danced, I can't remember the name of the dance Cowboy something..

After an intermission Larry finished off with Christmas BINGO. He is such a great game show host. He comes up with a different Christmas themed game each year.

STORY GAME

This is definitely one of the favorites. Mom started this game awhile back and it sure did stick. This is how it works. Mom chooses a childrens Christmas Story and then puts words from the book onto pieces of paper to match the number of people we have. She also has wrapped presents to match the number of people that she puts into the center of our circle/room. We each draw a word out of the basket. My word this year was "her". Mom reads the story aloud and each time she says our word we either get to pick a present from the pile or if those are all gone then we get to switch with another person.

This year was fun because Lilly actually grasped the concept, well sort of anyway. She would give her present to someone and instead of switching would just go and take someone else's present. I think by next year she'll have it down. It made for quite a few laughs. Another funny was when one of the presents started making a noise when it was tossed to someone else. Our super hero guro's guessed it was an Incredible Hulk.

At the END of the story we've adapted so that the first person to open gets to choose to open it or trade. Kind of like white elephant. Some of the gifts were.. a magnetic penny kit, cabbage patch sprout (guess who that was for), big box of candy bars, board game, blanket, action figures amd of course, Incredible Hulk.. punching gloves. It was lots of fun! Thanks Mom for starting such a fun tradition.

SKYPE

It is pretty sad to not have everyone together during such fun times. This year, thanks to Rebecca's family, we've discovered Skype. A webcam telephone system that lets us call, talk, & see each other even though we are miles away. The kids really enjoy being able to see their cousins as they talk- much different than over the phone. It helps us to feel closer and this year as I sat inside because of the cold.. it made me feel a little jealous seeing Rebecca and her kids play outside and run around as though it were summer....

YUMMY FOOD

There is a reason that Christmas only comes once a year.... we couldn't afford to eat like this ALL the time. We had Dad's Hamburgers on the grill, Chicken Enchiladas, Steelhead, Lasagna, Roast, Ham.... not to mention ALL the holiday treats. We made Mint Brownies, lots of cookies and ate lots of Chocolate. MMM.. good.

CHRISTMAS DAY

Is there anything more magical then watching your kids eyes light up on Christmas morning? We did manage to eat our Dead Fish breakfast BEfore opening presents, that way the kids didn't get grumpy as quickly. This was the first year that Lilly recognized that Santa came and brought her presents. Of course this meant that in her eyes.. ONLY Santa brought her presents. Even still when we ask her where she got something, the answer is Santa. Amelia did decide towards the end that she wanted to unwrap presents. She had fun tearing off the paper and then trying to eat the paper- I guess she didn't have enough pancakes. The boys enjoyed the morning handing out gifts and being surprised by what Santa actually brought for them. It was a lot of fun.

The rest of the day was filled mostly with Wii Playing. I was amazed at how good Lilly was on her first try. She did the Wii Fit Skiing and got a better score than the rest of them. She quickly became a Wii hog so we had to get out her other presents for her to play with. She has lots of Ponies & a house for them to play in. We got to watch Tinkerbell, play games & read stories.