New Year's Eve with Maddy

We all needed some down time today after a crazy week, so we spent New Year's Eve at home playing games. We started with a video game and as the day progressed, we moved to board games.

I love this picture of Maddy playing Orchard so much, not because she is actually having fun playing a board game and actually played 3 complete games of this in a row with me. I love it because her new stuffed dog, Shine, and Fudge, the puppet are playing with us. Maddy and I rolled for them. They did a nice job.

Then Nan came over for a bit. Ash and I took a walk while Maddy and Nan watched Canimals. Then Maddy went to bed.

So she is ringing in the New Year with her glow-cat Pica and her dog Shine and a good nights sleep.

Some Christmas pics

This time of year is always a little crazy, but I actually got some pictures taken Christmas day. Maddy has been telling us for the last two weeks that she was going to wait until after church on Christmas to even look in her stocking and as for the presents, we were definitely going to open them after church. Ash and I just shrugged. Whatever Maddy wants.

Maddy was in my room at 7:30 am on Christmas morning asking if she could go down and open her stocking. When I reminded her that she had been wanting to wait till after church, her reply was that she was just too excited.

Ash and I were happy to oblige. We were just as excited as she was! So presents and stockings Christmas morning.

Maddy was thrilled with her presents! She got plenty of art supplies.

A new cat nightlight that she is calling Pica and a crazy fat stuffed dog she named Shine. Pica and Shine immediately started playing with the puppets and their new camper. The only problem was Pica and Shine are huge, so they had to ride on the top.

The puppets called them monsters, but as long as they were nice, the puppets were happy to give them a ride.

Shine even hitched a ride to church with us in Maddy's coat.

After church, Maddy broke out her new spa and spent most of the afternoon soaking her feet.

She is a pretty lucky girl.

Happy Birthday to Scott

Today was Scott's birthday, so we all got together for a party at his house.

It was nice getting everyone together.

Carolyn made a beautiful cake! (Actually, this was the best chocolate cake I have ever eaten!)

The kids made sure to put 34 candles on it. (Possibly a fire hazard.)

It took Scott 3 breaths to blow them all out!

Then everyone enjoyed a rich bounty of cakes. Chocolate and a gluten-free blackberry cake.

Afterwards, we played Scott's birthday present - a game called Bean Boozled. To play the game you spin a spinner and it tells you what color of jellybean to pick. Now each color has two different flavors. One flavor is good - like buttered popcorn. The other flavor is terrible - like rotten egg. You never know which flavor you are going to get when you pick your colored jelly bean... until you bite down that is.

We learned a couple things from playing tonight.

#1. A normal person can go about 3-4 rounds before refusing to play anymore because the bad flavors are just absolutely terrible.

#2. A stubborn person, like Scott, will continue to play, but requires a trashcan nearby to spit out the nasty ones.

#3. Dad will eat anything and like it... kind of terrifying really.