Spontaneous Family Day

While Sundays usually have some family time involved, we thought our day was going to look a bit different than it did. But it was one of those serendipitous moments when the plans changed and we had the day wide open before us, with pretty much nowhere to go and nothing to do (well, nothing urgent or planned). So we had a family day.

Actually, we squeezed in a couple of haircuts before the fun and games began. Poor John - it's been super windy around here and having his hair all in his face has been rather frustrating while trying to work. He wasn't fond of my bandana idea, either. Now he can see and work without all that hair interference.

We played Clue, which I know I haven't played in probably 8-9 years. The boys have probably played a little more recently, but not sure that it's been within the past 4-5 years. It was a blast! Interestingly, the murderous Mrs. White was guilty three out of four times! She's a treacherous one, that Mrs. White.

We also played a couple games of Yahtzee. It's been awhile since I've played that one, too. We made a run to the frozen yogurt joint in between games, though, which cooled the dice off significantly. Our second game was quite underwhelming. Fun with sad scores.






Oh yeah, John & I made a quick run over to the grocery store, where we were greeted in the checkstand line with this!

Yikes!

Since we had yogurt at around dinner time, no one was terribly hungry, so we watched a few episodes of Numb3rs on Netflix and snacked as the need arose.

All in all, a spontaneously wonderful day.

Too many options!

New Year's Eve - 2012

We often have more people over on New Year's Eve, but due to sickness and the potential for slippery roads, it was the four of us and my parents. We still had a wonderful time. I made homemade fettuccine Alfredo for dinner (just the sauce, not the noodles). We had salad and focaccia bread as well.

Then the boys headed downstairs to play their games and we got the cards out for a game of Oh Hell and a couple games of Liverpool Rummy.

We had a relatively new deck for Oh Hell, so handling, shuffling, and dealing was a little challenging.

A different perspective.

Some delicious chocolate!

In case you missed it on Facebook, my mom has a chip on her shoulder. A very tasty chip from Senor Manuel's, specifically.

I've been having some fun with this fisheye lens over the holidays! Although I can't get a shot that's a full circle because my camera has a crop sensor. But it's still fun to play with!

Thanksgiving Day

We had such a nice Thanksgiving day this year. Not that there was anything outstanding or spectacular, but it was just a good day. Splitting the meal preparation amongst Mom, my sister, and me is nice because no one person has to do everything. Although I think Mom gets the bulk of the work, being the pie queen and all.

Side note: every year around Thanksgiving and Christmas, Schwan's and Village Inn try like crazy to convince us to buy holiday pies. What they don't understand is that the best pie baker on the planet just happens to be my very own mother. So there's just no need for their pie sales and such. Not that their pies are bad or anything, but they'll never compare to Mom's. Ever. Sorry, fellas, you'll get no pie sales in my family!

I almost always buy the turkey. The biggest one I can find since everyone wants plenty of leftovers. And that's where my dear hubby is awesome. He knows how squeamish I am about raw meat and turkey innards, so he's happy to take the bird out of its package, pull out all that stuff, clean it up, and pop it in the roaster. And then I take it from there. I can handle brushing it with buttery olive oil and sprinkling it with Pampered Chef's yummy Rosemary Herb seasoning. I'm also very capable of putting it in the oven and checking its temperature later in the day.

This turned out to be an exceptionally amazingly good turkey this year. Very moist and very delicious!

The guys were engaged in some auto repairs that were a little more challenging than they should have been.

Something about a very stuck ball joint, I believe.

With the unseasonally warm temperatures, Zach got in a little leaf blowing.

When Mom & Dad showed up, Mom had a very nice gift for both Susan and me.

Mine is the one on the right. Mom made these on her rigid heddle loom. I think she did a fantastic job!

Mom usually makes the gravy. She's very good at that, too. Unfortunately, she didn't have a good method for keeping the entire spoon out of the pan, though.

A rousing game of Pente is always a good way to keep out of the way of the cooking.

Or maybe a little DS. In pink, thankyouverymuch.

After all that hard work in the garage, they got to relax with a good movie.

I always write at the top of our white board "I am thankful for..." and let everyone add their thoughts to the board. My niece decided to make her own version. She's so creative.

And we've come full circle. John gets to carve the turkey when it's done. He loves the turkey. If I left him to do this job unattended, he'd be pretty full before it ever made it to the table. Fortunately, it was a 24 pound turkey, so there was enough for him to snack on, eat at dinner, and still have leftovers for everyone.

Photographic evidence that I was there. Sans makeup and all, but there, nonetheless.

After dinner, we played a game of Loaded Questions, ate pie, and then played Taboo. It was a really wonderful day. What about you? How was your Thanksgiving?

Fun and Creativity and a Bum Knee

I just love creativity - whether it's taking pictures, sewing, writing, or enjoying the creative works of others. In fact, when my life is lacking in creativity, I tend to be in a real funk and feel as if something was missing. Which it pretty much is. After all, we're created in the image of God - the ultimate Creator, so it makes sense that creativity would be a part of who I am.

This weekend was such a treat for me - Friday night, Lucy and I went to our local Archiver's store and spent the evening cropping. We try to go somewhat often and the past couple of times we were there, I just felt like I wasn't making much progress, which was rather frustrating. But on Friday, I decided I would just work on a mini album and not take my massive cropping luggage with me. It would be fun to have a change of pace and my hurting shoulder and knee would appreciate the lighter load. (Sorry, no pictures tonight...I'll explain later.)

About 10 years ago, my family, my sister's family, my parents, and Lucy's family had a progressive dinner. I took a ton of pictures that night. So I decided they should have their own little dedicated album, rather than try and cram them all into the chronological album for that year. I was able to get all of the photos onto pages (included title and section pages) during our six hours of cropping time. As always, we had a lot of fun, a lot of laughs, and for a change, I actually accomplished quite a bit.

Saturday, Mom and Lucy came over and we stamped Christmas cards. We haven't done any stamping in a number of years. We used to stamp quite often. In fact, I was a demonstrator for Stampin' Up! for about seven years. I've wanted to make Christmas cards for a few years, so it was also a lot of fun. Of course, we had the obligatory lunch break - at Chipotle - which provided delicious energy for the rest of the day. I was quite happy to discover that in my stamping supplies, I had a box of pieces and parts of various Christmas cards I had started. So the first part of my day was spent assembling and completing what I'd already done. By the time we packed it all up Saturday afternoon, I had a total of 41 cards done and read to go. As long as I can get another day or two of card making in, I should be able to make all of my cards this year. Another day of fun, fellowship, and creativity.

I almost got to add one to this list today - attending a local craft fair with my mom. I debated the wisdom of this, since my knee was hurting quite a bit. But it was a rather small fair and I figured I could always leave early if necessary. I had intended to go after church. John and I came home and while I was walking up our stairs, the bursa at the back of my left knee popped - loud and painfully so. In fact, I couldn't bend my leg at all, nor could I walk. So I found myself sitting in the middle of our stairs. I texted Mom to let her know I wouldn't be able to make it after all. John and Zach did get me into the recliner in the spare room/studio/whatever room. Give the extremely limited mobility of my left knee, it looked like I'd pretty much spend the rest of the day and night in that chair.

Fortunately, after some ice and ibuprofen and rest and support, my knee IS a little better. But better is far from walking normal and doing stairs again. Fortunately, the bathroom and our bedroom are both on this same floor, because I will be here until tomorrow morning, at the least.

So the knee is the reason there are no pictures to support this post. It's far too much work to take them and upload them right now.

In addition to creating, I so enjoy games and laughter. Last night, Mom and Dad came over and we played a couple games of Liverpool Rummy - always loads of fun. This afternoon, Mom and I squeezed in a game of Scrabble, even with my bum knee. Mom won. By a pretty nice margin, too. All it takes is a little bit of table space, which I have a with a small folding table.

So it's been a mostly fun weekend with plenty of creativity, fantastic company, laughs, and a bit of pain thrown in. How about your weekend? Did you do anything fun? Creative? Hopefully not painful.

WW - Growing Collection

Check out Live From Waterloo and the Wordless Wednesday hub for more photos.

Wordless Wednesday - the Outlaw

For more wordlessness, check out Live From Waterloo and the Wordless Wednesday hub.

Passing on Tradition

My parents used to play Liverpool Rummy with my dad's family. Somewhere along the way, my sister and I were taught how to play. John & I play fairly regularly with my parents and always have a great time. We figure that at 17 & 15, it was about time that our boys learn how as well. I hope they enjoy it was much as we do.





What games have been passed down in your family?

Wordless Wednesday - Blokus

To see what others aren't saying, go here and here.

Wordless Wednesday - Game Fun

Check out the WW hub and Gabriel's place for more photo fun.

Scattergories Meme

I picked this up from Karen at Simply A Musing. Kind of fun, especially since I have a fair amount of experience with this game!

The game is SCATTERG*RIES...it's harder than it looks! Here are the rules: Use the 1st letter of your name to answer each of the following. They MUST be real places, names, things...NOTHING made up! If you can't think of anything, skip it. Try to use different answers if the person before you had the same 1st initial. You CAN'T use your name for the boy/girl name question.

Your Name: Dianne
1. Famous Singer/Band: David Crowder Band
2. 4 letter word: deep
3. Street: Driftwood Drive (2 points)
4. Color: Dandelion Yellow
5. Gifts/Presents: Diamonds
6. Vehicle: Dodge Durango (another 2 pointer)
7. Things in a Souvenir Shop: Dolls
8. Boy Name: Donovan
9. Girl Name: Deirdre
10. Movie Title: Dirty Rotten Scoundrels
11. Drink: Dr Pepper!!
12. Occupation: Delivery Driver
13. Celebrity: David Duchovny (yet another 2 points)
14. Magazine: Domino
15. U.S. City: Divide, CO
16. Pro Sports Teams: Denver Broncos
17. Reason for Being Late for Work: Driving too slow
18. Something You Throw Away: Donut wrapper
19. Things You Shout: Do it!
20. Cartoon Character: Daffy Duck (yep, one more 2 pointer!)

It's a fun game - give it a try! Be sure to leave me a comment with a link to yours if you do.

It's HERE!

Yes, it's true, for all of you Scr*bble junkies out there, "they" have finally done it! There now exists (insert drumroll here):

SUPER SCR*BBLE DELUXE

Woo Hoo!!! Aren't you just jumping off the edge of your seats, dying to know where to get your own game?!?

Well, I am proud to say that I received it for my birthday yesterday! Actually, my sister and her family got the Super Scr*bble part and my parents got the Deluxe part. Ha! Ha! It made for a great joke last night when I was opening the loot, er, gifts.

First I had to open the package from my sister and her family. It was a really cute write on - wipe off mini Scr*bble board with scrambled words on it (see lower part of picture on the left). I got the "super" easily, but "Scr*bble" temporarily eluded me, as some of those letters can be found in "St*rbucks," and that's the direction my brain was headed. Probably because my sister works for St*rbucks. Once I moved on from thoughts of free iced chai, I was able to put Super Scr*bble together! Awesome!

Next, I unrolled a scroll of paper (see picture above left) with the following:

For You - Deluxe

Birthday

Blessings

love,

Dad & Mom

The word "DELUXE" was underlined. Well, I couldn't for the life of me figure this one out. The boys are hollering out Super Scr*bble Deluxe. Only I don't really get it, because I'd only seen Super Scr*bble, but not a deluxe version at the store. It's hard to guess something that you don't know exists. But it's true - there really is a

SUPER SCR*BBLE DELUXE!!

Okay, now you get to see a picture of the board (I know, you're probably bored to tears by now - unless you're Barb over at A Chelsea Morning, my Mom, or my friends, Nan & Steve, because I know they're all Scr*bble junkies!)

The light gray part of the board (center) is the size and layout of an original Scr*bble board. The dark gray around the outside encompasses the additional squares - including more bonus score spaces and all new & exciting QUADRUPLE LETTER & WORD SCORE spaces!


And for the last picture, the very first word ever played on this lovely, new board. Although it's not terribly exciting, it still was a first. It was played by my sister - my letters were very pathetic and "ogre" would've been my best play. Sigh.

No, I wasn't standing on my head to take the picture, although that would've been quite a feat (or a head?). Actually, we attached the board to the ceiling . . yeah, that's it! I thought turning the camera upside down made sense so the word would be right side up. But it's kind of funny because now the word is logical, but the board isn't. But the word is linear and linear. Sorry, I'm getting loopy now. I'd better stop before I tread into strange and unusual territory (for you, probably not for me).