Christmas 2014

Here is the story of our Christmas ...

On Christmas Eve morning I slipped on some ice, trying to take our garbage barrel out to the street.  Thankfully nothing was broken, but I did feel like I'd been in some sort of car accident for the rest of the day, and for most of Christmas Day itself.  In fact, I spent a nice few hours in my bed on Christmas with my tablet watching Miss Fisher Murder Mysteries on Netflix. 

But, but, but ... things were good, and went well for the rest of the people.

We ate well, recipes to come later this week, as I finally remembered to write down my eggnog recipe and photograph it.   You see, friends don't let friends buy and consume store bought sludge eggnog, it's just wrong.  My recipe is better, and you can make it with stuff you have in your fridge right now.

Also, if you received a Christmas card from us, you noticed that I made a note about atomicdays.com.  A few months ago I bought my own domain name and am going to be moving the blog(s) over there.  I still have to figure that out though.  So, come January 1st, or 15th or 31st, and possibly 32nd if that is still not up and running, then just come back here and visit.  I give you no guarantees of what I will do, or when I will do it.  I'm tired, and mostly unmotivated these days.  The only thing I get right all the time, is getting James to school on time, which is a major miracle considering my aversion for mornings.

But I wax verbose and you want to see pictures...well mostly the grandmas want to see the pictures.  The rest of you hooligans want that eggnog recipe, and I pinky-promise I will get it to you ... by New Year's Eve.  

The Boys opening their Christmas Eve presents from Grandma Brinton.  Fish-bots.  

 

The horde all arrayed for your Christmas convenience.

 

The destruction of the Christmas tableau.  Everyone gets their own color of wrapping paper.  James was telling Jeffy how to unwrap present, which was totally unnecessary.

 

Opening ...

 

Displaying ....

 

Playing .... actually, it was very cute to watch Pinocchio with his new Pinnochio toys.  He had them acting it out, as the movie went along.

 

Playing with the Fish-bots in the sink ...

And in a bowl...

 



 

And together ...

 

Finally, a video of the boys playing with their fish:

 

I hope your Christmas was great.  And now, back to Christmas vacation and Miss Fisher Murders.

Christmas Books

It's fitting that my first post for 2014 is about Christmas, and it's today, Epiphany, January 6th, also known as Three Kings Day, or the day the three kings finally came and gave the Baby Jesus their presents.

For Advent this last year, I wanted to start a tradition for our family of reading books. I have two friends (Stephanie and Lara) who open a book every night in December leading up to Christmas Day. This to me was more appealing than anything else I've ever seen or heard about. We don't do Santa in our family, and frankly Elf on the Shelf looks like too much work, and since it's tied into Santa, it's useless for us. So Advent books it is.

The books at Grandma's house before they were wrapped up.

When my mom heard about this, she jumped right in and contributed the books to our project. Some of them were new, some of them were used, all of them were very nice and thoughtful. I appreciate the numerous non-Santa books out there. I asked you all what your favorite winter and Christmas themed books were, and I made a list. I also made a list of the books that my mom gave us. They are all listed below.

Lest you think I pulled this off in some sort of Donna Reed fashion. I did not. Mom prewrapped all of the books for us (thank you!) so I didn't even know what we were getting. We took them home after our Thanksgiving trip wrapped up in a big IKEA bag. I had a great vision of putting them in a basket, adorned with a fancy bow....bwaaahahaaa! That's right! Those books stayed right there in that IKEA bag all tied up tight, in the corner of my bedroom behind a basket of dirty clothes. Jeffy figured out opening up a wrapped present in about one second. Think of his curly-q hair and in his little toddler, curly-q mind, "OH PREZZIES!" I had to keep them safe somehow. HA! Even then, he and James still managed to get in and unwrap a few more than they should have on two or three nights. And there were nights when all we did was unwrap a book and then proceed to have some sort of nuclear tantrum. Those books, on those nights, didn't really get read, except by me. As with all things 'kid' we tried our best and will try again next year. And if you were wondering, the first book we unwrapped was a LIFESAVER book. Haha, good one Grandma. My mom knows how much I love a Lifesaver book ... some things never change.

Apparently no pictures were taken of us reading our books, but hey, pillow forts!

But it was a fun tradition and one that I'm glad we've decided to adopt. Here are your suggestions and our books .... happy reading!


These are the books everyone suggested:

• A Certain Small Shepherd by Rebecca Caudill
• How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr Seuss
• The Christmas Mouse (there were two books with this title. One by Stephanie Jeffs and the other by Anne Mortimer)
• The Bear Who Slept Through Christmas by John Barrett
• The Year of the Perfect Christmas Tree: An Appalachian Story by Gloria Houston
• Christmas by David Speir
• The Christmas Orange by Linda Bethers
• The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry
• The Night Before Christmas by Clement Clarke Moore (there are many versions of this poem/book)
• Snowmen at Night by Caralyn Buehner
• The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg
• Merry Christmas Ameila Bedelia by Peggy Parish
• Santa Cows by Cooper Edens
• Humphrey’s First Christmas by Carol Hyer
• Room for a Little One: A Christmas Tale by Martin Waddell
• The Christmas Story by Jane Werner Watson **
• Santa Kid by James Patterson (yes, it’s *that* James Patterson)
• Santa Calls by Wm. Joyce
• The Other Wise Man by Henry Van Dyke
• The Tree Trees – a traditional folk tale, retold by many authors.
• The Christmas Dress for Ellen by Thomas S. Monson
• Snowmen at Christmas by Caralyn Buehner
• Rabbit’s Gift by George Shannon
• Great Joy by Kate DiCamillo
• Christmas in the Manger by Nola Buck
• Who is Coming to Our House by Joseph Slate
• The Animal’s Christmas Eve by Gale Wiersum
• Song of the Stars by Sally Lloyd-Jones
• Bear Stays Up for Christmas by Karma Wilson
• Christmas Day in the Morning by Pearl S. Buck
• The Christmas Owl by Angela Muse
• Christmas Farm by Mary Lyn Ray
• The Message of the Birds by Kate Westerlund
• Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer by Robert L. May
• Mortimer’s Christmas Manger by Karma Wilson
• Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost, Illustrated by Susan Jeffers
• The Christmas Kitten by James Herriott

These are the books we have:

• The Story of Christmas by Patricia A. Pingry (one small board book and a bigger board book of the same story)
• Wishing You Blessings from A to Z by Sandi Gort Evans
• Christmas Trolls by Jan Brett
• The Three Snow Bears by Jan Brett
• McDuff’s New Friend by Rosemary Wells
• Jolly Old Santa Claus by Mary Jane Tonn
• Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer: based on the TV special.
• Hurry! Hurry! Have You Heard? By Laura Krauss Melmed
• Christmas From Heaven: The True Story of the Berlin Candy Bomber as read by Tom Brokaw
• The Night Before Christmas illustrated by Jan Brett
• Sing to Baby Jesus by Rachelle Pace Castor
• The Nativity with artwork by J. Kirk Richards (with scripture verses)
• Good King Wenceslas as read by Jane Seymour
• C is For Christmas by Tonya Skousen Arenaz
• Snow Angels by Angel Randall
• The Christmas Train by Thomas S. Monson
• The Missing Christmas Treasure by Gale Sears
• My First Christmas Stencil Book (a board book with stencil pages to trace)
• Angel Pig and the Hidden Christmas by Jan L. Waldron
• The Twelve Days of Christmas illustrated by Jan Brett
• Who’s That Knocking on Christmas Eve? By Jan Brett
• Say Hello to the Snowy Animals by Ian Whybrow
• Super Snow Day a Seek and Find Book. By Michael Garland
• The Christmas Sweater: A Picture Book by Glenn Beck
• The Snow Angel: A Picture Book by Glenn Beck
• The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats
• Curious George Countdown to Christmas based on the PBS TV show.

 

Christmas Morning 2013

We finally made it to Christmas, and frankly I am glad.  My kids were going bonkers, as it was the first year James realized it was coming, and there were some not pretty incidents waiting for the blessed day to get here.  If I never hear another thing about Santa, elves, and everything else, I will be a happy camper.  :)

We started things off last night with our hot tamale dinner.  Of course, Joseph and I are the only ones that will eat a tamale.  Oh, too bad, more leftovers for me.  But this morning when I was having a tamale with my breakfast, Jeffy, in his typical Hobbitish ways, toddled in looking for a bite, or 10.  So much for that breakfast.  The kid has taste buds of steel, I'm sure of it.  Because last night he insisted on eating a whole, raw cranberry out of the punch.  He ate all of it, and then wanted another.  Just like his mama.

On Christmas Eve we all open one present.  The kids were lucky this year and got to open three presents.  Our neighbor Bibi came over with a present for them (tshirts from Rainforest Café and cool stretchy lizards), and Grandma's Christmas books (yes, I will have a list of the books we read, and the books you all suggested soon) and then the presents from us.

I enjoyed looking at everyone's nativity plays on facebook.  Of course, we don't have enough people to do that, so we tried, and I stress tried to watch a scripture video of the Christmas story.  Joseph and I enjoyed it.  See also, my kids were going bonkers.

We don't do Santa in our family, but we still had the kids convinced that they had to go to bed early.  Tomorrow can't come if they don't go to sleep.  And also, I had turned into a pumpkin about 11:30 that morning.  I was dragging....

After they were all tucked in their beds we got to work setting up the presents:

James was a good boy and woke Joseph up before going down.  We were able to get all the lights on and the video set up for their grand entrance....

Let the apocalypse begin...

 

There are no pictures of Joseph or I.  You all know, I don't do mornings, and well, Joseph respects that.  No one wants to see my morning glory.  No one!

But,   Joseph did give me a few nice things -- some bonnet movies, a book,  a CD that I'm enjoying right as we blog together, a coupon for a dinner date without kids, and ....

and.....

(say it in your best Rod Roddy voice...)

A TRIP TO BYU WOMEN'S CONFERENCE IN MAY!!  And he's going to put me up in the Provo Marriot, and rent me a car to boot.  It's going to be the fanciest vacation I've ever been on myself.

Really, though, I love Women's Conference.  It's a great way to recharge my batteries every couple of years.  I love going to BYU and being there on campus and in Provo.  It's such a special place for me.  So many good memories of Provo and BYU!

I hope Christmas was good at your house ... I look forward to reading your blogs and seeing your pictures.  I will share recipes, book lists and so on later this week.

Now, I might need a nap!

 

Atomic Christmas... Part 2

Continuing Christmas...read part one HERE

Christmas Morning dawned:

James really didn't quite know what to do with the spread:



(sorry it's so dark ... I didn't realize I didn't have the overhead light on while filming)

Yes, James got a package of Halloween marshmallow peeps pumpkins for Christmas. He loves little things with pumpkins on them. Michael's had a sale and we didn't end up using them for Halloween....reduce, reuse, recycle? Right?  (Mostly peeps products are some of the few tree nut and peanut free stuff around these days)

Speaking of marshmallow and all things that are made by the Just Born Company of Bethlehem, PA. I love your peppermint-chocolate-dipped-peeps. I know that's grossing my sister out right now ... hehe. They were heavenly. Which made up for the fact that Tar-zhe did not have our favoritest of all time Christmas candy, Peppermint Crunch Junior Mints this year. For shame Tar-zeh, for shame.


The toys, oh the toys ... James with his Slinky Dog from Grandma.  Slinky has a special place on my bookshelf up high and out of Jeffy's way.  James loves his Slinky Dog.

Jeffy with some blocks.  He wasn't too interested in them, more than he was interested in all of the boxes, wrapping paper and totally meaningless stuff that ended up on the floor after the presents.

 

And, yes, if you are wondering, I did buy the Star Trek Next Generation PEZ head set at the grocery store (you know because they sell everything but used cars and dishwashers there).  I bought these for Joseph.  It was whimsical,because he'd never had a PEZ growing up, and hello Star Trek!  Well, as you can see James totally co-opted them and we regularly have a game of "Who stole my arms?".  James finds it hilarious because I have a voice for each PEZ head.

 

And what Christmas would not be complete with out a set of stitches and a blood bath to go along with it?  The night after Christmas James was spinning circles and whacked his chin into the coffee table.  He bit all the way thru his lip.  So for the third time in about three months Joseph and James headed off to the ER for treatment.  He's getting his stitches out tomorrow.  Again, it's going to be a Father and Son outing, as I do not have the patience, strength or frame of mind for that catterwalling.  Sorry Patrica, you're the one taking his stitches out.  We love you, and hope you still love us enough to be our pediatrician after this.

Part the next tomorrow...stay tuned.

Atomic Christmas, part 1.

There is no more fitting a way to start out the new year, than by talking about the previous year. Right? Am I right? Of course I am. Seriously, I wanted to blog during the Christmas break but life got in the way, and that's ok too. But since, Joseph is back to work today and we're back to our old routine today is the perfect day to blog. And for the record, I will finish blogging about Thanksgiving and November as well, because I need to write about Thanksgiving....I just need to.

Anyway ...

Christmas came and went and it was good. I think I have finally got a handle on why I get so melancholy in December and I was able to re-route a lot of that angst, which made it an enjoyable Christmas for me, the first in many years. I won't go into the details, as I feel they are very personal, but I had good insight and for that I am very thankful.

We started our Christmas festivities with the obtaining of our Tannenbaum. Joseph and I have come to the conclusion that we have to have a tree every year for things to "feel" right, so our task was to figure out how to have a tree with a very curious Jeffrey.

The tree all decorated and pretty -- you will notice the new location in the corner by the wood stove (which remains dormant unless the power is out):

The tree all decorated and pretty, and protected from small fingers. Despite our best efforts Jeffy still managed to push toys and other things over to the fence and climb up and fling ornaments all over the place:

This tree was amazing. It was full and heavy when we bought it, and lasted the entire 3 weeks we had it up. Unlike last year's tree disaster, which as you may or may not recall turned brown 3 seconds after we got it home. The lesson here is to always buy the Noble Fir. They seem to be the most sturdy of Christmas trees, also make your husband double check the tree for brown spots and finally, never buy a tree when you are pregnant and out of your mind, as I was last year.

James finally understood Christmas this year as well. He was beyond excited to decorate the tree and was tragically sad when we took it all down after Christmas. All Friday, as I was taking things down, he kept asking me if Christmas was over. When I said yes, he just let out this little sad whimper.  And here is where I will ask a favor of the universe...we decided to not do Santa in our family many years ago.  When asked if James was excited for "Santa to come", I very casually mentioned that, this was not something we do in our house.  You might as well have thought I was eating kittens.  It's ok to have your own traditions.  It's ok to not agree with me about how we do our traditions.  But it's not ok to be snarky with me about it.  Ok?  OK?


We found these fun decals at Tar-zhe. James thought they were pretty amazing. (Yes, that is a Santa.  We have Santa decorations, but it's made very clear that he is pretend...and, again, that is ok.)

James also loved the Advent Calendar. He called it "his snowman" and wanted to put up all the charms on the first day. He actually threw a mock-10 tantrum when we said only one day at a time.

And on another front, James branched out culinarily. I made numerous pans of shortbread for giving away. He loved it. I mean he LOVED it. He figured out pretty quickly that if there was butter defrosting on the counter, I was going to make a pan of shortbread. He got pretty miffed that I made him wait for the pan to cool before I let him have a cookie.


I don't have a picture, but I will give you the recipe:

2 C flour
2 sticks of butter at room temp
2 egg yolks
1 C sugar
1 tsp vanilla

Method: Cream butter, sugar, egg yolks and vanilla. Add flour a cup at a time. Turn dough out into a greased 9 x 13 pan, push the dough out to the edges and smooth it down with your fingers, and prick the top with a fork. Bake at 325 for 25 to 30 mins, but remove when the edges are golden brown. Allow to cool for 15 mins and cut into diamonds, sprinkle with a healthy measure of white sugar.

This is the easiest cookie to make if you are doing neighbor gifts or need something quick to eat when you are craving a cookie.

And if you think this is the end ... stay tuned. More posts to come.

Christmas 2011 (finally)

Christmas has come and gone at the Atomic Household. As you might recall, our Christmas tree was quite "Charlie Brown" in nature, and it did not fail us in that regard. In fact it started turning brown a week ago, so out it went on Monday. So did all of the other Christmas crap...buh-bye, see you all next year. It's nice to have our house back.

Turns out Sweet Baby James likes to help me cook and did so several times. He helped with the potatoes and the pumpkin pie

Christmas festivating was a subdued affair for us this year, which was alright on all accounts. I cooked a whole mess of food, which have awakened the fires of Mt Vesuvius' heartburn in my body. Watch out Pompeii, it's going to be the last days all over again if we're not careful. We had way too much candy, and pie, and ice cream and butter crescents, and green bean casserole and stayed up way too late watching movies.

Church was good, all except for the part where the heater did not work in the building. It was a tad-bit chilly. Seriously, I was having flashbacks to the mish, where in it was colder inside Restaurant Kishiinev than outside. Good thing we only had one hour of church to sit thru, I think the natives who had already lost it would have totally gone off the deep end otherwise. The program was nice and musical (thank you for singing In The Bleak Midwinter ward choir, it's one of my favorites; the speakers were not overly verbose or chatty, their messages were on point as well. However, I do have one complaint about the prelude, hymn singing. Why can we never, ever sing hymn #205 Once in Royal David's City? Seriously, we sang every other Christmas song in the book except that one. I think there is some serious hymn bias going on here....yes, I am bitter. I'm going to form a facebook write in campaign about it.

Before the presenting of the presents and gifting of the gifts.

As for the presenting and the gifting of gifts, the things we gave and received were nice. It's been my goal this whole year to not have quite a relationship with "stuff" as I've had in the past. After all, when you have to pack up your belongings into you car because a fire might burn your house and your whole town down, you gain some perspective on what is important. I honestly just don't need stuff at this point -- so the ginger snaps from Mom and the Sees lollypops from Marie were GREAT!! They are things we can enjoy, and that I will not have to dust in July.

The beginning of the Toy-pocolypse

I do have a gift confession to make however. I think I might have been channeling Aunt Nanette and bought a noisy toy. It's not bad, but I can see it will might eventually drive me crazy. Maybe the batteries can "wear out" early. But Sweet Baby James loves his tool set, tractors and airplane book. In fact deep in the wee hours of December 26th, James woke up in a panic that his airplane book had disappeared from his bed. It hadn't, I just removed it after he'd fallen asleep.

The BIG airplane book, about which many wailings and moanings were had

We ended our evening with a showing of Miracle, like I said, we stayed up too late, but we had to find out if the USA beat the USSR....we always have to find that out. And they did, and yes we do believe in miracles, Al Michaels.

And all was well in The Atomic City, and the Atomic Family is glad it's over and that we can do it all again next year.

Christmas Eve 1941

Shortly before Christmas 1941, Prime Minister Winston Churchill, at considerable personal risk crossed the Atlantic in great secrecy to meet with President Franklin D. Roosevelt. On Christmas Eve, from a balcony at the White House, the two leaders spoke to a crowd of 20,000 gathered in the twilight. As reported in The Washington Post, “A crescent moon hung overhead. To the southward loomed the Washington Monument as the sun dipped behind the Virginia hills.”

President Roosevelt pressed a button to light the Christmas tree. Then he spoke to the crowd, and by radio the world was listening. “Our strongest weapon in this war,” he said, “is that conviction of the dignity and brotherhood of man which Christmas Day signifies.”

Churchill began his remarks. Here he was, he said, far from his own country, far from his family, “Yet I cannot say that I feel far from home” he told the hushed throng. “Here in the middle of war raging and roaring over all the lands and seas, creeping nearer to our hearts and homes, here amid all the tumult, we have tonight the peace of the spirit in each cottage home and in every generous heart…here then for one night only, each home…should be brightly lighted island of happiness and peace.”

The following morning, Christmas Day, the President and the Prime Minister went to church, where with the congregation they joined in singing, “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” which Churchill had never heard before.

The words of the hymn, one of the most beloved of Christmas carols, had been written long before by a famous American clergyman, Phillips Brooks, after a visit to the Holy Land. On Christmas Eve in Jerusalem in 1865, Brooks rode through the dark by horseback to the place above the town where, he was told, the shepherds had gathered with their sheep. After returning to his church in Philadelphia, in an effort to put down on paper what he had felt that night Brooks wrote a poem:

“O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see the lie.
Above thy deep and dreamless streets, the silent stars go by.
Yet in thy dark streets shineth, the everlasting light.
The hopes and fears of all the years, are met in thee tonight.”

A few days before Christmas 1868, he asked the organist, Lewis Redner, to put the poem to music that is might be sung at the Christmas service. Redner tried but with no success. He went to bed Christmas Eve feeling he had utterly failed. “My brain was all confused,” he later said. “But I was roused from sleep late in the might hearing an angle-strain…and seizing a piece of music paper, I jotted down the treble of the tune.

Churchill had spoken in his remarks from the White House balcony of every home as a “brightly-ligthed island” in the dark. In the first stanza of O Little Town of Bethlehem is the line, “Yet in thy dark streets shineth, the everlasting Light.” I like to think of Churchill and Roosevelt singing that tune in particular. And as would be said of the Prime Minister, he always sang lustily, if not exactly in tune. (In The Dark Streets Shineth, by David McCullough, page 3-19).



In The Book of Mormon we read in 3 Nephi 1: 13-15:

Lift up your head and be of good cheer; for behold, the time is at hand, and on this night shall the sign be given, and on the morrow come I into the world, to show unto the world that I will fulfil all that which I have caused to be spoken by the mouth of my holy prophets. Behold, I come unto my own, to fulfil all things which I have made known unto the children of men from the foundation of the world, and to do the will, both fof the Father and of the Son—of the Father because of me, and of the Son because of my flesh. And behold, the time is at hand, and this night shall the sign be given. And it came to pass that the words which came unto Nephi were fulfilled, according as they had been spoken; for behold, at the going down of the sun there was no darkness; and the people began to be astonished because there was no darkness when the night came

My hope is that all of us can see the light of Christ and feel his love. Merry Christmas, Vessela Koleda, Froliche Weinachten...from the Atomic Family. :)

Mr Bean and the Nativity

Mr Bean celebrates the Nativity...

Mesapotamian Christmas, Part 3

My parents live right in the flight path for the airport. It's actually really cool because you can just stand out in the yard watching planes land all day. That's exactly what Baby did. This boy loves airplanes almost as much as he loves his Doggins. Nice that Arizona is so sunny and balmy to facilitate the watching of the airplanes.

James in his airplane t-shirt pointing to an airplane overhead.

We managed to squeeze one more park visit out of the trip before the rains started. This is with Grandma.


Later that day...

We were going to go and see Harry Potter and my sister was going to baby sit for us. We got to the theater and the movie was sold out! I was miffed for about 2 seconds then I saw just next door was The Old Spaghetti Factory, which holds good memories for me. When we were kids we'd always go to Trolley Square in SLC to eat there. I always wanted to sit in the trolley, but it was always full. Nope, not today...the movie might have been full, but the trolley was empty and that is where we sat to eat our yummy spaghetti dinner. It was a girl-hood dream come true. Then we popped over to IKEA and just walked around and talked and bought more train sets and other various and sundry items. My love for IKEA knows no bounds....I only wish we had one here in the Land of Enchantment, I don't think that will happen anytime soon though. ah, sadness.

A LARGE lemon

The other thing I need to mention is CITRUS. It's one of Arizona's 5 C's. (Cotton, Cattle, Copper, Climate and CITRUS!) My Grandpa's backyard is full of citrus trees that the grand kids helped plant and water (a 'nickel a load' of water on each tree is what Grandma used to pay us). We went over and picked a few boxes to take home. I ended up picking all the pecans in my reach off the trees as well. I have to admit, I got a bit weepy, as this was a legacy of my Grandparents I was able to partake of one last time. Now we are enjoying beautiful oranges, tangerines and nuts. Oh, and the lemon in the picture...it's totally real. Grandpa has a ponderosa lemon tree in the front yard...they are that big and bigger. And you thought Texas did things big...hahah!

We were delayed a day coming home because of the storm, which shut down Northern Arizona. We ended up coming home the southern route again, which is not that bad, even though it was 100 miles longer.I have to mention as well, Christmas Even morning Joseph got up and went to the store and bought a car DVD player. That made the return trip 100000% better. As I've written we came home to snow drifts, and a frozen water heater, which we both decided will make this the last Christmas we go home for, at least for a while.

Now we are home, recovering...oh and if you were wondering about that ear infection...well it hasn't shown up yet...YET, I'm just waiting though, I'm sure it's just getting its act together to make a spectacular entrance.

Mesapotamian Christmas, Part 2

The day after Christmas and the Sabbath was the perfect day for playing at the park. This particular park is called PLAYTOPIA. How can you not go to a park called Playtopia? You have to, that's what.

So we met all the cousins and friends at Playtopia and played.

James and Max were having NONE of their mothers' picture taking...none of it I tell you.


This is the Ah-Mazing Allyson VP, of The MVPs of Mesa-Town. She is the Millisond to my Scott, the Ethel to my Merman....we love show tunes and that is how we met, ages ago in an MCC show. We have never, not been friends since. Once we did the entire opening scene from The Mystery of Edwin Drood on her front porch, everyone inside was watching us, unbeknownst to us and thought it was a real laugh riot. We were slightly embarrassed as you can imagine -- obviously because we were not in makeup and costumes, not because we were being silly. She is the wife of Jere, the mother of Maggie and Max and so funny...


Many of the smallings in the "Clubhouse" in Playtopia. I said, "Say Cheese" and they all answered back, "No, Cheese-it's cuz that's what we're eating!" Silly kids...


The next day it rained. The End.

Mesapotamian Christmas, Part 1

Christmas Even and Day...

Dil and McKay on the princess chair

We went to Mesapotamia for Christmas. We'd not been to the homeland for a few years, and I missed it. I also needed oranges. Really good, sweet oranges from a tree in the back yard that I picked every morning for breakfast....not those imitations they sell in the grocery store.

Melanie and Maxwell in the foreground, with Baby and Joseph in the background

Our trip started out a bit frantic and we ended going south instead of north to get home. The comfort in this is that we got to stop in Truth or Consequences, NM and eat at our favorite restaurant there. And then how could we not get a laugh out of the next two towns down the freeway, Derry and Arrey....put that together for yourself.

FIRE STATION! Baby was kind of getting the whole, "unwrap for a present" gig

Joseph and his new thermos. And Matt got me some very cute matroshkaiya measuring cups

Finally we made it to Grandma's house and the fun began.

See how much fun Mere is having?

This Christmas we skipped our normal leg o' lamb dinner for steak. My Dad always does a perfect stake...not even kidding. My pies on the other hand were abysmal. Except for the Marie Calendar cherry we threw in at the last minute. Thankfully, my Dad was very forgiving and ate and I think enjoyed the pecan pie I burned.

The Von Poter Family singers. Tea with jam and bread not served today.

Joseph and Baby figure out the presents...Uncle James eventually figured out that the train set went in a figure-8...what can two tired people figure out on Christmas Eve, apparently not that

We also did a new thing which I dubbed "Christmas Mystery", we all gave clues to who the presents we were giving to each other belonged too. The kids had a great time guessing and screaming out every one's name.

Uncle James plays with the presents of Christmases past...as in 1987. Sky-Duel (a great combo of viewmaster and atari) was the name, and how cool was the game? Very, very cool..yay Radio Shack!

Christmas morning we had our traditional waffle and cream breakfast. And opened some more presents. And visited with the various and sundry families to which we are related. I have to say as well, I was redeemed at the Uncle Cameron white elephant DVD exchange. I'd seen the Benji 4-movie set a few weeks ago at Tar-zhe on the $5 shelf. I didn't get it. I know, I know......STUPID! It was in the pile, I stole it on my turn and threatened anyone who dared take it with pains of death.

More presents opening etc. I am apparently taking all the pictures, because I seem to be in none of them. Hmmm....

There were more adventures on our trip which will be discussed in short order...