proposed itinerary for pending new year's festivities

Menu:
appetizers
fizzy drinks with grape skewers
calzones
relish tray
green salad
dessert

6:00--proposed arrival time
7:00--suspected actual arrival time
6:00 onward--calzone assembly and cooking
6:30 onward--calzone consumption
8:00-8:30--dessert consumption
9:00 onward--entertainment
games and arguing
10:00--Dave watch check to see if it's midnight yet for crying out loud
12:00--welcome the new year, FINALLY

Sistren, consider this your invitation. We welcome all of you to our humble domicile. Bring any awesome games you have--trivia-related is always good, so's John and I can school you. Or we have Connect Four, too.

picking pieces of paper out of a bowl: an essay in photos

We just did a homemade soap giveaway over at our other blog, and I thought I should show off how adept my children are at doing random selection.

mixing up the names

The Hulk selected 3rd place.

Superman chose 2nd place.

Pinga chose the grand prize winner.

And you're all, "Layne, this is just an excuse to put up pictures of your cute kids and your great new haircut!" And I'm like, "Umm, they draw names at an eighth-grade level, and the Hulk has been offered a full-ride scholarship to Raffle State University. Jealous much?"

(Also, this will be our secret, but that bowl? Is the same one we use for a puke bowl whenever anybody is sick. It's been the emesis basin for every member of our family at least once. Now you are jealous some more.)

holiday activities

Here are some of the things we've done recently: candy apples, cut trees, and grumble because John is gone all. the. freaking. time. Happy thoughts, happy thoughts . . .

The fruits (ha!) of our labors.

I tried to take a picture of the great pita chips I bought from Costco, and these yahoos kept getting in the way.

Here is Pinga with my grandpa.

Here is Pinga with my grandpa and grandma. I think you guys would have to agree that I have some pretty foxy grandparents. With the hybrid vigor of their combined genes it's easy to see why all of their offspring are really, really ridiculously goodlooking.

Here are The Hulk and Superman with my parents in a Club Car commercial.

We got a great tree this year, like ALWAYS! My dad spotted it with his eagle eyes. It's decorated as much as it's going to be, because the bottom three feet are within the Pinga Attack Plain, so we can't get breakage insurance there.

singin' John

Voice Male is doing the FM100 mini concert at lunchtime today. In case you want to go check out the groovy scene.