Busy Saturday

First, JT had a pre-test for his black belt. Test, JT! Test!

Then we had a Chinese New Year lunch with our Families with Children from China group. There were 9 girls and one boy present, all from China, among other siblings and family and friends.

Our newest treasure, who came home in January. Here she is with her proud mama.

The line-up.

Giggly girls.

Luci and Kalyn getting silly during lunch.

JT brought his diabolo (Chinese yo-yo) and demonstrated it for everyone. It was a big hit. This little cutie kept trying to make the diabolo work.

Luci noticed these gorgeous clouds and had me come take a picture. This was at sunset.

That was not the end of the day--JT and John played paintball in the field by our house. JT's in this picture, oh-so-far away. Look near the big bush in the middle of the shot. Our house is on the far right.

John hunkered down...

and hidden by the trees.

Ready to shoot at my baby.

JT with his paint ball gear...

and ready to shoot back at his daddy.

Happy New Year!

Our rural fire departments have fireworks sales for fundraisers. Which seems kind of silly to me--they use funds raised to put out fires caused by fireworks. Or, I guess you could see it as making sure their jobs are needed? Still silly, because they are volunteers.

Anyhow, the boys, since they are boys, like getting fireworks. When John is on his trips, I don't buy anything fun (according to the boys) because I am "Safety Susie." This year they made up for last New Year's Eve and last 4th of July. It rained yesterday, and wind was very low, so fire danger was low, and up went the rockets.

There were quite a few rockets that exploded overhead and some bottle rockets that whistled enough to scare most dogs in our area (and one 5 year old who lives at this address). Since I am still figuring out my camera, I did not get good shots of the fireworks or bottle rockets.

Here is what I did manage to shoot:

and my favorite:

Fireworks, Geek Style

Santa left this in one of the kids' stockings:

Install Mentos candy
Pull the "trigger," letting the Mentos fall into the Diet Coke
Watch it go!
Luci got into the spray of the last one, running into it "sprinkler style" and Mama wasn't happy. Bath time afterwards.

Odd Things

Okay, these party horns for New Year's Eve aren't odd...

Until you read the warning: For ages 14 years and over.
Hmm. That leaves out two-fifths of our family on New Year's Eve! JT missed it by just one year.

Turns out it doesn't matter anyway: the horns do not work! Luci nearly passed out trying to make some sound.
Here's the other Odd Thing:
Fruitcake Cookies! John likes them. He's the only one in our house who likes them. I think they'd taste a lot better if you took out the candied fruit and added chocolate chips instead.

For those of you who do like fruitcake (Mom? Anyone else out there? No?), here is the recipe I used.

Fruitcake Cookies

Makes 3 1/2 dozen (that's 42, for those of you who aren't up on your twelve-times tables)

1 stick (1/2 cup) butter
3/4 cups sugar
1 egg
1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup chopped pecans
12 oz candied fruit for fruitcake (the chopped-up, colorful mix that comes in those huge tubs. I used 1/3 of my big 32 oz tub)

In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar together. Add egg, mix well. Put candied fruit and pecans in a separate bowl. In another bowl, combine flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. Add 1/4 cup of this to the fruit and nuts, stir. (I can't remember why you should do this, but it seems to help. Maybe so they won't all stick together in one big, fruity lump.) Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls onto greased cookie sheet. Bake at 325* for 13-15 minutes until lightly browned. Cool on wire racks.

Merry Christmas!

We had a Little Christmas today for John. The boys really wanted to do this for him...or was it for the presents? Let's hope they had Daddy in mind.
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Luci can read our names now, so she delivered presents.You know John picked these pellet guns out. Luci got this ladybug habitat. Fitting, since we have a lot of ladybugs this year. We put a bit of banana, a drop or two of water and a celery leaf inside and the ladybug has been very happy today. Not really what the mother of a Princess wants to see. Maybe she'll grow up to be Princess Leia instead of Cinderella. That pink shopping cart is Luci's favorite gift.Now it's New Year's Eve! We do a puzzle every year and try to complete it before the New Year is rung in. We made it with time to spare this year!

Chinese New Year

We had a dinner today at Evergreen Chinese Restaurant, in celebration for the Chinese New Year. Thanks, Kathy and Greg, for hosting it! We hope Kalyn is feelling better--she had to stay home, sick, with Grandpa.

Luci praying Luci made some new friends. These are Kate and Karlee, two of the Jamieson beauties.

Kate and Luci are both Year of the Monkey. Can you tell???
More Monkey faces
Yum!
Not-so-much like Monkeys anymore. Just sweet girls.

All three Jamiesons with Luci--Kailee, Kate, and Karlee

The Whole Gang!

Hannah Beth. Last year we only had her picture to look at, now she is here in person! We have one other new baby, too--Olivia. We had one family at the dinner today waiting on their Special Needs adoption to be accepted--we can't wait to meet that little girl! Two other families are in the paperchase stage for other children to be added to their families. We hope they get the OK very soon.
Luci had a whole passel of girls following her at different times. It cracked me up--she is so different than I am. No problem making friends. She is a ring-leader, to be sure. At one point, she was going around undoing the top knot of the dresses on her new friends' dresses "because it's too tight." She also had foot races going on behind all the diners. Good thing we were in the very back of the restaurant. I asked her, "Are you going to be President someday?" She said, "Yup." Papa mentioned something about that law getting changed just for her, so maybe by the time Luci's 35 and old enough, she can be President.

Happy New Year! Again!

It's the year of the rat again--JT and I are both rats. (Yeah, I know, that explains a lot.) To learn how to say Happy New Year in Mandarin (and lots of other phrases), click here.

Beginning on Thursday, there will be a new show on Nick Jr. called, Ni Hao, Kai-lan. We are going to watch it, I hope it will be good.

What the Show's About: "Ni hao!" That means "hi" in Chinese--and that's how
Kai-lan greets you every day! Kai-lan Chow is an exuberant Chinese-American
preschooler, almost 6, who wants you to come play with her and her best friends.
Kai-lan's world is infused with Chinese culture and is brimming with magical
sights and sounds, and everywhere you turn there's something amazing and
beautiful to see. Along the way, she and her bilingual buddies speak in English
and Chinese, but they always need kids' help to find creative solutions to the
daily dilemmas that come their way!

Happy New Year!

Happy New year from the Party Animals in Greenhill! Every year we do a jigsaw puzzle and try to finish it before midnight. We actually finished this one long before the magic hour--it was only 250 pieces. We got it on the island of St. Thomas while on our cruise last January. It was in a plastic wine bottle and showed a map of pirates' exploits. Usually the puzzle is much bigger and takes forever, and I am begging to quit and go to bed long before midnight.
Baby New Year!
The first picture of the new year--Bryan was up all night and looks a little sleepier than JT and Luci.
We glue our New Year's Eve puzzles together and hang them on the staircase wall leading to the basement. Here are some from years past. Everyone who helps put the puzzles together gets to sign the back and, of course, we put the date on them, too. It was fun putting them up in the new house, and sort of looking back through our New Year's Eves together. There were 2 from the years John was overseas, and those brought back memories of their own.