Ringing in 2011

Guess maybe I should not stand so close...

From the opening battery...

View across the lake from our back yard looks rather spooky.  Keep in mind... these are far away, probably 40 or 50 meters up.

Lighting the finale.

From our finale... we had about 6 rockets that went about 40 meters up, and a battery of 90 that went about half as high.  Fun!

Happy New Year, or Guten Rutsch!

Unexpected new Christmas toy...

We went to Aldi today to pick up some fireworks for tomorrow night, and came home with this, too...

It's a 21.5 inch, touch screen computer (the PC is built into the monitor).  It will sit on the kitchen counter where the laptop used to sit - for those of you who don't know, Luna picked half the keys off of our keyboard a couple years ago...

So we have had a component keyboard attached, which took up some precious counter space... which is fine.  But when we spied what a deal this new machine was at Aldi... we went for it!  It's very cool, and will be so great to have in the kitchen!!

Boxing Day 2010

The day after Christmas, Boxing Day, we were invited over to some friends of ours to celebrate Boxing Day.  So we actually got dressed...  Jonah got a new snooker table, which he was lending to the adults.

The guys went outside to play some football...

Amanda and Jemima.

My contribution... an apple pie.  Spent forever buyilding the lattice and the holly, only to burn the edges of the crust!

TJ's antics were popular with the kids...

It's a tradition for them to play games on Boxing Day, so all the adults were busy with mindbenders.

The infamous "T" puzzle.

Luna enjoying the Wii Dance Party game with Jemima.

And the floor with Elijah...

More antics with TJ...

Elisa was a bit more Luna's speed!  She cuddled right up to her, so cute!

Thanks Amanda and Pete!  We had a great time!

Christmas Day 2010

Luna was a bit nervous to come downstairs... but very excited once she got there!

I jumped right in to play, too, of course!

Cashews!

This one first Mama!

An authentic German shopping basket!!  Beautiful.

Bandaging Papa...

Luna LOVES her Bitty Baby!

And I love this cool Christmas tea towel!

And my lovely, new, ruffle shirt...

Now, here's an elf!

And I LOVE my new boots... can you tell?

Time to change Bitty!

Is that it, are we really finished???

Wait... one more!

What's this?  A string?

Where does it go?

Is it in the bedroom?

Or outside?

This really is work... Bas had to shovel his way to the string...

And since he took a short cut, instead of following it to the outside of the basement window, he didn't know which of two strings coming in the window to follow...  (I anticipated this, and laid a decoy...)

Must be the decoy...

And now the real one... into the storage room?  Are you kidding me?  It's so messy in here it's dangerous!

FINALLY!  (I didn't take a picture of the inside, but it was the xbox Kinect... which Bas had purchased for himself in the states.  So I thought the string would make it interesting...)

This was definitely Bas's "sweater" Christmas... he got 8 of them.  Which is good, because he NEEDED them!

OK - Mom needs to cook, time to get the kids out of the house!  Good thing Santa brought a sled for all this new snow!

They can just sled in the driveway!

Beautiful, new tablecloth and napkins from Oma and Opa... perfect for Christmas dinner!

Here's the goose!  It was sooooooo good.  Will definitely be happy to make that our traditional Christmas dinner!

And what 3 year old Christmas wouldn't be complete without a new Teddy Bear?  (Thanks Gramma and Grampa!)