Winter break summary.
- Things cooked: potato latkes, sweet potato latkes, mahi mahi bites, arepas, corn fritters, creamy mushroom soup, creamy carrot soup, veggie-meat mini-pies for two parties, applesauce (made on the stovetop and therefore Benito doesn't like it b/c it's not 100% smooth like usual; sheesh!), zucchini muffins, black beans and rice (over-salted alas; not all meals are awesome), quesadillas, scrambled eggs, at least one other normal-rotation kind of dinner. I made no cookies, cake, brownie, or scones, but I did buy donuts and brought some home, and I am WAY over that.
- Friends: We all attended a Boxing Day party at N&T's, and got to see their daughter and her beau S&T. We even put in all of our calendars when we're inviting them all to our house for dinner in January (hurray, advanced planning!). Small gifts were exchanged, barring Benito who got more gifts than everyone because giving gifts to a 5 year old is awesome. We also all made it through New Year's Eve at L&T's; Benito exhausted himself running around with 3 kids ~8 yrs old; the two 10 yr olds mostly kept to themselves and the two 12 yr olds mostly played party games with the adults and/or were on their phones. Benito and I got in a Science World playdate with one of his daycare friends who is now in a different elementary school, during which I got to hold a baby! Ahhh, baby.
- Family: We spent Christmas Eve with my MIL, who gave Benito many gifts that we are enjoying. Her cooking I have already mentioned (wait, did I? Maybe that was in conversation, not in writing.). Otherwise, we spent Christmas Day together at home, and Monday through Wednesday of this week were also all of us together. We went to the Lego store, because of course we NEED more Lego (no, this was actually a spontaneously-offered please-potty-train-dammit reward Dad promised without asking me because I would've vetoed it). I called my siblings, they called me, I spoke with some other relatives, but it was all pretty low-key on my end.
- Games we played: We now own and played Kerplunk!, Tsuro: Phoenix Rising, and Scrappers. The only "age-appropriate" one is Kerplunk!; otherwise, we're ahead of their listed age-settings and it's totally cool. I bought the new Tsuro while I was at the game store with Benito buying a Dominion expansion (with the goal being to get a new code for the online game, of course), and I spotted this beautiful new kind of Tsuro. It says it's for ages 8+ but heck, we love the original, and if needed we can work with fewer rules/complications until such time as he's able to handle it. Of course, we read the rules and tried our best and it turns out that it's really not a problem for him! It's fun to play, he doesn't like losing a life, he doesn't like losing the game, but what's new there? *grin* Kerplunk! is both fun to set up and fun to play: sticking the little plastic sticks through the cup is almost as much fun as removing them without letting the marbles drop through, and the pleasing sound (kinda like "kerplunk"??) makes me laugh. N came through again (like last year's Kingdomino) with a game called Scrappers, "a family game for ages 9 and up," which I played with him the first time and got the rules a little wrong myself, but then when we played a 3-player I managed to follow all the rules, as did he. This is a fun one where you try to position your goblin bodger in the right spot along a conveyor belt to collect a contraption piece, so you can create a completed contraption. If you and someone else are trying to get the same piece, then you tussle for it. You can play to either avoid the tussles or seek them out - guess which Benito wanted to do? *grin* All in all, I'm quite pleased with these home game collection additions.
We also played some fun games at the parties: Blockbuster is a game that tests your ability to quickly recall movies based on a theme (movies with "and" in the title, movies about dogs, movies by Stephen Spielberg) followed by trying to get your team to guess movies by giving them either a 1 word clue, a movie quote (or a quote you make up about the movie), or charades (no sound at all), and the goal is to collect at least 1 movie in the 8 genres presented. We played Tie One On and 10 Days in Asia with friends who came over to our house, and we played What Do You Meme? with them and then on NYE as well. This is hilarious, and can be played either with or without "adult content" captions.
More later...
This entry was originally posted at https://avivasedai.dreamwidth.org/728328.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
- Friends: We all attended a Boxing Day party at N&T's, and got to see their daughter and her beau S&T. We even put in all of our calendars when we're inviting them all to our house for dinner in January (hurray, advanced planning!). Small gifts were exchanged, barring Benito who got more gifts than everyone because giving gifts to a 5 year old is awesome. We also all made it through New Year's Eve at L&T's; Benito exhausted himself running around with 3 kids ~8 yrs old; the two 10 yr olds mostly kept to themselves and the two 12 yr olds mostly played party games with the adults and/or were on their phones. Benito and I got in a Science World playdate with one of his daycare friends who is now in a different elementary school, during which I got to hold a baby! Ahhh, baby.
- Family: We spent Christmas Eve with my MIL, who gave Benito many gifts that we are enjoying. Her cooking I have already mentioned (wait, did I? Maybe that was in conversation, not in writing.). Otherwise, we spent Christmas Day together at home, and Monday through Wednesday of this week were also all of us together. We went to the Lego store, because of course we NEED more Lego (no, this was actually a spontaneously-offered please-potty-train-dammit reward Dad promised without asking me because I would've vetoed it). I called my siblings, they called me, I spoke with some other relatives, but it was all pretty low-key on my end.
- Games we played: We now own and played Kerplunk!, Tsuro: Phoenix Rising, and Scrappers. The only "age-appropriate" one is Kerplunk!; otherwise, we're ahead of their listed age-settings and it's totally cool. I bought the new Tsuro while I was at the game store with Benito buying a Dominion expansion (with the goal being to get a new code for the online game, of course), and I spotted this beautiful new kind of Tsuro. It says it's for ages 8+ but heck, we love the original, and if needed we can work with fewer rules/complications until such time as he's able to handle it. Of course, we read the rules and tried our best and it turns out that it's really not a problem for him! It's fun to play, he doesn't like losing a life, he doesn't like losing the game, but what's new there? *grin* Kerplunk! is both fun to set up and fun to play: sticking the little plastic sticks through the cup is almost as much fun as removing them without letting the marbles drop through, and the pleasing sound (kinda like "kerplunk"??) makes me laugh. N came through again (like last year's Kingdomino) with a game called Scrappers, "a family game for ages 9 and up," which I played with him the first time and got the rules a little wrong myself, but then when we played a 3-player I managed to follow all the rules, as did he. This is a fun one where you try to position your goblin bodger in the right spot along a conveyor belt to collect a contraption piece, so you can create a completed contraption. If you and someone else are trying to get the same piece, then you tussle for it. You can play to either avoid the tussles or seek them out - guess which Benito wanted to do? *grin* All in all, I'm quite pleased with these home game collection additions.
We also played some fun games at the parties: Blockbuster is a game that tests your ability to quickly recall movies based on a theme (movies with "and" in the title, movies about dogs, movies by Stephen Spielberg) followed by trying to get your team to guess movies by giving them either a 1 word clue, a movie quote (or a quote you make up about the movie), or charades (no sound at all), and the goal is to collect at least 1 movie in the 8 genres presented. We played Tie One On and 10 Days in Asia with friends who came over to our house, and we played What Do You Meme? with them and then on NYE as well. This is hilarious, and can be played either with or without "adult content" captions.
More later...
This entry was originally posted at https://avivasedai.dreamwidth.org/728328.html. Please comment there using OpenID.