Traditions With All My Children

Not to be confused with the old soap opera from the 70's - this entry is really about all my children!!
Every Christmas our family has a tradition where we draw names for Christmas to alleviate tbe pressure of spending alot of money yada yada yada. This past Christmas, Lisa suggested we draw names for families instead of individuals so the children wouldn't be left out. Brianna and Erin - well actually all of them - are old enough to care about being left out of the festivities. This was such a terrific idea. The rules were the same. Spending no more than $25 and it had to be homemade. Well. SOME of us succeeded. As usual, I always spend more. I cannot help myself.....
Carrie and Manny drew mine and Dad's name. They put together a really nice photo album of pictures past and had everyone write a page of their favorite memories - a very thoughtful and touching gift. I spent hours looking at it and I will cherish it forever - So I say to you all - Well done! Well done!

Thanks to ALL MY CHILDREN for the memories!

I love you all so much!

Bananagrams anyone?

What word is associated with bunches, splits, peel, and dump(??)? That's right. BANANAGRAMS! Lisa sent this game to us for Christmas and we finally played a couple of rounds tonight. I never heard of 'dump' being associated with bananas - is it what apes do? Lisa, explain that one to me. You never know what games Lisa will pull out of her hat. She finds everything!

Everyone gets 21 letter tiles and and turns them face down on the table. The rest of the tiles are in the center of the table. Someone yells "Split!" and you hurry to make your own mini Scrabble game with your 21 tiles. When a player runs out of tiles he/she yells "Peel!" and everyone takes a tile. If a player is stumped, he/she yells "Dump!" and trades a tile for 3 tiles out of the pile in the middle of the table. The game is over when all the tiles in the middle of the table are gone and the screaming monkey who has no tiles left yells "Bananas!" Fast moving and fun - probably more fun with 4 people. Different versions of the game to play are Banana Smoothie, Banana Cafe and Banana Solitaire. I'm sure Dad, Meegan, Monna, Lisa, Elise, Cari, Marianne and John can think of other ways as well. Creativity eludes me at times! I thought the picture with Kimber's screaming monkey was appropriate for this post. Look at how beat up that poor monkey is! It's been out in the rain, loved on by Kimber, stolen by Carlie for months - yet it lives and screams on. Especially in the middle of the night kicking it on the way to the bathroom in the dark. AAUUGGHH! Kimber sure loves her stuffies.

Am I the only one who has a hard time coming up with something to write in a blog? This is the best I can do for now. Thanks for the inspiration Lisa Beesa!