Game Night!

We went to the Children's Museum in Salt Lake today. 'Twas fun, but busy. Between grading, beta-reading, trying to edit my own books, tickling children, cleaning up piles of baby-thrown floor food, making sure people eat, sleeping...well, is it any wonder that today all I want to do is post this picture?

This is a bit later than Christmas, but it's from our local Festival of Trees. Isn't the beard impressive?

Angry Birds Cake

My parents arrived last night, so, in the interest of playing games, I present to you the birthday cake my son wants for his fourth birthday:

Christmas

I love Christmas. We woke around 6:30 (courtesy of three-year-old--at least it wasn't sooner!), got dressed, ate breakfast, and looked at gifts from Santa. After a few minutes of putting together Lego Star Wars sets and Hungry Hungry Hippos, we went to an hour of church. When we came home, we opened the rest of the presents under the tree.  It was a wonderful year, even though I didn't spend anything on my husband and he didn't spend anything on me. We bought a new computer, you see, and it was expensive, so...we didn't buy extra presents.

Instead, my husband gave me a morning to sleep in and eight hours (!) of daddy-children time I can spend on anything from writing to baths to jaunts around local bookstores. I gave him some wrapped library books (tee hee!) that he can read quickly, and coupons for various things, including movie rentals (we haven't seen Super 8 yet!) and time I can watch the boys while he plays games (football, ping pong, Diablo III when it comes out...). Anyway. If you know someone, gifts don't have to cost anything.  Time, service, clever collections of The Far Side you check out, cookie dough--all sorts of ideas can make great presents without costing anything!

So. I loved our Christmas, and so did all my boys.  As for our pets...if you have cats, I would suggest giving them shrimp.

Nothing makes cats happier than a tasty Christmas shrimp.

Pestilence

Sorry about the silence yesterday.  Apparently there is a horrible Death Germ that wishes to destroy our Christmas merrymaking, and it is sweeping through our household.  (Except for the cats. Apparently cats are immune to the Death Germ). But I am popping in to say that we are not beaten! We are mending, and we will still sing carols, and watch the animated Grinch smile, and blink blearily at the twinkling lights...

Fearsome

Rejection is a fearsome beast.  I always told myself I was querying in batches of ten (or so) because I wanted to wait and get feedback on fulls and partials. And I've gotten valuable feedback on fulls, so I suppose that's worked for me. But there's also the whole 'gah-if-I'm-submitting-rejections-will-come!' fear.  I did not admit to this fear, not really. After all, every time you bake cookies you could burn them. Every time you have a party, someone could end up sad because you didn't have enough cookies because some of them got burnt. The point is, I knew that it takes risk to do anything worthwhile, but I do think part of my waiting had to do with nerves.

I recognize that, though. So now I am submitting! I see my procrastination-brought-on-by-fear, and I am vanquishing it! Although I am taking a break tonight. Today was my last day teaching in 2011, so I think tonight I deserve some nice eggnog. Or popcorn and root beer.  And...maybe I'll watch Muppet Christmas Carol.

Best. Adaptation. Ever. Makes me want to read the book every time I see it!

Yay Muppets!

Is it break yet?

I have to teach tomorrow. And, while I love my job, it is sort of crazy whenever Christmas falls on a Sunday--people have to work through the 23rd, often enough, which doesn't give as much time for eggnog and gingersnaps as I would like.

 Speaking of cookies, here is a recipe for some delicious ones.  If you like molasses (and I do), and if you are in a cookie-baking sort of mood...I shall live vicariously through you!

Molasses Sugar Cookies

¾ c shortening

1 c sugar

¼ c molasses

1 egg

2 t baking soda

2 c sifted all-purpose flour

2 t cloves

½ t ginger

1 t cinnamon

½ t salt

Melt shortening in a 3 or 4 quart saucepan over low heat.  Remove from heat; let cool.  Add sugar, molasses, and egg; beat well.  Sift together flour, soda, cloves, ginger, salt, and cinnamon: add to first mixture.  Mix well.  Chill.  Form 1-inch balls, roll in granulated sugar, and place on greased cookie sheet 2 inches apart.  Bake in moderately hot oven (375 degrees) for 8 to 10 minutes.

Deja Vu Blogfest

Today's The Deja Vu blogfest, which means I shall post sooner than later! I'm supposed to go back through my archives and re-post a forgotten tidbit that is awesome.

Hmmm...I don't even have much of an archive, but this is hard! There's the first post where I set up my rules so I could enjoy blogging, the post about my family, and my not-very-informative post about em-dashes and otters.

Finally I settled on one that didn't insult semi-colons or talk about hobbits.  I chose it because I am currently finding the charts very useful in motivating my three-year-old (and myself) to do those ever-friendly chores.  There's something satisfying about checking off a to-do list--or putting a tire on your very own Might Machine Chore Chart. So...here's the original post:

Chore charts

I spent a few hours this week putting together chore charts.  I'd like to say it's because I'm finally becoming responsible and adult-like, but actually it's because I like an excuse to paint.  If our house stays a little neater...well, that's just awesome bonus sauce.  There's one circle on each chart for every day of the week, and they're attached with Velcro so we can add/detach them.  Good idea?  We'll see.

Anyway.  Pictures.

Here's my husband's.  He ordered a pizza, with ONLY pepperoni (although in real life he eats lots of toppings--I think he was being sweet and keeping it simple for me):

And here's my three-year-old's.  He didn't care about difficulty level (or Mommy's lack of interest in construction vehicles), but his was still fun to paint:

Mine...well, all the initials on the spines of the books correspond with real authors.  Ooh!  And there's a raven!  I like ravens...

The initials are G.C., T.P., M.R., R.D., E.B.W., W.S., and E.S.  Make your guesses in the comments (if you dare...)