Paaaaaaaaarrrrrrrty!

While I would like to say that my absence from blogging over the last few days has been due to my involvement in more productive activities which my role as domestic goddess may require--that would be a blatant lie.
I have been playing games. Settlers of Catan to be exact. The. Best. Game. EVER!! Very addicting! We have had Nathan and Becky (sis and bro-in-law) over for the last few nights playing it. We have even stayed up until 2 AM with this game!! I have never stayed up until 2 am playing something! That may shock some die hard video gamers on here, but nothing has held my interest for that long--until this! This is a board game though--not a video game.
Becky and Nathan went out and bought the SeaFarers expansion pack for John last night as an early birthday present, and he just left the house to buy Cities & Knights. And then of course, I found out they had a Catan in Space edition!!! I'm just a little excited about that.
It is for ages 10 and up, and originally we thought we had to have 3 players to play, but John found out how to set it up for two players at Catan's online site. There are so many different variations for how you can play this game!
Enough rambling on about Settlers though....

Angela had her birthday party on New Year's Eve--her birthday. Yes. We got a wonderful tax break! We owe the furniture in our house to that lovely event. ;-)
This year, I made her a pink butterfly cake. She did want a Cinderella Princess cake originally, but I explained I had neither the expertise nor the equipment to make such a cake--and I wasn't spending the money on one either! Not when I can make a cake from scratch that tastes better than the storebought ones. So she wanted a vanilla cake with pink icing--and that's what I made. Pictures are posted in "Angela's 7th Birthday" album on Facebook.
We decided to spend the money on presents for her this year instead of going to Rollandia (which is a waste of money--they charge too much for pizza, and you buy all those tokens for what?? Games that are over in 5 minutes!) Instead, she got a nice Barbie (but can be used with Polly Pockets) dollhouse, a scooter so she can zoom around with her brother, Princess tea set, Fake hair and makeup set, real lip gloss set, and then her aunt and uncle bought her three more gorgeous dolls. All of these pics are on Facebook in the same above mentioned album as well. She was VERY happy with these gifts and has been having fun playing with them ever since.
To celebrate the coming New Year that night, the adults---can you guess????---played Settlers of Catan!!

And, yes, I realize no one has gotten any Christmas cards from us. The Christmas letter is written. Sitting there on the hard drive. John wants a nice family picture to go with it. It may be awhile yet before anyone sees this Christmas Letter. I think we'll have to call it a New Year's letter now.