REINDEER GAMES AKA FAMILY CHRISTMAS PARTY...

 This is the year I'm hosting our extended family Christmas party!  My sis and I take turns and we have been doing a theme and games for a number of years, to take the emphasis off gifts.  We still do the Dirty Santa game, just not buying additional gifts for each other.  

My theme was Reindeer Games!  I asked everyone to wear reindeer gear, we had some great games and I made some special reindeer pops (dipped Oreos with added goodies to look like reindeer).  It turned out great!  Here's a few of our games:

My mother won the Best Costume prize with this cute sweatshirt she's actually had since 1988 - my sister painted it for her when painted shirts were popular!

We broke up into 4 teams for the games to make it move quickly and build comradery.  This was the Ornament Challenge.  They had 10 minutes to make an ornament given a bag of craft goodies with no instructions.  I judged them based on creativity.  It was a quiet game that everyone seemed to enjoy!

A cute one!

Creativity prize for the Christmas Spider!

Ring Toss on the Reindeer Antlers!  I bought this game at our local store and made more rings with pipe cleaners so all team members could toss at the same time.  It was a fun one!

Finally we did the Reindeer Hooves game that seems to be all over social media this year, scooping cotton balls with our cup "hooves." It wasn't that easy!

We finished off the evening singing Christmas songs, especially the reindeer ones, and playing Dirty Santa!  It was a fun party and I'm glad our family participates well.  :)

Reindeer Pops!

CHRISTMAS GIVING GAME...

This Christmas we ended up hosting three parties - yes, I planned it that way!  My philosophy is if you decide to do one, you might as well do more!  Once the house is decorated and cleaned you really don't have to do much more for the other parties.

We wanted to play a different game - no, we didn't throw out Dirty Santa.  We played this one in addition to it.  We always like to warm people up with a few fast games, before Dirty Santa comes into play and some people turn crazy!

I found this game on Pinterest and we just added to it.  I supplied 20 dollar store-type gifts, wrapped. (With the first party we actually only played this game with $5 generic gifts they brought) With the Roll the Dice game, after playing it with two groups of 20 people, we found both times as we went round the circle taking turns rolling the dice to see whether you would pass the gift right or left, or open, etc. there seemed to be one number you either got stuck on, or hardly ever rolled.  So after two rounds, we would declare the next person to roll a ________, whatever had not been rolled much, would be the end of the game.

The TWIST we added after the end and let everyone open, if it wasn't already, was this:  We gave the "Christmas is about giving" speech.  We told everyone they just thought the gift they just opened was theirs.  Now, we will go around the circle and give your gift to someone you think would like it.  We went one at a time, so everyone could see what the mysterious gifts were they had been feeling as they went around the circle.  It was fun and added another dimension to the game.  Some men who got kitchen-y gifts were giving theirs to the ladies and the ladies who ended up with a beef jerky stick gladly gave to a man.  :)  There were a few toys in there for the one pre-teen and he raked in several gifts as a result.  The few who didn't get one were okay with it, you see, they didn't have their gift very long anyway.  For the first party where they supplied the $5 gifts, we did say to look around the circle to see who didn't have a gift yet so everyone did take a gift home.

Hope I explained it well!  It was kind of hard to take pictures while keeping the game going!

HAVE FUN PLAYING YOUR CHRISTMAS GAMES!

GETAWAY...

I would normally NEVER take a pleasure trip in December, but I'm growing up! No kiddos to get to school or wake up or look after at all, means I'm going out of town with The Hubs more. We went to Austin area recently and what I enjoyed most (besides not cooking and cleaning) was seeing the Christmas lights!  I had to restrain myself and just take a few pictures but here's an idea of just a few we saw.  Thank goodness this was a drive-through attraction - the cold hit down south, too!

This was the coolest thing at the end!  The lights are set up to blink also, so I felt like I was going through a wormhole (sci-fi language) some of the time!  

YES

HEALTHIER VALENTINES...

I'm over the big heart box full of chocolates!  Pretty sure the family feels the same way.  So here's what I'm giving this year to those I love:

A re-usable shopping bag - the tag says, "love the Earth"

A small bag of pistachios - "Nuts over you, valentine"

A package of Super Glue - "I'm stuck on you"

Small package of post-it notes - "Take note, valentine!"

OK, so I gave one chocolate bar - "Sweets for the sweet"

Now, I'm hoping they don't read the blog until next week!

MY LITTLE VALENTINES...

I always enjoy displaying my old Valentine collection from the 1940's!  Most of them were my Dad's sister Myrna Rae's valentines.  She had a heart condition and died in surgery at age seven.  Consequently, my grandmother kept almost everything belonging to her little girl.  I always have fun figuring out how to display them!

I also enjoy the little kiddie valentines and making goody bags for all my college kid friends!

Do you have any special traditions for Valentine's Day?  I know one of my friends always makes strawberry shortcake for her family.  The shortcake is made in the shape of a heart.  We do different small gifts usually, but really, I do not need the chocolate this year!  Hopefully my family takes notice.  If not, there's another couple of workouts I'll need to do.  :)

MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM WAWAWAUGHS...

Well 2015 was a good one!  Blessings to you and yours this holiday season!

TWO NEW THINGS THIS THANKSGIVING...

1.  Tucker came with us.

2.  Son #1 brought his lovely girlfriend!  There's a saying in the family:  If you bring somebody to Thanksgiving, there's probably a wedding in the future!  We certainly hope so!

I think it's safe to say both of them had a good time.  Here we are doing the Turkey Trot in the rain Thanksgiving morning.  They both participated!  Tucker especially enjoyed checking out the cows near our race route.   

We enjoyed our Pumpkin Bash after Thanksgiving dinner like always!

The yucky weather kept us inside more but no one is complaining about rain in southwestern Oklahoma!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO US...

For our family, the fourth of July is a celebration for America and party for our family's June & July birthdays!  We celebrated with some swimming at our house and gifts and fireworks later at my sister's house.  Words unspoken but I'm pretty sure we were all remembering my sister's husband John who loved fireworks so much and always bought plenty for us to enjoy.   

 

The birthday bunch!  Can you guess who's 73, 51, 49, 24, 20, and 18?

LAIDBACK EASTER...

This Easter found me a bit sad at the changes happening in our family.  I didn't have the energy to decorate nor did anyone care.  Don't get me wrong, we had plenty happening, in fact we've been really busy lately helping our son make improvements to his Snocone business (which he decided to open this year on weekends in April), doing some updating in our bathroom (which equals a lot of painting) plus our regular commitments.  But the nice thing about Easter this year was that I was able to focus more on the resurrection because I wasn't worried about if everyone's Easter basket was equal with goodies, filling plastic eggs and hiding the money eggs in different parts of the yard so the kids had equal chances on that, and making sure they had some fresh new clothes to wear to church.  Yes, I did all that until the last one graduated high school!  We hadn't been to LTC in a few years, so I guess I'm finally used to not doing that anymore.  I'm wondering now if any of that mattered at all...

As we were singing in church on Easter morning, "Because He lives, I can face tomorrow," it took on new meaning for me.  No longer do I think of it as a funeral song.  It's been sung at many, many funerals that I've been to.  Just the tune of it used to make my lip curl.  But Sunday, I took it to heart and really praised God that because of the resurrection I can face tomorrow!  No matter what changes happen in our family - no matter if death takes away our family members - no matter if our children are near or far to us - no matter if traditions change!

God sent His son, they called Him, Jesus;
He came to love, heal and forgive;
He lived and died to buy my pardon,
An empty grave is there to prove my Savior lives!

Because He lives, I can face tomorrow,
Because He lives, all fear is gone;
Because I know He holds the future,
And life is worth the living,
Just because He lives!

(Bill Gaither)

Here's some things I appreciated this past week:

 These were planted before we got here - over 15 years ago - and they're still blooming!

 A sight you don't see often - the Redbud tree and Wisteria blooming together!  They both last only a short time in this stage.

 Easter dinner at my Mom's house - with all her pretty tulips!

I did make this fun Rice Krispy cake to take to Easter dinner at my mother's house.  It was so easy and cute!  (I may do this again for some other holidays with different colored M & M's)

CHRISTMAS MYSTERY GIFT...

We've had a family activity night close to Christmas for several years now, and it's always a mystery to our kids what will happen...this year our boys both brought their girlfriends and our daughter, of course is in another state.  We missed her, but still had fun!

After eating dinner at Saturn Grill we went to the Tunnels of OKC - I had heard about an interesting art show called OKC 125 in the red and blue tunnels and wanted to check it out.  They were all kind of thinking we had lost it when we parked and started walking toward a sketchy parking garage (I think they had walked through the tunnels once when they were little).  

 It was pretty cool, actually, and FREE.  So it didn't really matter how good/bad it was...

 But it was kind of a fun detour on our way to Bricktown to go...

 SNOW TUBING!

After that we headed back toward The Cheesecake Factory for a little late night dessert.  It was a fun evening with our changing family!

MY EASTER GOOFBALLS...

A new chapter in our lives...everyone is here for Easter, with the exception of our daughter!  For many years we participated in LTC and we would have to find another weekend for a family dinner and Easter egg hunt.  We are also almost out of the busy, busy teen years with so many activities that your head is spinning.  Those days are gone, but the egg hunts are not!  

 Four out of five grandkids...

 Love it that my mother still has our old faded Easter baskets! 

 Looking for car wash money in those eggs!

Wow, we are all getting old!

VALENTINE'S DAY SURPRISES...

A friend of mine remarked how Valentine's Day was one of her favorite holidays because "You don't have to do anything big, like cook a turkey."  I have to agree with her!  I made some cookies and decorated them for senior lunch and as you can see they weren't Pinterest-worthy but they were made with love and I think they enjoyed them.  Something else I did spontaneously was send pics of my vintage valentines by phone text to random friends.  I had a lot of fun with that.  Both of these things I decided to do that day!  Funny for me, the planner.

My college son borrowed his grandma's 50 year old Corvair convertible to take his girlfriend out on a date - cool surprise!  Grandma loved being a part of that! 

Chocolate bread pudding

 The hubs and I don't always do something big, but this year I made reservations at the newly remodeled movie theater at Penn Square Mall.  They have recliners now!  Nice.  We saw "Monuments Men" and also ate at the mall at Pepperoni Grill.  He surprised me by not driving home that night, but went north about a half-mile and turned right into the Waterford Marriott where we spent the night!  It was fun and he had taken care of everything!

I love traditions but that also builds expectations.  And for me I feel the pressure to always be making it wonderful.  Maybe some holidays we should just be more spontaneous, change it up year to year, and make it a surprise!  This one was for me.

VINTAGE VALENTINES - NOT POLITICALLY CORRECT, BUT...

I love them!  Even though there's no way some of these would be printed today - they just point back to simpler times and give me a connection to relatives long gone.  I have a collection of about 50 vintage valentines, mostly because my Grandma gave me some things of her little daughter who died at age 7 of a heart condition.  These are all Myrna Rae's, from the 1940's,  and I love to set them out in different places around the house or some years display them as a bunch on heart-shaped trays.  Here's just a few: