Get This Game: Quelf

I love board games, and I'm usually fairly aware of what's floating around, but my parents surprised us this year with one we hadn't heard of, Quelf. The kids said they'd seen it on TV (shocking), but it was totally new to me.

This game is absolutely hilarious! Somewhat like Cranium on steroids, the game calls for players to perform, make, or answer questions depending on the category. For example, my mother had to make a mask using things she could find in the house before her next turn and then wear the mask until she landed on a green space.

It took her a long, long time to land on a green space. In the meantime, she had to stand up and dance the Can-can during another challenge. Categories include Roolz (my brother, for example, had to pretend to play the piano every time someone rolled a 1), Scatterbrainz (everyone has to name something in a particular topic, like US Presidents, until someone goofs), Stuntz (like a staring contest), Quizzle (trivia-type questions), and Showbiz (like the Can-can).

We had eight players from 12 to 84. I think my nine-year-old could play this OK, but it would be challenging for him. The game promises to take about an hour, but we were nowhere near the finish line when we called it quits after 2 hours. We all laughed soooo hard during this two hours; I'm not sure we could have lasted much longer! I see great possibilities with this game for mom/daughter game nights and other board game nights. In fact, I'm already trying to figure out when I can have a few goofy, board-game-loving friends over…

Imagining a Life at the Walker Sisters' Cabin

Imagine a life spent in this house…


Resting every morning and evening on this front porch …

watching the shadows shift and the seasons change as you look out at this view, familiar as your face in the mirror…


And back in your kitchen, you open the window…

And think how bare and beautiful the woods are in winter…



And you stand for just a minute as the sun comes down…


Thinking you'd better shut the door before the evening chill sets in…


And you go back to your front porch for just a few more minutes, listening to the reassuring sound of this…


(For more pictures and details of this 4.2 mile hike from Metcalf Bottoms to the Walker Sisters' cabin in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park, visit my husband's new blog, 900 Miles.)

We Wish You a Merry Christmas

May you all "experience God's peace, which exceeds anything we can understand and that His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus."

Tradition with Motive

(Click to enlarge)

We always bake and decorate sugar cookies a few days before Christmas. This is not a tradition that carried over from my childhood. In fact, I don't remember ever decorating cookies as a child. I think my mom just sprinkled sugar on top. But we started this years ago, and it is definitely one of our favorite Christmas traditions.

I don't think my mom usually decorates with us, although I imagine she has in the past. But this year it seemed like the perfect way to get her out of her house for a couple of hours. She was excited to come over and decorate with us, and afterward she had a rousing game of Legos with Duncan. Just when Duncan was getting really wild and she was ready to go, my Dad pulled in the driveway to pick her up.

And take her back home, where he had her Christmas present waiting for her.

When my parents moved here for good a few months ago, they had to leave the old upright piano behind. This was an old player piano with the "player" mechanism removed. It had been out of tune my entire life and the keys were broken and somewhat sticky, but it was beautiful and my mother enjoyed playing it anyway. She was brokenhearted to leave it behind, but she knew it was too heavy and not worth moving.

And so, for Christmas, my father bought her a piano. For the first time in probably all of her 82 years, my mother has a piano that is perfectly tuned with all the keys intact. When she sits down to play, her fingers find the notes with a grace and clarity that comes from a lifetime of loving the feel of fingers on keys and the sound of music.

Needless to say, my father, who for 61 years has faced the yearly "what should I get for your Mother?" dilemma, found the perfect Christmas gift this year. Plus, he got some cookies.

Dangerous Boys

I had a baby on Christmas Day, which was awesome and very special. Except that, on top of all the regular holiday activities, we also have a birthday party for Duncan each year a week or so before Christmas. We've had suggestions of celebrating his birthday on July 25 or in November, but really, it just doesn't seem right.

So I had a great idea for Duncan's birthday party this year. I thought we'd do an "Amazing Race" theme. I was picturing 2-3 parents driving vans loaded with kids, driving from place to place in our city while they searched for clues and completed all kinds of feats. I assumed Duncan would be thrilled to hear what I had planned.

But when I told him, he said, "Don't you remember? I want to have a Dangerous Book for Boys party."

Oops! Totally forgot his plan for The Dangerous Book for Boys party. So everyone knows that book, right? We don't actually own the book, but we had it checked out from the library for awhile, and it obviously had an impact on him.

At least one mom was really scared by the word "dangerous" in the invitation. But not to fear. We ended up not doing the only really dangerous activity—Cincinnati fire kites— because everything was too soggy outside. But for your viewing pleasure, here are Jesse and Everett doing the kites a couple of years ago:



This was a great and easy party theme if you have a boy in the 8-11 age range. Here's what we did (click to make really big):


* Each boy took 5 shots at the target with the BB gun (carefully monitored by Randy)
* Each boy got a 2-liter of diet Coke and a tube of Mentos for their own eruptions.
* Each boy made both a sling-shot and a marshmallow gun made out of PVC pipe (Randy had the pieces ready beforehand and then glued the slingshots while they finished the party)
These activities took most of the time; after cake (chocolate dirt cake with sour gummy worms liberally sprinkled on top) and gifts, they had a blast running through the backyard shooting each other with marshmallows.

I'm glad Duncan insisted on the Dangerous Boys party. Amazing Race? Maybe next year.

Wordless Wednesday: The Perfect Place To Be

I hope to be in this spot a lot in the next two weeks: reading by the Christmas tree. If only those presents would wrap themselves…

For more "Wordless" Wednesday posts, visit Wordless Wednesday, Momspective, and Five Minutes for Mom.

Monday Memory: First Christmases

We're going into a new stage in our life as parents. Only our youngest, who will be 9 on Christmas Day, is getting any toys for Christmas. In just a few more years, we'll be a toyless home. That sounds terribly sad. I miss buying American Girl outfits already, just a year after I lamented the outrageous cost of them.

But this post is about first Christmases, when sheer delight reigned supreme on all sides.

Jesse was 9 months old at his first Christmas. We lived in Oxford, Ohio. Randy was finishing his master's degree at Miami University, and I was working as an editor for the headquarters of an international business association. This was taken at Randy's parents' house in Indiana, about an hour from where we lived.

Laurel was four months old for her first Christmas, and Jesse is about 4 1/2. We lived in Ames, Iowa, where Randy was working on his PhD at Iowa State University. At this particular time I was taking a break from working on my master's degree and just being a stay-at-home mama. I did end up finishing the next year.

This is really Duncan's second Christmas since he was born on Christmas Day, but being born and whisked off to the NICU isn't nearly as much fun as eating your first cake. This is my precious Christmas gift on his first birthday. We've been in this house in Tennessee since I was about 3 months pregnant with Duncan, so he has always been here, in this house, with his Daddy as a professor at UT and his mama at home.

It's a good place to be.

Sunday Miscellany

* I love the utter sense of coziness that comes at Christmas—a coziness that is, in fact, closely kin to laziness. I had a nap already this afternoon, having fallen asleep while reading Audrey Niffenegger's newest book, Her Fearful Symmetry. (Falling asleep, by the way, is no reflection on the book. I love it.)

* On today's baking agenda: snickerdoodles. And Randy's Sunday Night Fried Rice for supper. Made by Randy, of course.

* And, as if a nap, snickerdoodles and fried rice aren't exciting enough, tonight is the season finale of Survivor!

* My house is delightfully clean. Yesterday was Duncan's birthday party, so I made sure the house was perfectly cleaned and decorated. As Randy pointed out, it's really important to a bunch of 8 to 10-year-old boys that all my decorations were up and the bathroom mirrors were shiny. This year's theme: Dangerous Things for Boys. Pictures coming up later.

* We had a packed class in Sunday School today. Our discussion these past few weeks has been terribly interesting. We've been discussing the Sabbath, Lord's Day, and what to do if your neighbor asks you not to mow your lawn on Sunday afternoons. I love my Sunday School class.

* I'm not done Christmas shopping yet. In fact, I'm really not even close. But I'm so comfortable and cozy here in my clean house, and there are still four whole days left until Christmas…

Hope you're having a cozy day!

Wordless Wednesday: Cafe

Lunch at L&B's Cafe: priceless. I left a big tip. For more "Wordless" Wednesday posts, visit Wordless Wednesday, Momspective, and Five Minutes for Mom.

Monday Memory: Christmas Cards

One of my projects for today is to start sending out Christmas cards. For many years now I've done the photo cards along with a short Christmas letter. I always include my blog address, because, really, our lives are an open book. If people are really interested in what is happening in SmallWorld, they can read my blog, visit me on Facebook, send me an email, pick up the phone, or even visit.

How can a year be summed up in one measly letter? There's always too much between the lines that's left out and makes one's life seem like event upon event, rather than a carpet of joys and disappointments, daily thankfulness and occasional apathy. Big struggles. Little victories. Why do we sum a year up in awards won and trips taken?

I am guilty. My Christmas cards this year are short and to the point: a photo of each person with 4 bullet points summing up a whole person in 10 words or less. Boy Scouts, Cub Scouts, American Heritage Girls. Hiking Philmont, climbing trees, dancing. I designed the cards in about 15 minutes on Shutterfly.

Still, though, in spite of the superficiality of Christmas cards, I am happy to send them, and happy to receive them. I think about each person as I address the envelope, remembering them from different parts of my life. Childhood friends, college friends, Ohio and Iowa friends, distant family, Tennessee friends. I love getting picture cards in the mail, marveling over how the children have grown over the course of a year. As have mine. Pondering the passage of time and frightened a bit at the rapidity with which this season of life progresses.

The card above is from Christmast of 2000, probably the only year I've ever sent cards after Christmas. I was waiting for Duncan to be born, so that I could send out Christmas cards and a birth announcement in one fell swoop. I never imagined he would actually be born on Christmas Day and then spend almost a week in the NICU. How do you say, in a Christmas card, that you just went through one of the most terrifying experiences in your life? Instead, you write the birth date, his weight (10 lbs--wow!), and that he is the best Christmas present ever.

Someday, perhaps, I'll be like my 88-year-old Uncle Max. I received an email from him last week saying, "Hello Everyone: A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ONE AND ALL. I'm doing emails rather than cards so hope this reaches all of you. Love you Max."

Until then, I'll be addressing envelopes and running to the post office for more stamps. At least this year, anyway.