Fun with Family

This past weekend we got in some more good family time. The boys got to have a sleepover at Grandpa Kevin and Grandma Cynthia's house on New Year's Eve so we could stay up late with our friends/neighbors, and on New Year's Day, Grandpa Kevin, Grandma Cynthia, and Aunt Katherine came over to celebrate Christmas. Katherine's boyfriend Sam was supposed to join us, but he had food poisoning, sadly. He missed out on some fun rounds of Bananagrams, though it probably didn't matter, as we women dominated the game, and I'm not sure if Mike or Kevin won any rounds at all. Maybe they needed Sam's fresh, young brain to represent the male team.

After the boys woke up from their naps, we opened presents. It definitely seemed like Drew got the hang of opening presents at Christmas.

We were really wanting Sam and Katherine to be together when they opened this present Mike and I got for the two of them. We got them "smittens," which are mittens made for two. There's a left-handed mitten, a right-handed mitten, and one mitten that is extra large and has 2 openings, so that 2 people can hold hands inside the warmth of a mitten. Katherine and Sam go to college together in Minnesota, so surely they need something like this to keep their hands warm as they walk across campus hand-in-hand. Katherine blushed when she opened the present, which was fun, but we really wanted to see Sam's reaction, too.

Saturday we had a relaxing day at home. Temperatures were extremely low with wind chills way below zero. The actual recorded high temperature for our town on Saturday was 1 degree. I am not sure what it was with the wind chill, but it was cold. Already we have had ice on the insides of our windows and our back door, which is something that didn't happen last year until February, I think. Brrrr! So we did not leave the house on Saturday. I actually did not leave the house Saturday or Sunday. I did finish reading The Kite Runner, though, and wow, is that an amazing book. Quite depressing, but I just could not put it down.

So we didn't really do anything on Saturday, but had fun hanging out together as a family. Here are the boys showing off their Cheeto hands at lunch. Zach talked me into buying a bag of baked Cheetos a couple of weeks ago, and I'm not really regretting it. They're pretty tasty!

Saturday night we were excited to have my sister Sandy, brother-in-law Will, and nephew Anders come to visit. They were on their way north after visiting Will's family for New Year's. Zach and Drew were excited to see their aunt, uncle, and cousin again, although when I took Anders from Sandy so she and Will could empty out their car, Drew immediately started saying, "No! No! No! No!" and then "Up! Up! Up!" He wasn't so big on sharing his mom, I guess.

After some pizza for dinner, the boys got into playing. Zach and Anders were having a lot of fun crawling through a little tunnel Zach and Will made out of a blanket, a chair, the coffee table, and the love seat. Then Anders discovered Zach's belly button.

From that moment on, he was so interested in Zach's belly and belly button, and Zach was happy to oblige.

I love the faces Anders makes. It seems he does a lot with his tongue.

We got the boys in bed and Sandy, Will, Mike, and I played some more Bananagrams while watching a bowl game. Sunday morning we had some homemade blueberry coffeecake (something it seems I only have when I'm with Sandy), and Anders enjoyed some yogurt.

Sandy then helped me with my knitting. Last year when they were at our house at New Year's, Sandy and I bought some yarn and she taught me how to knit and purl. I started a scarf, and Sandy started a hat for me. On Saturday she presented me with my finished hat, and on Sunday she helped me get back to my scarf, which is now about 3 inches long. Ok, the problem is this- during the past year, I've seen Sandy a handful of times. Probably 50% of those times have I remembered to have the knitting with me for Sandy to help me with. And, what happens every single time (no exaggeration here), is that I get the hang of it, and then Sandy and I part ways, and about 2 minutes later I mess up and don't know how to fix the problem. Therefore, I have a 3 inch scarf and a very cold neck. This same exact thing happened. Seriously, not 3 minutes after Sandy left on Sunday, I made a mistake. I thought maybe I fixed it, but I didn't, but I did get it back to where I could go on and it didn't look terrible. But then I made another mistake, and this time I'm not sure how to get back on track. Since I have no idea when I'll be seeing my sister again :-(, tomorrow I'm hoping to stop in at the yarn store where we bought my yarn a year ago to see if somebody there will be kind enough to help me get back on track. And then, who knows? Maybe by 2011, I'll have at least 12 inches of scarf completed!

The Hawkeyes just won the Orange Bowl! Woo hoo!! Go Hawkeyes!