And so this is christmas...
This last week was a fun one. We celebrated Christmas and spent a lot of time together. I got Wednesday off, and a half day off on Tuesday.
Christmas eve was beautiful weather so we decided to walk to the school playground and play a bit. Sara put on her new snow pants (which were technically an unopened Christmas gift, but she didn't seem to notice that when she opened them up the next day) which made the trip last all the longer, and made it more fun. Rea wants to go sledding some time. We need to get a sled first.
On Christmas day, after celebrating the birth of Christ in the morning, we got together as a family (with all of the Brown side) and spent time together. We shot guns (which was more fun than I expected), ate food, and played some games. We played 'Two Rooms and a Boom', 'Resistance', and 'Bang: Wild West Show'. They all were fun.
I have been working on my Dancing Robots AI recently, and it now beats me fairly often (it still isn't perfect, but it is so much better than it used to be, and if I make a mistake it often wins). One of these days I will try to get it published, but until that happens I can at least play it against a decent AI whenever I want.
Andrea got a board game called "Herd Your Horses" for Christmas which she has been asking to play all of the time. It is fairly fun for a childrens game. (Also, it is the first "roll and move" style game that she is willing to play, so that is a big plus.)
Sara doesn't like it when we play it (she doesn't really like any game that she doesn't understand and of which she can't crumple the cards), so the whole family is not sold on it, but it was quite well received.
Rea and Sara also got some Barbie dolls (which they have never had before). We told them that the rule is that they always have to be dressed or they will be thrown away. As of yet that has been an effective method of keeping all of their parts together. Alison doesn't want to have to find doll shoes or things like that, so she decided that this would be a useful way to prevent that from happening.
Rea has begun to sing along when we sing hymns at church, and since we encourage this Sara has also begun to 'sing' random words whenever there is a hymn. Sometimes she sings things like 'baby Jesus manger', sometimes they are just random syllables.
Sara has also begun to speak full sentences: 'Granpa taking off boots' is one excellent example (she was hearing noises at grandpa Craig's house and explained what they were to Alison)
We have been trying and trying to take a family photo, but Sara just messes up all of the ones that we take. Perhaps we will have to just take one of Sara alone and then one of the family and print both of them out.
She loves getting pictures taken, it is just that she always moves right when they are actually being taken.
Such is life with little girls :).
And now, I'd like to end this post by giving a shout out to the worst Christmas song ever 'Happy Xmas (War Is Over)', which is really more of an anti war protest than a Christmas song. I like my Christmas songs to be about Jesus, but perhaps I am old fashioned.
Additionally, the lyrics of this song (which won't even use Christ in the title of the song) make more sense if you replace every occurrence of the word Christmas with New Years (my assumption has always been that Lennon was just trying to get free publicity every Christmas more than that he actually liked Christmas).
Alison won't really agree with me about this being the worst Christmas song ever - she thinks that 'Last Christmas' by Wham is probably worse, so I am probably wrong.
Christmas eve was beautiful weather so we decided to walk to the school playground and play a bit. Sara put on her new snow pants (which were technically an unopened Christmas gift, but she didn't seem to notice that when she opened them up the next day) which made the trip last all the longer, and made it more fun. Rea wants to go sledding some time. We need to get a sled first.
On Christmas day, after celebrating the birth of Christ in the morning, we got together as a family (with all of the Brown side) and spent time together. We shot guns (which was more fun than I expected), ate food, and played some games. We played 'Two Rooms and a Boom', 'Resistance', and 'Bang: Wild West Show'. They all were fun.
I have been working on my Dancing Robots AI recently, and it now beats me fairly often (it still isn't perfect, but it is so much better than it used to be, and if I make a mistake it often wins). One of these days I will try to get it published, but until that happens I can at least play it against a decent AI whenever I want.
Andrea got a board game called "Herd Your Horses" for Christmas which she has been asking to play all of the time. It is fairly fun for a childrens game. (Also, it is the first "roll and move" style game that she is willing to play, so that is a big plus.)Sara doesn't like it when we play it (she doesn't really like any game that she doesn't understand and of which she can't crumple the cards), so the whole family is not sold on it, but it was quite well received.
Rea and Sara also got some Barbie dolls (which they have never had before). We told them that the rule is that they always have to be dressed or they will be thrown away. As of yet that has been an effective method of keeping all of their parts together. Alison doesn't want to have to find doll shoes or things like that, so she decided that this would be a useful way to prevent that from happening.
Rea has begun to sing along when we sing hymns at church, and since we encourage this Sara has also begun to 'sing' random words whenever there is a hymn. Sometimes she sings things like 'baby Jesus manger', sometimes they are just random syllables.
Sara has also begun to speak full sentences: 'Granpa taking off boots' is one excellent example (she was hearing noises at grandpa Craig's house and explained what they were to Alison)
We have been trying and trying to take a family photo, but Sara just messes up all of the ones that we take. Perhaps we will have to just take one of Sara alone and then one of the family and print both of them out.She loves getting pictures taken, it is just that she always moves right when they are actually being taken.
Such is life with little girls :).
And now, I'd like to end this post by giving a shout out to the worst Christmas song ever 'Happy Xmas (War Is Over)', which is really more of an anti war protest than a Christmas song. I like my Christmas songs to be about Jesus, but perhaps I am old fashioned.
Additionally, the lyrics of this song (which won't even use Christ in the title of the song) make more sense if you replace every occurrence of the word Christmas with New Years (my assumption has always been that Lennon was just trying to get free publicity every Christmas more than that he actually liked Christmas).
Alison won't really agree with me about this being the worst Christmas song ever - she thinks that 'Last Christmas' by Wham is probably worse, so I am probably wrong.
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