Playin' Games

Xander got some new games for Christmas, which was good because there's only so many times I can play the Power Rangers board game! This year he snagged Trouble, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Yahtzee Jr., and Guess Who? Marvel Edition. He hasn't much liked playing Trouble, but that's because we're still learning it. His fave is definitely Guess Who.

If you don't know the game play of Guess Who, it's pretty easy. You and your opponent have the same field of superheroes and villains. You each pick a random superhero or villain card, and the other person has to guess who you have using yes and no questions.

This works out pretty well, except that Xander is always ready to give you way more information than you asked for. I try to ignore that as much as possible, so the game isn't over in like five seconds. LOL! And it's a game that Joe doesn't mind playing, so that's fun too. I think we might have to look into still more game diversity for the Bruno house. I wonder if Xander is too young for Life?

Christmas - Bruno Style

I'm happy to report that the Brunos have survived another Christmas, more or less intact. The house is still a bit of a wreck but I guess that's to be expected. Ready for an overview?

After prepping dinner as best I could on Christmas Eve, Xander and I went over to Dad's house for lunch and the annual gift hunt (Krissy tells me that her kids don't like it, but Xander loves hunting up gifts). Dad made a big turkey and we all contributed side dishes. Afterwards there was gift opening, and I attempted to get a picture of the cousins together - Xander was being a grump, and I'm not sure what Braden's up to! LOL!

Back at the Bruno homestead, we had our traditional fish dinner. Xander, too - he had one of those frozen kid dinners with fish sticks. And then it was time for our present frenzy. Well, it's not much of a frenzy really because we all take turns opening. Xander was being very helpful by getting presents out from under the tree and reading tags. He was happy with everything he got, even the clothes!

Afterwards we took stock of our booty, and Xander popped in his new Scooby Doo DVD to watch. He's been watching it fairly non-stop since Christmas Eve. Sigh. It was hard to get him to go to sleep that night, he was way too pumped up! And he left Santa a feast - four cookies, a candy cane, and a Ferraro Rocher.

Christmas morning Xander was up at 6:30am (yawn!) and ready for some more presents. (He also got a dollar from the Tooth Fairy, since Aunt Krissy helped him pluck out his other loose tooth while we were at Dad's.) Santa had left Xander his big present under the little tree in his bedroom. But first we had to do our stockings - we all made out pretty well there, I can assure you!

Xander got the Dragon World Fortress that he'd asked Santa for, and played with that and his new Legos for most of the day. I spent way too much time on the floor putting these Legos together into cars and space ships - man did my back hurt!

Another fairly new tradition for the Brunos is for Joe and Xander to get coordinating gifts. The first year it was light sabers - Joe had got one for Xander, and I surprised Joe with one for him too so they could have saber fights together. Last year they got matching blankets. This year I got them a Nerf Dart Tag game, which they played on Christmas morning.

You can laugh at Joe for the helmet, but he needed it! Xander doesn't have very good aim, but lots of enthusiasm. I've played with him a couple of times, too, and I can tell you those Nerf darts hurt when you get hit with them (especially in the face!). We're going to have to get refills...we've already lost a couple darts!

Jean came up for dinner on Christmas Day - my first honey glazed spiral ham, and it was awesome! - and then we just chilled. Lots of napping, lots of reading, lots of playing. I'm happy to report that Xander is at daycare for the next three days; poor kid needs to play with other kids. And I'm back at work. The fun is over for another year, but fun it definitely was!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from the Bruno Family (of wackadoos!) to your family!

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Beeeeeeep....

Family Christmas - Harrington Style

We had our first family gathering of the holiday season on Saturday, at my mother-in-law's house. It was a special occasion: my brother-in-law, Mo, was up for a visit with his wife Jen and their son Aidan. They come up maybe once a year, so we went on over to celebrate Christmas with them.

Xander got some Legos, so he was a happy boy. And after several false starts, I was able to get the picture of the boys that Jean had wanted. This involved Joe bouncing Aidan around and then hastily plopping him on his knee while he was still happy.

We also got a moms picture. Aidan wouldn't stop looking at Xander, who of course was acting like a goof ball. Even more so once he had an appreciative audience.

I was also able to capture a brotherly embrace, a very rare photo with both brothers showing their teeth. Apparently this non-smiling business is a Bruno thing, because Mo doesn't like to smile for pictures either.

It was a fun night, no-one fought or argued, and we left with a bag of presents to open up on Christmas Day. The next joint family function will take place on Christmas Eve, when Xander and I trek over to Dad's for the annual present hunt. Hopefully that one will go as smoothly!

The Tree Is Up!

We finally decorated our Christmas tree last night. I can't recall ever doing one so late in the month! But the decorating went smoothly. Joe and Xander did the lights, and Xander helped me do the garland.

Xander was in full-on decorating mode, even though most of his ornaments are on his little tree in his room. Joe put up all of his special ones, and I mostly focused on filling gaps and rearranging bulbs that Xander had stacked all on one branch.

Joe hefted Xander up to do the angel, and then it was all done. I took some pictures using the tripod, to see if I could get a good lit tree picture. Of course, Xander had to get in on the act too!

Now it's really feeling like Christmas! Last night I started wrapping and now we have four presents under the tree. So festive! Now I just have to keep Stuart from chewing the paper off of them!

9 Days 'Til Christmas Eve!

Christmas prep is in full gear at the Bruno house!

On Saturday my pal Amy came over and we baked cookies all day. We each made four different kinds of cookies, and I have to say that my peanut butter batch is mostly crumbs already! Guess those came out really well this year. Xander was even eating one on the way up the driveway this morning to catch the school bus. :)

Sunday we got our Christmas tree, though picking one out in the pouring rain wasn't very much fun. Xander didn't like any of the trees in the lot - he said they were all too small. Ah, a boy after my own heart! We ended up with a very nice one that might even get decorated today.

Biggest fun was yesterday, when Amy and I headed up to Albany to do our Christmas shopping. It's our yearly holiday tradition, along with the cookies. We did Crossgates Mall, Colonie Mall, and Toys R Us. I spent almost all of Joe's bonus check, but crossed almost everyone off my list by the end of the day.

Now I just have to wait for remaining items to come in the mail, and get Xander to clean up the living room so I have room to wrap everything. Bring it on, Christmas! I'm ready!

1st Snow Day of the Season!

Wednesday dawned snowin' and blowin', and shortly after 6am I received the call. No work, no school for Xander. Our first snow day of the season! I crawled back into bed, but Xander came in around 7:30 to shake me awake because he thought we overslept. He sure was happy to have a snow day!

We lazed around for a little while, then I helped Xander assemble and decorate his new tree. He wanted one for his room, and I got this little four-footer at the Family Dollar for just $10. Perfect! Xander pulled out all of his Christmas ornaments, and I lent him some of mine.

Xander made the tree topper himself out of a toilet paper roll and items from my craft box. You can't see the back, but there's a little red Christmas present taped between the angel's wings. Not sure of the significance there, LOL!

And when I couldn't avoid it any more, I went outside into the snow to play with Xander. Actually, it felt about 30 degrees, which isn't bad when you're all bundled up. I took some pictures, then got busy building my fort so we could have our snowball fight. (I had to build mine. Xander just waited for the driveway to get plowed and he had an instant fort. Unfair!)

After I clocked Xander a few times with snowballs, he decided to try his hand at some sledding. I suggested the top of the driveway, where you can at least get a little momentum. He had a great time doing this, though I don't know how his knees aren't pulverized because of all the running and diving on the sled that he was doing. For all that my driveway resembles a luge, Xander was only able to get about halfway down before the sled stopped.

We finished off the day watching Christmas movies and drinking hot cocoa. I got almost nothing done that I'd planned on, but we sure had fun!

Gingerbread House: Fail

I have never, in my 36 years, made a gingerbread house at the holidays. I've admired some that other people did, but I honestly never saw the point of them. Well, this year my step-mother gave us a gingerbread house kit with a Snoopy theme. It seemed easy enough - four little houses, with decorations. Ha!

Apparently I lack the skill for putting these stupid little cookie houses together. The instructions on the back of the box weren't clear enough for me. Finally Xander and I just gave up. He decorated some of the individual pieces, and squirted lots of frosting into his mouth.

We managed to get only one house assembled, but not the way it was supposed to look on the box. Oh, well. Xander still have fun with it. And now I know never to do this activity again! LOL!

Another Busy Holiday Weekend

The holiday season got a good kick-off this weekend! We had Joe's big Hospice party on Friday night (I'd missed the smaller party earlier in the week because Xander was sick.) and our friend Kathy was kind enough to watch Xander for us.

Joe of course was a social butterfly, going from table to table to visit. I mostly hung out with two of his supervisors. There was also a group participation murder mystery that was pretty funny, and Joe won the 50/50 raffle! He even danced with me. Awww!


Saturday we set out for the Yankee Candle Factory Flagship store in South Deerfield, MA. We'd made the trip last year and had such a good time that we all wanted to go back. It was a 3 hour drive, but so worth it. There were plenty of photo ops available, and Joe let me take advantage of most of them (Xander wasn't so generous).

Joe and Xander made wax hand molds again, and this year also made their own jar candles. Xander loves doing that kind of hands-on stuff! We also had a nice lunch at The Chandler, the restaurant that is part of the facility there.

Of course we looked at all of the toys. Xander played with some puppets, and got to make a monkey at Yankee Candle's version of Build a Bear (I think they call it Paws & Claws). While we were waiting for Joe to finish checking out, Xander took it upon himself to reorganize the smurf display because it was too disorderly. LOL!

The highlight, and main reason we made this trip, was seeing Santa. They had a very nice set-up there, lots of trees and other bits that added to the festive atmosphere. And since the line became quite long, they had two big screen TVs mounted up on the wall that were showing Christmas movies like Rudolph and Frosty.

Santa spent a good long while chatting with Xander, and looking over the wish lists we'd all made. Xander and I got chastised for not using the word please in our letters, at which point Xander pulled out his wallet and offered Santa his $2. That's my boy, LOL! He really was a nice Santa, the best next to Santa Bill (our local Santa who no longer does regular appearances).
The ride home was long and anxious, since the weather had changed to lots of wet, snotty snow. But we finally made it and we were all exhausted after the full day we had. Next year we'll leave earlier!

Dear Santa

Last night Xander penned his first ever letter to Santa. His list is long, as you can see! I helped him spell some of the words, others he decided to do on his own. I sure hope Santa can read all of this! Xander packed up his letter and will be giving it to Santa in person when we go to see him at Yankee Candle Factory tomorrow.

Best.Advent Calendar.Ever!

Xander has gotten really into Legos this year. So it was a stroke of good luck that when we went to Borders a couple of weeks ago we saw this great Lego advent calendar. Each day you open a door and get a figure or item to put together. Xander was beside himself waiting for December 1st. And the first thing he said when he woke up yesterday morning was that he wanted to open the first door.

Day one had a Lego figure to assemble, plus some Lego snowballs for him to throw. Cute! And when the calendar is open, they include a little area with a scene that you can put all the toys on as you open each door. Xander took his first toy with him to school yesterday, and when he got home he put it back in the calendar so it wouldn't get lost.

Last night sometime after 2am, when I finished getting Xander and his room clean from him being sick (so, so nasty!) he wanted to know if it was tomorrow so he could open door two. I took pity on him since he wasn't feeling good, and let him uncover the figure behind the second door - a snowman. I'm almost as excited as he is to see what new item he'll find each day. Way better than the chocolate calendars!!