Cousins

It makes me happy that my kids are friends with their cousins on my side of the family. I was Smunch's age before my first cousin was even born, so it makes it that much more fun to see my kids interacting with my sister's boys.

Given my general success with Christmas photos, you might wonder why I'd be interested in taking all the kids to a cheap studio for photographs, but it's kind of fun to have someone else do the work from time to time.

Thankfully, we scheduled these photos for Saturday. Although Lucas! had taken several face-altering tumbles by then and Spencer! had given himself a goose egg on the forehead the previous afternoon, Lucas! had a couple more tumbles after this, making it look like he'd been in an altercation with an angry guinea pig...and Smunch hadn't yet been hit in the face with a baseball.

Hard to believe Mam's the only one who survived the holidays intact, but then, we've got a couple days left...

Images of Christmas

...with apologies for the fact that small, excited children do not stand still enough for decent photos on Christmas morning, but then it wouldn't be Christmas if they did.

Even people with the patience of Aunt Karen need a little glass o' sumthin during the holidays

No shortage of presents

The very beginning of the early morning blur

Lucas and his "Mickey Balls"

Mam is excited to try painting by numbers

Smunch is pretty psyched to have finger LEDs

Homemade cinnamon rolls

Homemade cinnamon pull-apart

Yummiest breakfast of the year

Grandpa helps break in the new Hot Wheels

Sergio Romo's Fire, Take 2

Remember this?

When I wrote my blog post about carving this pumpkin, I ended it with:

"And then I enjoyed watching people notice it as they came to the door. That's the most fun of all...unless I get to go give a picture of it to Sergio Romo. Now THAT would be a blast!"

Well, guess what?

Gotta tell you, this guy ROCKS. He was really cool about the picture...once he figured out what it was. They hurry you along at a ridiculous pace at these "signings". So when I leaned over and asked Mr. Romo if he'd hold onto the picture while I took a photo, I got some harsh admonishments from the dude whose job it is to make sure the line keeps moving, but it was worth that and then some. Romo made sure I knew he thought it was awesome as I scurried away.

Before that whole event, of course, there was this:

And a couple hours before that, there was this:

Smunch isn't likely to make it to the big leagues, but who knows? Maybe he can talk his way in, if he knows the right people.

The day started off with this:

I've written so much about this dude in the past year that it's just crazy to think what a joke he was just a year ago. This year, he was something else. Thank you, Barry Zito, and your beautiful curveball. Sorry I didn't carve a pumpkin for you too. You're just too pretty.

Now, all the Giants need is a Cy Young-award-winning knuckleballer and we're all set for 2013.

Shiny

It has "mood lighting", this new kitchen range of mine. It looks cool, but I can't quite imagine what it's useful for. I think it's funny.

You know what's not funny? Having the ability to cook things. That's not funny at all. I finally have a range where the pancakes don't run to one side of the griddle all the time, the burners always light and the oven keeps a constant temperature. In fact, the ovens WORK!

You might remember this pitiful hulk of a range from my previous post about its untimely demise...or you might not. I spent far too much energy fretting about how much I liked my black oven and how I wasn't going to be able to get another one. I guess that's the sign of someone who's truly got nothing better to do. Turns out a stainless oven is just fine.

It's shiny, it heats fast, the granite counters on either side look great, despite the installers having to shave an inch off each side to get the new range in. I can make an awful lot of cookies at once in the big oven...at least I could, if I had that many cookie sheets.

I'm looking forward to many tasty years together.