St. Valentine!

Happy St. Valentines day everyone! I know most of you are probably thinking Valentines day is a day all about love and sappy stuff like that, but no, it’s MANLY! It celebrates the martyrdom of a priest, who the Romans killed because he refused to stop performing the sacrament of matrimony… Okay so it’s a little sappy… But it’s mostly MANLY!!!

Groundhog Day!

It’s Groundhog Day!… again. For some reason I have been reliving today for about… 37 days now. It’s really annoying and I don’t know how to stop it. If there is any popular movie or something like that, that is similar to this, if someone could tell me about it so that I can get some reference, I would really appreciate it. But you’ll have to tell me today because you won’t remember tomorrow.

It’s Finally Here!

Happy Friday the 13th!  I know you might not be as excited as I am, but for me this is like winning a raffle.  It’s finally happened! The fabled day of bad luck and disaster!

Every Friday the 13th is like a holiday for me.  No I don’t get presents or the day off school (I’m actually at school right now).  I don’t even eat anything special, it’s more like the little holidays, like president day or boxing day, that don’t have any real traditions and don’t do anything, but look good on a calendar.

 

On the Twelfth Day of Christmas My Family Gave to Me…

Instruments!

Were a family band, and a rather big family, so we already own: a piano, a cocktail drum set, three trombones, three or four trumpets, two alto saxophones, a tenor saxophone, three clarinets, multiple woodblocks, a glockenspiel (great name, huh?), harmonicas galore, a coronet, and an upright bass.  Despite the vastness of our instrument collection, the presents we opened today were all different and all instruments we didn’t already own!

From left to right: ukulele, thunder tube, double mijwiz, pan flute, thumb piano, bird whistle, frog tone block, ocarina, slide whistle, and xylophone.

Truly an impressive feat.  The instruments were received with much excitement and rambunctious noise.  The instruments don’t really belong to any member of the family, instead, they all belong to everyone.

 

On the Eleventh Day of Christmas My Family Gave to Me…

Crafts!

In case you can’t tell from the picture, Dad got a coloring book for his favorite holiday movie, the Christmas classic, Die Hard!The authorized coloring book.  This was the only day that Mom took charge of this Christmas that Dad didn’t know what he was getting.  He was quite surprised

I am writing this post on the evening of the eleventh day, while my father and I watch this feel good, Christmas show and all I can think is that I should have taken pictures of the gifts individually to highlight how cool they are (I took the pictures in the morning just after we opened the gifts).  Unfortunately, now everyone is playing with their crafts (including Dad) so I will have to make do cropping the original picture.

Mom got these
A paper doll chain of robots!

Nicholas can now create puppets!Although, I can’t help but feel he got this gift because it had a cowboy on the package.

I now have four paper automatas (I don’t know what the word means either, but they’re little machines that move when you turn a crank) to cut out, fold, and glue together.

Jonathan got a connect the dot book, but not a little kid connect the dots.  No, this is a big, one-thousand dot book (the book doesn’t have a thousand dots, every puzzle does!).  To make the gift even cooler the pictures are all Marvel characters.  The only problem with the booklet is that the numbers for the dots are tiny!  Well at least Jonathan has a use for his new, pocket microscope.

Now Nathaniel got a very cool gift, he can now make fifty paper monsters!Nathaniel and I really like monsters, not that we like monsters, but we find them interesting artistically, so this was a very good gift.

Speaking of artistically Anne got these very cool mid-century modern style birds.
Yes, she had already built them ten minutes after she opened them!

Christopher got dragons and wizards to construct.
What more can I say, dragons are cool!

Now as I’m sure you noticed from the big picture someone broke the theme a little.  It was Robert, I mean Lego is a craft, but it’s not a paper craft, but Robert hadn’t gotten any Lego this year so Mom wanted to give him a set yesterday. This was a set from Lego’s new Lego Batman movie (or is it Lego Batman Movie).

With another Christmas wish fulfilled, we move to Veronica.  She got this craft set of paper dolls.In conclusion another fun and exiting day.  Tomorrow, the Twelfth Day!

On the Ninth Day of Christmas My Family Gave to Me…

Books!

Nicholas, Jonathan, and I all got our school books for the next semester.  Scholastic books are really boring so I won’t bother taking pictures, but I will show you the younger children’s books.

Nathaniel’s
Anne’s
Christopher’s
Robert’s
Veronica’s (I think she already finished it!)

I don’t know anything about these books, but they look really cool.  Maybe my siblings will tell you about them in a future blog post!

On the Eighth Day of Christmas My Family Gave to Me…

Oh so many wondrous things!

January first was the little boy’s day of Christmas, so it was also a big day.  They gave Dad two rotatable, clip-on lights.  Dad has been saying for a while that he needed a lights to see the sound mixer inside our custom radio speaker, but the speaker is another story.
They gave Mom new disks for her brand new sewing machine.  These make the sewing machines perform different, special stitches and Mom really wanted them, so these were a great gift.

Next Nicholas got a pair of spurs.
You know, to wear with his cowboy boots.

I got an expansion pack for my new game!We’ve been playing the game a lot since I got it and I really wanted this expansion, but I never thought the little boys would get it for me.

Christopher and Robert gave Jonathan a Lego set much like the one I got a few days ago, but this set has Spider-man and The Green Goblin!

Nathaniel also got Lego.  His was a Galaxy Squad set.

 In my opinion, Galaxy Squad is one of the coolest Lego themes in the last ten years.

Anne got a book, but not just any book, she got “Jean Craig Finds Romance.”  Anne had the first two Jean Craig books and really wanted the third.

Robert also gave Christopher Galaxy Squad Lego.

Christopher gave Robert more art supplies: tracing paper, mechanical pencils, and a pack of Sharpies.

Despite the great gifts we all received the highlight of the evening was Veronica receiving her gift.  There’s something uniquely amusing about a seven year old girl unwrapping the that box, clutching it excitedly to her bosom and shouting, “Tiny Girl!”

Apparently Veronica owned this set several years ago and named the robot Tiny Girl.  The set has long since been lost to the mixed Lego and Veronica has been trying to rebuild her.  I’m really glad Veronica liked her gift, but who would have guessed that this set would be named Tiny Girl.