Merry Christmas!

You couldn't have asked for better weather in Kansas City for Christmas - 65 degrees and sunny.

After spending most of Christmas Eve prepping for Christmas dinner, I took a few minutes to relax in front of the tree before Violet, Lincoln and Hazel tore through all the presents.

I'm always trying to think of new and exciting things for Michael, Melissa and Jamie to do besides watch the kids open presents. So this year I created a gift card game. Jamie accused me of making up the rules as they went along (which is partially correct) but the object of the game was to pick a gift card box from the pile or steal a gift card from someone else - sort of like the white elephant gift game. However complicated or simplistic it sounds, they had a fun time. Even Violet and Lincoln were patient enough to wait for the game to be over before they opened their presents.

This was Hazel's first Christmas and she loved her basket of goodies.

After what is becoming our traditional barbecue dinner, Violet and Lincoln headed outside to play with a new rocket type toy from Michael. Before long, plastic rockets were on the roof and another is permanently stuck at the top of the tree in Mrs. Totta's yard. I'm on guard duty just in case it happens to fall out of the tree.

I got a bunch of new electronic toys including a Ring video doorbell, Amazon's Echo Show and wireless headphones. Hopefully I'll be able to figure out how to use all these new devices in the next month or two.