the last Christmas party

Tonight we had our good friends over to celebrate the holiday. Dave and Ellen brought Chloe, and she and Dennis exchanged gifts. Hadden and Jennifer also came, and over the course of the evening, Mom and Dad and Uncle Denny trickled in. We ate pizza and had great conversation and watched the baby floor show. I just knew that when they went to bed, we'd get out the board games or turn on the Wii and have some big kid fun. But when the babies hugged everyone goodnight, they all left! Oh, well. We had a good time anyway, and Dave and Ellen stayed the night, so we played Wii and board games. We started out with a couple of rounds of The Game of Real Life, which is quite hilarious (and a real eye-opener)--gameofreallife.com if you're interested. Ellen won the first game and in the second round we all died in a nuclear war.

Mom enjoyed very much her iphone learning session as Hadden demonstrated all the super cool things he can do with his phone. I have wanted an iphone for quite a while, but now that AT&T has requested that we find other service (since we used too many towers that weren't theirs), it looks like I won't get one ever. This is not a terrible tragedy, as I have mobile internet on my aircard (which will probably soon be a Verizon aircard). Also, Dennis mutilated my current cell phone and I'd hate to see what he'd do with one I actually had to pay for (especially if it was expensive).

Chloe and family gave Dennis a very nice Tonka play mat with roads on it that he can drive his cars and trucks around on, but so far he's mostly used it for dancing. Dennis (and his parents) gave Chloe a Fisher Price pop-up camper playset complete with car, camper, sleeping bags, campfire, camp chairs, cooler, fishing rod, and two Little People girls, and both kids enjoyed playing with it. Dennis has a pop-up camper playset as well, but it's vintage Fisher Price because the new one is very pink and purple, and it stays in our pop-up camper. He and Chloe enjoyed playing in his new kitchen and Chloe taught him that it's most efficient to dump everything out on the floor so that it's easier to find the things you want to cook.

It was a nice evening with friends. And it was nice to have people over at the house again. For one, we have a nice house for entertaining, and for two, it gave me a good reason to dust! I just wish we weren't coughing so much that we frightened our guests. I'd like to think that we've already passed the bulk of our sickness, and it didn't happen here at our house but in Washington instead. And I did give all the surfaces a good cleaning. I just know we'll be getting well any minute now!