Our First (Married) Christmas

Did you all have a fabulous Christmas? We did! Because for the first time, we were married.

We were lucky enough to celebrate Christmas [including opening presents] three different times this year! We started on the 23rd at T's Uncle's house:

Remote control bumper cars were a hit!

The we migrated down I-80 to Grandma and Grandpa Stoecker's in Grand Island:

The tradition at Grandma and Grandpa's house is to eat chili and oyster stew for dinner on Christmas Eve, open presents, and drink Tom and Jerrys. This year, the local store was out of Tom and Jerry batter so we had to resort to the homemade stuff. We used this recipe:

Finally, we spent Christmas Day at my family's house. This year after we opened presents (and took naps) we played some holiday-themed minute-to-win-it games:

Games (as the name says, you must complete the task in one minute):

-Hanky Panky: pull all tissues from a box using only one hand

-Christmas Cliffhanger: blow Christmas Cards across a table and get one to hang on the edge

-Name that Carol Race: Use this document and see who can name the most

-Stack Attack: build a cup pyramid with 28 red, Solo cups

-Hung with Care: balance candy canes on a taught string

-Mega Bubble Blower: choose any number of bubble gum and blow the biggest bubble

-Christmas Ball Conveyor: Using scarves wrapped around two players, move ornaments to the string

-Face the Gingerbread Man: Using only your face, get the gingerbread man cookie into your mouth

-Jingle Box: shake all of the jingle bells out of the empty kleenx box tied to your waist

Christmas Cliffhanger

Stack Attack

Name that Carol

Mega Bubble Blower

And a taste of what these games are like with our wild bunch: 

Maybe next year I will get out my video camera so you don't have to watch the grainy digital camera videos.. whoops

Finally, if you are wondering, we got "hooked up fat" this year:

Our two favorite gifts are probably our new mixer and fryer:

I know, it's basically a sin to use a fryer as a steamer-- but delicious!

 The first thing I made with the Kitchen Aid:



Don't get too impressed, its just instant butterscotch pudding.

But, then I made Ryan a birthday cake:

Recipe here

 Lunch at Hu Hot for Ryan's birthday:

 We hope you all had a fabulous Christmas and we wish you a fantastic New Year!