Too Many Contests!

There are almost 700 contests at Shannon’s Bloggy Giveaways tonight.  I can’t stop.  So many of them are for darling handmade items (the crocheted bonbons?  the polymer clay pendants?  the family tree print or the family name tile?).  I just can’t stop.  Forgive my bloggy silence, and head over there yourself to win some good stuff.

Game Night: Shadows Over Camelot and Colosseum

Yesterday we had a lovely Sunday afternoon visit at Leigh’s house - Aunt R came too - to watch the kids run wild, and to play a few games with the grown-ups. It was so lovely, in fact, that when we got home at 10:15 pm (after arriving at Leigh’s at about 2:45 pm), JediBoy said, “That was too short! I wanted to stay longer.”

The kids ran amok, as usual, upstairs and downstairs, playing chasing games, and tie-up-Daddy games, and a few actual board games, plus video games and watching some tv. And begging us to be let in on the grown-up games! They did set up their own game of Pirate’s Cove in the living room, and were so dear playing it.

As for us old folk, we played two good Days of Wonder games. We have grown to love and trust Days of Wonder for grown-up games as much as we love and trust Ravensburger for kids’ games. Days of Wonder is a fairly new company and has produced great games in appealing square boxes: Ticket to Ride, Mystery of the Abbey, Pirate’s Cove, Cleopatra and the Society of Architects, Memoir ‘44, BattleLore, and the two we played today, Shadows Over Camelot and Colosseum. We all have our DOW favorites, but we haven’t hit a bad game yet.

We sat down first to Shadows Over Camelot. This has been a big favorite for a few years, because it’s a collaborative game for grown-ups - not something you find very often. The game pits all the players (as knights of the Round Table) against the forces of evil. It is quite difficult to win, which makes it more addictive as we want to play it again and again and maybe win this time.

On your turn, you first must take an action for the Progression of Evil by playing a black, evil action card, placing a siege engine outside Camelot, or losing one of your life points. Then you may take an action for the side of Good by moving to a new quest, drawing white, good action cards, or playing a white action card. The fact that every move is started by an action for Evil makes the game heavily balanced towards evil, and it takes teamwork, strategy and good luck with the cards for Good to be victorious.

The knights are trying to save Excalibur from sinking, retrieve Lancelot’s armor, battle the black knight, the Picts and the Saxons, and find the Holy Grail. Simultaneously. And don’t forget that moving from one quest to another takes up your turn - and so does drawing new cards. It’s the kind of game that keeps every player involved, even during other players’ turns, because you are working hand in hand, and every Good and Evil action affects everyone.

It was the first time Leigh and Dave had played, and they seemed to enjoy it. (Yes?) I think we got into the swing of some good teamwork, but we were overwhelmed by Evil in the end. We’ll have to play it again next time and try just a little bit harder!

Then we broke out Colosseum. This is DOW’s newest game, one I got for my birthday and hadn’t played yet. The box was the same size as most DOW games, but heavier, and full of thick cardboard pieces. The rulebook was long and seemed overwhelming, but once we had read the rules and played a round, we agreed it was actually a fairly smooth running game, and certainly fun.

In Colosseum, you play Roman impresarios, hoping to earn fame and money by putting on the best Roman spectacles. It reminded a little bit of another of my favorite games, Puerto Rico, but was distinct enough to not feel like an overlapping game. In each round, players get a chance to acquire event tokens and use these to present event programs, earning points and money for the number of spectators they draw to their events.

Each of the 5 rounds has 5 phases. The starting player (which passes each round) begins by taking Phase 1 - Investing. Here, you can buy a new Event Program to be put on, expand your arena or buy season’s tickets or an Emperor’s Loge. Each player around the table then gets a chance to Invest. Phase 2 is the auction round, where the face-up event tokens in the marketplace are auctioned off. Each player gets a chance to initiate auctions. Phase 3 is a trading phase where players (again, in turn beginning with this round’s starting player) can trade, buy or sell event tokens from the other players. In Phase 4, the players present their Event Programs and add up the number of spectators they’ve been able to draw in. Phase 5 is a resetting phase, to get ready for the next round.

The Event Programs are the center of the game.

These cards have all the information for a specific program. There are 30 programs - these are programs number 10 and 16. The images below the titles match the images to be found on event tokens. In order to put on a full program of the Cavalry of Spartacus, for example, you need to have 3 gladiator tokens and 3 horse tokens. If you have a full program, you bring in 12 spectators. The Poneys of Epona (Leigh’s favorite program, right?), you need 3 gladiators, a priest, 3 horses and 2 arches. You also need to have an arena that has one expansion in the middle.

The game does take a little time to get used to how the information is presented, both on the Event Programs and on the back of your help card. But once we found our footing, we really enjoyed the game and it moved much more quickly than we thought it would. Having the auction and trading rounds leads to the player-to-player interplay and sometimes feuding fun we enjoy from Settlers, but there is a good dose of solo strategy involved in choosing what to buy when you Invest and which Programs to put on. I thought there was a good balance between those two sides of the game.

Both Shadows and Colosseum are heavier games that do best with a large group with a nice sturdy table and enough time to absorb the rules. I love games like this, though, where there’s plenty of interesting strategy to wrap your head around!

It was a great way to spend a Sunday.  We all loved our games, and BabyGirl loved… the food!

Random Art & Hair Cut

We had a nice day today. BabyGirl slept straight through last night from 9:30 until 7:15, so we were all better rested. But I wasn’t prepared when JediBoy demanded an Art Project immediately after breakfast! So I sent him to wash up, and I plopped our empty plastic grape basket down on the table. When he came back, I said, “Here’s your art project!” And here’s what he did with it:

He painted the outside with his kids’ paint-in-a-bottle and cut a hole in the top for his straw and construction paper flag. I think it was a castle. BabyGirl was busy too…

She was playing with, and chewing on, her Crayola Beginnings markers. These are marketed as great first markers for toddlers, and she loves the roly poly animal shapes. But they’re built upside-down. She really finds it easier to grab the narrow top and rub the wide base on the paper - which makes no marks at all except on her hands! Not the best design.

We read a lot today - JediBoy read aloud a whole bunch of Disney Pooh. I put away laundry, assisted by both children, which meant it took eight times longer than if I did it alone. But they always have fun helping. JediBoy and I read some books about nature and played the Labyrinth card game while BabyGirl took her nap.

Then it was finally time for a haircut. If you’ve been watching JediBoy’s hair over the months, you might be able to tell that he hasn’t had a haircut since before we left for Guatemala. It was very long - the longest he’s ever had it.

This doesn’t even show the full length in the back, but he’s never had hair in his eyes before. (He was basically bald until he was about 18 months old, and was almost 3 before he had his first haircut.) He was very friendly with the stylist and let her cut it pretty short!

I didn’t think about this until I saw this photo, but we’ve been watching a lot of NCIS on DVD lately. He totally got a Gibbs cut, didn’t he? He thought he looked good, but asked me how he could make it spiky. So we stopped at Target (I needed a few things anyway - don’t we always need a few things?) and bought him some gel. Here’s the result…

Yup, he doesn’t look like Gibbs anymore!

We had a nice dinner out with Aunt R. and then went over to the bookstore with her, where we met Leigh and company for books & cookies. JediBoy spent about half an hour curled up with Aunt R. in a comfy chair reading with her - they’d take turns each reading a page. It was a pretty comfy day all around.

Do Nothing

BabyGirl had us awake from about 2-3 am last night.  She was crying and hard to console - we’re wondering if maybe her molars are finally starting to move in.  She and JediBoy slept well after that but I was restless, so today has been a Do Nothing day.   We’ve watched some videos and made a half-hearted attempt to clean out the living room closet, pairing shin guards and folding tote bags.  We’ve talked about why your stomach pokes in when you inhale and out when you exhale, and why superballs eventually lose their bounce.  BabyGirl took a nice long nap, we’ve read a huge stack of Dr. Seuss, and the kids are munching on a snack now.

In my defense, we did a lot yesterday!  We went to another presentation at the local nature center.  This one was on “Animals in Winter” and the kids got to see preserved specimens of weasels in white and brown coats, owls, groundhogs, foxes, ducks, turtles, etc.  The presenter did a great job of explaining what various animals do in winter (migrate, hibernate, stay put) and why.  He’s great at gearing the information to the 3-5 age group, and includes motions for them to try (swimming, diving, flying like ducks) and silly suggestions (the owl wears a hat and scarf, the migrated duck gets out his cell phone to call up north and see if it’s spring yet).

After that we ran a series of errands, including picking up our group portraits from my birthday, having lunch out, and stopping by the thrift store.   JediBoy picked up a “junior” chapter book there and read it by the time we got home.  That really made him proud!

But today we needed a nice, slow day.  And another photo shoot.

Wordless Wednesday - Eyes

Blog For Choice

Today is the 35th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, and all around the blogosphere, folks are taking a moment to write about the importance of a woman’s right to choose.

You can read what Doc had to say, or Elishevah, or Toni, just a few of the bloggers who turned up with this button on my Google Reader today.

I was much more vocal on this topic when I was in college, but being a stay-at-home mom in the comfortable semi-suburbs leaves me with less opportunities to discuss heady philosophical issues, and more opportunities to discuss the everyday issues.  (Seriously.  I couldn’t make this up.  As I was typing the last sentence, my husband wandered into the office and asked, “Is the peanut butter in here?  Because I can’t find it in the kitchen.” Those are my issues now.)

But before I sign off to track down the peanut butter, I will say: IT IS A WOMAN’S RIGHT TO CHOOSE.  Choosing to have an abortion is not an easy decision, and I don’t think any woman could make it lightly.  Whatever the outcome, a pregnancy, planned or unplanned, will forever change that woman’s life.  A baby.  A baby given to another to raise.  An abortion.  A miscarriage.  None of those are things a woman can ever leave behind; those events help shape who we are, and what our life becomes.  It’s not the place of the government or any outside group to choose for me, or for you, or for the women down the street what our life becomes.

Book Basket - Africa

It occurred to me that although I’ve been changing the books in my Book Basket (my librarything widget in the sidebar), by not posting about it, I’m not creating any permanent record for myself of what books we were perusing when. So I’m going to try to post about the book basket more often, to jog my own memory later.

This week, we chose a pile of books from our Africa cubby. (Back in March I also made a post of our books from and about Africa that you can read here.) Upstairs in The Nursery, we have two bookshelves that each have 9 square cubbyholes.

They are roughly sorted - some better than others! We have a Knights, Castles & Robin Hood cubby, an Africa cubby, a Trains & Trucks cubby, a Songs & Music cubby, a Seasonal cubby, one devoted to Arthur, Franklin & Froggy, two for Dr. Seuss, one for all the best Bedtime Books, one that has big Anthologies, etc. This makes the books easier to find and easier to put away, and when the mood strikes me to read a certain kind of book, it’s easier to grab a whole bunch of them at once.

I pulled twelve books for this week’s book basket:

Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain, Galimoto, I Am Simon, Jambo Means Hello, A Life Like Mine, Madiba Magic, Moja Means One, My Painted House, My Friendly Chicken, And Me, Riddle By The River, Traveling to Tondo, We All Went On Safari, and Why Mosquitoes Buzz In People’s Ears.

Two of these (I Am Simon and Madiba Magic) my Dad brought to us from South Africa. The others have all been picked up here or there (mostly at the AAUW Used Book Sale) over the years, so you should be able to find them fairly easily here in the US.

JediBoy’s favorites so far this week are Madiba Magic, which is a collection of Nelson Mandela’s favorite folk tales, and Galimoto, which is the story of a boy who collects enough wire to build a galimoto, a push car. The book of folk tales is a favorite because he likes the style of storytelling, and the book Galimoto is a favorite because he owns his own, brought-back-from-South-Africa because-all-the-kids-there-have-one, blue galimoto safari truck.

Play Date & Sachets

To my loyal following, who today LOUDLY proclaimed I hadn’t blogged in a LONG TIME (3 days, since Thursday): here I am!

I was still not feeling very well on Friday, so we played it low-key and stayed home, read most of A House At Pooh Corner to celebrate A.A. Milne’s birthday, but didn’t make our usual honey cookies.

Saturday, JediBoy had his second soccer game.  He had such a good time, and really seemed to key in to playing positions - as usual, he loved being goalie or playing defense and staying near the goal, but for once, when his coach Mikal asked him to play offense, he really did go after the ball.  They had so much fun.

Saturday night, JediBoy went with PisecoDad and Uncle M to the hockey game, while BabyGirl and I stayed home together.

Yesterday we did a little shopping but mostly stayed home and PisecoDad watched football.

Today, we went to Heather’s house to have a play date with our other playgroup moms (my circle of friends who I met through La Leche League when JediBoy was born in 2002).  It was a good time - Heather had decided to feed the kids a “picnic” lunch in the living room, while the moms (and PisecoDad, who tagged along) ate at the table.  The kids loved it and made it a “dino picnic,” playing with dinosaurs and eating dino-shaped nuggets.

JediBoy had wanted to bring something to make with his friends, so we made Winter Sachets (Hat Tip: Theresa!) which are just so appealing to me.  We’d made a trip to the fabric store to buy a little cotton calico that was on sale, and saved our clementine peels and snipped a branch off the pine in our backyard, and even used some whole allspice.  The scent created by six kids cutting orange peels and pine needles was heavenly, and they enjoyed the time.

Bird Treats

I woke up with a terrible headache in the wee hours of the morning - one of the behind-your eye, into-your-temple, along-your-jaw, down-your-neck and across-your-shoulder ones that feels debilitating. Lucky for me, we had an activity planned at a local nature center this morning, so JediBoy had lots of fun with minimal involvement from his poor, sickly mama.

When we arrived at the center, we had a few minutes to explore their two museum rooms before the program started. JediBoy had fun being able to read the tags and informative signs. He was fascinated by the scat display!

The samples were numbered, and then the labeled pictures of animals had matching numbers on the back. He enjoyed the display of skulls too.

What did BabyGirl like?

The moose head on the wall! There were lots of others too, including a pronghorn, which JediBoy had just read about in a book the other day.

Once all the kids were there, we made our way to the downstairs meeting room. The presenter gave a talk for about 15 minutes about feeding birds, using mounted birds as examples. We got to see most of the typical feeder birds from our area - blue jay, cardinal, chickadee, mourning dove, junco, hairy and downy woodpeckers, starling and crow, sharp-shinned and Cooper’s hawks (who aren’t there for the seed!). The presenter also talked about what’s in different blends of birdseed and what to look for when you’re buying it.

Then the kids got down & dirty. They made four different kinds of bird treats.

JediBoy mixes cornmeal into peanut butter and shortening. They stirred and mixed, and then kneaded, until it was the consistency of playdough.

They made balls of the mixture and wrapped them up in netting, and made similar feeders from straight suet.

JediBoy pokes a piece of yarn through a hole in the center of a slice of corn cob to make a hanging corn feeder.

Last but not least, everyone’s favorite! Slather a pine cone (actually a spruce cone!) with peanut butter and roll in birdseed.

JediBoy had a good time (and learned that he liked the taste of peanut butter mixed with shortening and cornmeal - ugh!) and was very interested and involved both in the presentation and in the museum displays upstairs. I drove us straight home afterwards and took some medicine for my head, which took an hour to kick in, then made me woozy for a bit, and has now made me sick to my stomach, but at least the headache is gone. BabyGirl is napping, and JediBoy is watching a new Hard Hat Harry dvd that we bought at the latest Barnes & Noble Buy 2 Get 1 Free DVD Sale.  The snow is starting to fall and I’m very ready to tuck in for the evening.

Wordless Wednesday: Feet