Daddy's Brewery

So Daddy has these obsessions.; these things he gets in his head that he loves or that he should be doing. He likes beer, so why not make his own? One of the residents in a lower year is some champion brewer and I guess he has been picking his brain. Right before Christmas he decided that he needed to start brewing his own beer. His claim was that it would save us so much money. After admitting that this was a poor excuse, he was still stuck. Thankfully his parents were still looking for a present for him and got him a Mr. Beer. Yes, that is the name. Anyway, he is in heaven. You brew the beer for two weeks in the basement and then bottle it for at least a week before drinking. He got to try his first this week and thought it was really good. His other two have been a little flat, so he is brewing more to see how he can balance the carbonation. Each keg makes 16 20oz bottle, so of course we need more:) He is trying to give some away so he will have enough bottles.

Carly and Joiner think this is amazing. They want to go check on Daddy's "Beard" every night when he comes home. Now that he can drink them, they need details about each bottle. As they can not taste it, they want a list of who will drink it. Mommy is not interested, but it is less invasive than I imagined it would be.

Carrying the potty stoll to see better

Family Event!

Fish Tank

So, I won't start this post by saying how sad it is that I can't get it together to post much these days. Not much anyway:)

So back to the past, I am posting pictures of the girls putting together their new fish tank. You can see Christmas decorations up, so you know these are old. Our fish are Clara, Nutcracker, Fitz, and Drosselmeyer. Remember the Nutcracker? We have 3 tetras and 1 algae-eater.

Helping daddy with the set-up

Feeding the fish.

The girls do this on their own with the stool both at breakfast and at bath time. They only forget occasionally, and I think that is pretty good considering that the fish don't stand next to you and act famished like Belle does:)

Our fish

Christmas

So I am really behind again with the blog. Sorry, I don't know where the time goes. I will start with Christmas pictures. We start the morning each year with baked French toast and chicken sausage. It is nice to get up and just relax, eat, and focus on why we are even having Christmas. This year the girls were really into the Santa idea and were READY! So after a yummy breakfast and Belle running away in the pouring rain (long story) we went downstairs to where Santa comes. I don't know why all the pictures are blurry this year, but I guess it is a good measure of how excited the girls were!

Joiner coming down to see the loot! Look hard, she is really blurry.

Carly circulating

Opening stockings

Finding the Santa pile. This year Santa brought new babies, accesories, and a Zippity game system.

Joiner got a bathtub baby(you can really give it a bath) and Carly got a ba-ba baby (has a paci and cries)

Each got a new outfit with a furry vest. As of today (1/6) neither has one any part of the outfit but the vest and we wear these daily! I wish Santa had realized they only wanted vests!

Caga and Daddy opening presents with Carly and Joiner's help, of course.

Daddy is a coffee snob and he only likes his mochas with Ghiradelli chocolate sauce that you can only buy from coffee retailers in a 64oz container with a pump. He has looked all over for it to no avail. So, we got him that! If you need really rich chocolate sauce, you know where to find us.

Grumpa opening his ball thrower for Gus

Joiner opening more presents apparently very fast!

More presents...got to love Cootie!

Reindeer Daddy with Carly (her backpack baby), Gigi, and Joiner

Andy has no black coats that are not fleece, so we all gave him a new black coat. Here he is in all three black coats he received! We didn't plan this!

One of Carly and Joiner's teachers makes beautiful jewelry and we gave Gigi a necklace and earrings. She is very brave to let Joiner help her put them on!

It was a very fun day. The guys all huddled outside in the cold rain to smoke the turkey and it was wonderful. We got up early the next day to head to ATL to see the Evans' and it was a great time there as well. I have no pictures of that. I let Mamie take over with her new camera while we were there. If I get any, I will post them.

Happy New Year!