Best Christmas in Review

You know those blogs run by parents where it's just pictures of their little kids? Today this is pretty much one of those blogs. But it was Christmas time and I was at home and so were Kristen and Cory so that meant the house was full of babies and Brigham/Blake-Rachel-Ellie relations were at an all time high. Let us review the days...

Christmas

The morning began with the traditional assembling and anticipating around the landing.


Matthew 7:3


Then down we went for the presents.







Later on that day, Kristen and Cory played Wii for the first time.


The Day After Christmas

We all went to the neighborhood ice rink for the thrill of watching first time skaters.




Ellie did not skate.



That night the family visited Las Fuentes where I filled up completely on salsa, chips, and nachos.


Mexican Food + Baby=


Thursday

The important thing that happened on Thursday is that I whipped up a dinner of chicken parts in tomatillo sauce and everyone loved it! Everyone!




Don't believe the face! Moments later Blake would say it was delicious!


Friday

Christmas time equals eating, okay? Friday we had Johnnie's for lunch.


When I took the above picture Rachel could tell she didn't fit so she insisted on her own...


Which lead to this...


Not that I'm complaining.

Friday night we watched the Nanny Diaries which was just awful.

Saturday

Saturday morning we went and had wild breakfasts at the Bongo Room. We had to split ourselves up between two tables. The Edwards table.


And the other table.


Now, I don't mean to cause any trouble, but do you think Rachel might have a favorite uncle? Or at least just at this one meal?


I had the BLT Eggs Benedict:


This is the baby:


Saturday night was Greg's Eagle Court of Honor. This was pretty much my reason for staying through the weekend, to take my spot in the Eagle's Nest that night.


This is me and Greg and Terry Jones who has camped with every single Barnes there is.


Remember Owen's Court of Honor?
Later Saturday night we watched Stardust. The most popular review I heard from friends this summer was that the movie was "surprisingly good" (or "surprisingly enjoyable.") And I must say that's how I felt, this was a surprisingly good little fantasy movie. Later, I'd return it and Nanny Diaries to the wrong Blockbuster. Oh well.

Sunday

Sunday morning I woke up and discovered that Kristen, Cory, and their children were gone, leaving only these odd little snow people behind.





And that's pretty much what Christmas time was this year. Soon I'll be flying back to New York and getting back to whatever it is I do with my days. Sending out
resumes? I suppose that's what I do.

Best Starting the Day

This is how the cat starts his day around here:

Best Holiday Surprise

I don't know where anyone got the idea that I needed new slippers.

Best to the Rescue

I love the hot and sour soup from the JFK Terminal 4 Wok n Roll SO MUCH that I couldn't resist going down to the airport this afternoon for a cup.


Just kidding! If you've been reading Cindy's blog then you know she was stranded at JFK today so I had to go do what I could (not very much) to make her day less terrible. Don't worry guys, she's going to make it to London. I saw her go through security myself.



No, this picture is not mine. But how boring would a post with just two pictures be? Answer: Very.

Best Supper

Tonight I made myself some aglio olio spaghetti. With about $2.00 (generous estimation) worth of ingredients I have produced a pound of fairly decent food. When poverty calls, this will be my meal. Now I must deal with garlicky fingers, though. It seems every recipe I get involved with these days requires the slicing of many, many cloves of garlic and the slowly cooking of that garlic in olive oil.

Tomorrow I think I'll try to develop a new hamburger. Tomorrow or Sunday. This is what I do when no one else is in New York!

Best Effort

This is me at the Newark Airport after missing my flight* to Copenhagen.


Sorry, friends. No surprise trip to Europe this year.

*A flight, which, it turns out, filled up completely at the last second so I couldn't have gotten on anyway. So I was doubly defeated or didn't lose anything, depending on how you look at it.

Also, PS: If you decide to stay in New York until Christmas Eve you'll discover no one else made the same decision as you.

Best I've Been Tagged!

UPDATE: All these photos and many more can now be seen at Emily's blog where she gives the Christmas parties of last week proper attention. Link

When I logged onto Facebook this morning I saw that I had been tagged! Four times! In photos by Emily! "Oh my," I thought. "These must be pictures from some of the various Christmas parties of the past few weeks." And they were! I looked at these pictures and thought, "Boy, I like to mug, be caught off guard, or look cheesey."

See for yourself:

Best Use of the Old Noggin'

I found this logic puzzle on the internet today and spent some very pleasant and enjoyable time this afternoon solving it. It's like one of the old analytical reasoning problems I used to do for the LSAT but with a whole lot more variables. I invite you to give it a shot.

There are 5 houses each with a different color. Their owners, each with a unique heritage, drinks a certain type of beverage, smokes a certain brand of cigarette, and keeps a certain variety of pet. None of the owners have the same variety of pet, smoke the same brand of cigarette or drink the same beverage.

Clues:

* The Brit lives in the red house.
* The Swede keeps dogs as pets.
* The Dane drinks tea.
* Looking from the front, the green house is just to the left of the white house.
* The green house's owner drinks coffee.
* The person who smokes Pall Malls raises birds.
* The owner of the yellow house smokes Dunhill.
* The man living in the center house drinks milk.
* The Norwegian lives in the leftmost house.
* The man who smokes Blends lives next to the one who keeps cats.
* The man who keeps a horse lives next to the man who smokes Dunhill.
* The owner who smokes Bluemasters also drinks beer.
* The German smokes Prince.
* The Norwegian lives next to the blue house.
* The man who smokes Blends has a neighbor who drinks water.

Who owns the pet fish?

So, indeed, who owns the pet fish?

Here's another one I found, far less complicated than the first:

As Miss Nozemoke entered the interview room, her host told her to keep eye contact with Mr. Lighter, since he would be the one making the final decision in her case. "However," he continued, "the men routinely change positions, but I can give you some clues that you can use to figure out who is sitting where." Miss Nozemoke mentally numbered the men 1 to 4 from left to right and used the clues to figure out where Mr. Lighter was seated.

Can you figure out where Mr. Lighter is sitting?

Clues:

* The pipe smoker will sit to the right of Mr. Lighter.
* Mr. Crumpet does not smoke cigarettes.
* Neither Mr. Crumpet nor Mr. Tray will sit in the third position.
* The cigarette smoker will sit to the immediate left of Mr. Small.
* Mr. Crumpet will not smoke cigars.
* The cigarette smoker is just to the right of the cigar smoker.
* The cigar smoker is sitting on the end.

Best Big Reveal

Thanks for all the 7 yr old girl input, everyone. Friday after Temple I went down to Toys R Us and did the best I could...I wound up buying a doll of Giselle from Enchanted and some Littlest Pet Shop animals. Deciding on these two items was not easy, I found myself near tears as I wandered the crowded aisles of the store with the weight of a young girl's Christmas on my shoulders. Since I didn't know much (or anything at all, really) about my girl I'll admit it, I wondered if I should be buying a white doll or not but I figured since it was a doll based on a character from a movie skin color wasn't an issue as it was a representation of a semi-person...I just have to hope that my girl has seen or heard of Enchanted, that's all.

Also, going into Friday, I knew I wouldn't be getting any Bratz dolls because I'm not going to play that large of a role in the downfall of society.

And I couldn't get any High School Musical stuff because I don't know what that movie is about so there's just a disconnect that I struggle with.

Best In Over My Head

I'm supposed to donate two presents for a 7 year old girl tomorrow night.
What in the world do 7 year old girls like?
There is no question I feel less capable of answering than that one.

Best I Saw Art

Last week on maybe Wednesday or Thursday I saw art at the Jack Shainman gallery because Brooke and Collin were working there and the art was supposed to be good.

The art was by Bharti Kher. It represented a lot of ideas and there were lots of bindi dots.






Brooke said these were snake bindi dots. Are you going to disagree with Brooke?




Hooray for art!