• The holidays might be over, but this PvZ gingerbread house is just too awesome. Check out Radical Entertainment’s Facebook Page to see more game-themed gingerbread houses!

• Naturally, everyone wants to know how the EA acquisition has affected PopCap studios. Peggle Franchise Director, Joe McDonagh says that “nothing has really changed.” Read his interview with the Games.com blog for more of this thoughts on the EA acquisition, the potential of working with other companies like Bioware & Playfish and the future of 4th & Battery.

• We’ve all been there — been so engrossed in a video game, that we’re shocked to see the sun come up. Peggle makes the list of Rookie mag’s games that make you say “Oh hell, it’s 5 AM?!?!?”

• It’s awards season! And PopCap has been nominated for a few notable ones:
• Bookworm is nominated for “Best Word Game” in 148App’s Best App Ever Awards
• Allied Star Police is nominated for the Best Community Interaction award by 7BitArcade. Feel free to vote for us.

At PopCap, we just like making people happy by creating great games.

To me, that’s a pretty sweet mission. And there’s no better example than the folks in our studio who recently helped transform 10-year-old Owain Weinert’s idea for a video game into a reality.

Owain was referred to us by the Make-A-Wish Foundation last spring during our semi-annual PopCamp week. For those of you who missed it, you can read the story about Owain and his game, Allied Star Police, on our website.

Well, Allied Star Police launched last month on the Apple App store and quickly earned a 5-star rating. To date over 900 people have posted reviews. Here’s just a sample:

“Truly a great game”

“I can’t stop playing!”

“This is a must-have application for gamers on the iPad!”

Owain’s game has received lots of well-deserved attention from the press too, both here and abroad. We also we got a very nice plaque from the Make-A-Wish foundation thanking us for our work.

But for the team that worked on Allied Star Police the real reward was making one kid happy. Plain and simple: they did it for Owain. As one producer said, “When Owain came to PopCap’s offices he was completely focused and in the moment. Everything else — pain, medical stuff he was going through, whatever — it just disappeared when he played his game.”

Pretty awesome, right?

So thank you, to the producers, artists, QA testers, and all the other behind-the-scenes folks (you know who you are) that helped make Owain’s wish come true. You’re why I’m proud to say I work at PopCap.

(And if you still haven’t downloaded the game what are you waiting for? It’s fun and it’s FREE!)

And… what are the results? Watch the game trailer for Owain’s game — Allied Star Police!

Allied Star Police is available now for free in the iTunes store.

You can also learn more about Owain’s story here.

Joining such uniquely named teams as Team Red, Team Seattle and Team Kidney Stone, our three PopCap teams – Unpleasant Horsepower, Skid Marks and Karts vs. Zombies – contributed over $3,700 to help with uncompensated health care for patients at Seattle Children’s Hospital.

After two hours of kart-racing and much fun and dizziness, the 108 participants raised a total of $50,000 for a worthy cause. Bravo!