Christmas time is here!

 Two weeks before Christmas we got SNOW!  Lots of it.  It was light and powdery, and no good for snowman making, but the kids had a blast.  Tommy was too little to really go out in the snow last year, so this was his first time in a snowsuit playing.  The snow was up to his waist, and he really couldn't move around too easily.  Once we convinced him to stop taking off his gloves, he had a pretty good time.

Tori decided that slides and swings are even more fun in winter!

 And then it was Christmas.  This was the first year we stayed home.  I was really kind of bummed about it at first-we have some local family that we always spend Christmas with, and we decided that a 3 hour round trip with the kids wasn't going to work this year.  I told Wes we still needed to dress up and do Christmas dinner right.  So, we did, and it was lovely.  I made a turkey, prime rib, mashed potatoes, rutabagas, sweet potatoes, veggies, bread, stuffing, and a cheesecake.  Needles to say we were eating leftovers for days!

The kids had fun--Tommy's old enough this year to understand the concept of presents, and we watched all the Christmas shows together--Hoops and Yoyo Ruin Christmas being the favorite of everyone (except Wes).

 Wrapping each kid's presents in different wrapping paper makes life a million times easier.

 Tablets for everyone.  Totally cheap Droid tablets ($59 each) that will keep their grubby mitts off my Nexus.

 Santa did not have a goddamn clue  appreciate quite how large the playhouse was going to be--it is two rooms and takes up almost the entire playroom.

 We put on our Christmas dresses and had a lovely dinner.

It was a great day.

As we move into 2014, I'm feeling a bit inspired.

I lost another classmate last week--this time to a heart attack.  And another close friend has cancer.

As Gru would say, "Light bulb."

I'd like to start doing a better job of appreciating what I have--of making better use of my time--paying more attention to Wes and the kids when I'm home and drawing a better line between work and family, and taking better care of myself in the process.

Cheers. 

New camera, just playing around.

So, I've barely read the instructions, but have fired up the new camera...it's a Nikon Coolpix L110.  Super zoom and tons of features, although I must confess already that I wish I had the dough to spring for a digital camera with a lens you can adjust with your hands, by turning it in a circle, old skool style, but, the ol' wallet isn't there yet! 

Anyway, I went to a Chamber of Commerce event tonight, and brought a few balloons home for Dani, who was thrilled, yelling "balloons", and even Tori was fixated on the bright colors.

Dani and I played around with the camera this morning---she wouldn't sit still!

Unlike Dani, Tori, at 8 weeks old, does the sitting still thing pretty well.  It's amazing how different she looks in different pictures and poses, like a different baby.

I am really looking forward to better photos and videos with this new camera...now I just need a new laptop to use it! 

coming soon--photos!

We haven't exactly entered the digital age here at casa de B. My desktop computer is from my first year of law school (2001); my laptop is pretty old too, old enough not to have a single input for a digital camera memory card, I learned today. But that's okay, I don't actually own a digital camera. I use film.

But tonight I borrowed my friend Dave's digital camera, as I'd like to post photos. I just thought I'd take a bunch of pictures of things I'd eventually want to write about, and have them saved into my hard drive for that time. And, I didn't really want to have to ask Dave to download and burn a cd with pictures of the cats, my pimpin' Buick, or the other random shit I wanted to take pictures of. But, my laptop does not have a slot for a memory card. Neither does my PC, but it does take floppy discs (yes it's that old.) So, good ol' Dave will have to burn me a CD or email me the pics, so they will be along eventually. It was funny, when he offered to upload (download?) the photos if my machines were too obsolete I told him that they weren't the kind of photos that I wanted him to see. (hmmm.) He said, "oh, private photos," and was thinking, no doubt that lysol wipes would be needed to sterilize the camera upon return, and probably wishing he didn't agree to loan me the camera (and hoping to hell I knew how to delete, lest he see the deviant photos I was sure to take). To which I replied, "No, just pictures of dumb shit for my blog." He was probably relieved.

So, trip to the OB tomorrow. I'll get to see the little lentil bean as I'm scheduled for an ultrasound. I'll also get to see if the fibroid grew at all. Hoping that works out okay.

I do have a scanner--also circa about 2001, but that means if I get an ultrasound photo, I can post it! So stay tuned!