Ringing in the new year with the folks.

 A few days after Christmas, my parents flew in for a visit.

So the kids had a second round of presents and holiday cheer!

The kids were so excited!

My parents are in their mid 60s, but you'd never know it by their boundless energy.  They are the most attentive and fun grandparents you can imagine.

 They wanted Grandma and Grandpa to watch Despicable Me.

 Tommy and Grandma doing a New Year's Eve conga.

 New Year's Eve wouldn't be complete without noisemakers!

 Wes had to go to work but I managed to sneak in a quick photo before he left.

 

As we start this new year, I resolve to take nothing for granted, to appreciate every moment, at home, at work, with my family and friends.

Cheers!

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. 

Preparing for the holidays.

 I'm a bit behind in my posting because we've been having SO MUCH FUN!

It started with decorating for the holiday, and getting ready for Christmas card photos. 

It's torture a fun afternoon of getting toddlers dressed up and using a variety of bribes and threats keeping them smiling and interested while I desperately try to get a few decent photos for a card.

It's so hard to get all three looking at the camera and smiling at the same time.

We were so close with this one, but Tommy...

This one made the card.

 So did this one.

 We couldn't manage a hugging photograph that worked.

 Not sure what they were looking at, but it wasn't the camera.

 Crazy eyes.

 Duck face.

 A little clowing around.

 And we're still trying.

We managed to get some decent pics, and I found a deal on overnight shipping from Snapfish, so we had them in time to actually mail so people would receive them by Christmas....except I didn't order enough, so not everyone did....and I got to pay for rush shipping a second time, for the second wave of cards.  But they got done, and we were ready to celebrate!

 

And in crazy child utterances this month:

Dani informed me at bedtime yesterday that she wishes she was a boy "because it's more fun to be a boy because they have wee wees and get to have the boy toys at McDonalds".

Tori's favorite thing is to replace words with "poop", and she walks around singing "Frosty the Snowpoop" and all manner of silly poop related things.  Tommy then mimics her.  Yikes.

Driving in a car with Tommy results in yells of RED LIGHT STOOOOOOOOOOOP at the top of his lungs every time we see a light.