New Year's Resolution

 

I'm not making any officially resolutions this year except to try to remember the above sentiment every time I start to doubt myself and feel like I'm not doing enough.

 

See you in 2016!

New Year's Eve

It's the last night of 2015 and we just got home from a 4:00pm party at Chelsea and Mike's house to celebrate!  The decorations were beautiful, the food was delicious, and the company was great.

As per normal, Stevie was ridiculed for drinking chocolate milk (tonight in a wine glass) but, as a result of karma, Dad broke one of the new (Walmart special) wine glasses right before the champagne toast.  Speaking of the champagne toast....thanks to Netflix we were able to do a full countdown to the new year at 7:00pm!  Brilliant!

I don't have any profound or even moderately intelligent words to close up the year so I'll just say this:
-I love my family more than anything
-I will continue to try to make every day and moment with them count
-I'm so excited about our new house, so thankful to Stevie for all the hard-work, and looking so forward to making it our HOME!

Happy New Year!

Taco Tuesday!

Tuesday was Taco Tuesday at Grandma Barbara's house!  Cindy and Dean and the girls were in town so it was another excuse to get together with them and for the kids to exchange Christmas presents.  It was another fun taco night!

The picture above is all 7 of Grandma Barbara's and Grandpa Pop's Great-Grandchildren.  And the picture below is all 4 of their Grandson-In-Laws.  I love that picture because:
A) What a nice group of 4 men that we all found! and...
B) I'm impressed that they all fit on the sofa.

Then we attempted to get more family members in the pictures and hilarity ensued. 

But, at least no one pulled out the scale, if you know what I mean!

Weird Wine Party

I couldn't close up the 2015 blog without blogging about the Weird Wine Party.

Stevie purchased a Groupon for an in-home wine tasting party for all the dads for Father's Day.  We finally got our schedules together to make it happen last month.  It was equally fun, bizarre, and uncomfortable but everyone laughed a lot and drank a lot of wine.  SUCCESS!

Candy Cane Forrest

Oops!  Thought I posted this already....

Each year one of our family traditions is taking a family walk to the Mystical Magical Candy Cane Forrest.  Uncle John leads the pack and upon arrival the kids get to harvest candy canes and meat-sticks from the trees.  We enjoy chili, cornbread, cocoa, and egg nog.

Such an enjoyable tradition!

Uncle Dan, Auntie Erin, and Baby Caden

Uncle Dan, Auntie Erin, and Baby Caden were in town for Christmas and they took some time out of their busy schedules to visit with us!  We always enjoy catching up with them, although it's never long enough.  The girls tend to put on a show for them, we want to soak up as much Caden time as possible, Dan and Stevie talk about basketball and gambling, and Erin and I try to hold a grown-up conversation somehow between all of this!  It's a beautiful, chaotic, mess.

After a short visit we even got to take them to the new house and I think we got their approval!  Definitely the forever house and I can't wait for them to be back again to visit at our forever home.

Merry Christmas!

Yesterday was Christmas and boy was it merry!  We are incredibly blessed and we had a wonderful day.  I started hearing little excited voices around 5:30am and found both girls in the bathroom talking about stockings.  We explored around the tree for a bit while I made coffee and cocoa, then I allowed the girls to gently wake up Daddy.
We must have been very good this year because we had a lot of gifts to open.  Santa brought Shyla the game she "ordered" called Spot It and brought Harper her requested pink scooter!  Also, Halloween costumes were a huge hit to add to the dress-up box and I'm sure Santa got a ganga on them!

Next we ended up at Grandma and Grandpa's house for breakfast and more gifts!  We sang Happy Birthday to Jesus with a loaf of blueberry bread!  Grandma wins the prize this year for giving the most noisy gifts: recorders for all the kids, a pogo-stick that squeaks with each jump, and a music player for dancing!

Lastly we went to Grandma Barbara's house and visited with lots of family.  We are so fortunate to be surrounded by more aunts, uncles, and cousins than we can keep straight!

And, finally, a nap in the car on the way home.  Whew!  What a day!  Merry, merry Christmas to all.  I hope your heart is as happy as mine.

Family Vacation Day 5

Ahhhh, Wednesday, our fun day at sea.  Unfortunately, the weather was really bad which made the waves pretty big which resulted in a lot of us feeling sick for a lot of the day.  However, we still enjoyed a lot of family time and journeyed out of the room occasionally.  We did make it to the holiday show and to enjoy a nice last dinner on the ship.

This ended our epic family vacation.  We all had a blast and created many life-long memories.  Thank you to Grandma and Grandpa for the trip!  So. Much. Fun.

Family Vacation Day 4

For the majority of the Ensenada day, it was pouring.  But we eventually decided to brave the rain and head into town.  After being packed into the bus like sardines, we walked the city.  We didn't stay too long but the three girls got beautiful Mexican dresses and Chelsea and I found a Starbucks!

Family Vacation Day 3

The next day, Monday, was our Catalina Island day.  You must know that I love Catalina Island!  After enjoying a lovely breakfast we took a chicken-tender over to the island and spent exactly one hour on 2 golf-carts seeing the sights.  The kids loved it!  We even stopped to see the zip-liners and this might be something I choose to do the next time!

After getting back on the ship we tried to get the girls to take a nap.  Although unsuccessful, Stevie did nap while the girls and I played some more mini-golf and had some hot cocoa and treats!

We didn't spend as long on the island as I would have liked.  Maybe next time when the girls are older.  But, rest assured, it was just as quaint and beautiful as I remember.