Never Share Your New Years Resolutions

I may have mentioned before that my cooking skills leave something to be desired. I have my tried and trues - about 10 dishes that I cook regularly (breakfast and dinner) - and I'm a Rock Star in the kitchen when those are on the menu. My trouble starts when I try something new. I suspected this was true but it became fact when I told Sexy Beast that one of my New Years Resolutions was to master a new entree each week - now I meant each month because, let's face it, I can't manage to get the laundry mastered each week, but I was distracted by one of the boys so I said "week". When I looked up, he had a look of slight panic on his face. I quickly said, "no, I meant each month, not week!" to which he responds, "oh, okay, I can handle one inedible meal a month but I was worried about every week!" Thanks, honey!

Our Christmas

This Christmas left nothing to be desired for our family. We enjoyed a nice and quiet holiday. We went driving around looking at Christmas lights one night. Aidan enjoyed it but pretty early on he let us know his plan for the evening when he said, "okay, it's time to get my chicken nuggets and then go home!" On Christmas Eve we baked a birthday cake for Jesus and then cut Santa a piece and left it out with some milk.

On Christmas morning Daddy and I had to wake Aidan up at almost 8:30am! What a day to sleep in, hu? Santa was very good to Aidan and Asher. The big hits of the morning were his "hunting gun", his new camera, and Asher's animal train (it's not clear yet if Asher will actually ever get to play with his toy or not).

In the afternoon, we went to stay at Nana and Opa's house. Kid Sister, Jayden, and Julyan were all there and it was a madhouse from beginning to end. Those boys always have so much fun together, we hated to see them go home that evening!

The day after Christmas it started to snow! It was beautiful! We all headed out to Nana and Opa's cabin in the woods. Aidan has been excited for weeks to get the chance to go hunting with his Dad so with his new hunting gun in tow, he and Daddy set out into the wilderness. Aidan came back all bowed up with pride as he told about shooting turkeys in the woods. *Just to be clear, Aidan does not have a real gun, but he's a fierce hunter just the same* We spent a few hours all huddled up together in the cabin, chasing Aidan up and down the loft ladder, chatting, eating, and watching the snow before it was time to go back into town. After stuffing ourselves with pie, we got loaded up and set out for home again.

and here's Aidan on the ride home - all zoned out on The Polar Express for the twentieth time in 2 days. Merry Christmas to all!!

More Fun

This week we got to go to one of our favorite fun places, Pump It Up. The kids love it and it's nice for the mommies too because it sets them up nicely for a good nap in the afternoon :)

On Wednesday we all got together at Lenka's house for a Christmas party for the kiddos.

Kid Sister brought cousins Jayden and Julyan over while she did some last minute shopping. The boys had a great time playing together, as usual.

Here are a few random snapshots of Aidan and Asher

And finally, a few weeks ago Lisa, AJ, Lenka, and I were able to get out and have dinner together, sans the children. The uninterrupted conversation flowed and would have made our husbands blush! We had a great dinner and we - being the party-girls we are - headed over to TJ Maxx for some shopping afterwards. I didn't buy the hat :)

To Get One Good Photo!

This weekend I decided that we had to take a picture of the 4 of us to send with our Christmas cards this year. So we found everybody semi-matching shirts and the fiasco began...Aidan was all into it right up until the time came to start posing. Then suddenly he NEEDED Baby and Puppy , then he NEEDED his cup (which he promptly spilled chocolate milk from). By the time came for him to smile, he was in tears and mad as a wet hen - as was I by the end. When Aidan was able to be calmed, Asher had had enough and started in. The first few pictures are ones that Daddy snapped of me trying to get everything ready for him to set the timer and get into position. Eventually Aidan decided to cooperate as long as Baby and Puppy could be in the pictures. We did get a few good poses but they were blurry. I edited them like crazy to show here but we've officially lost our minds and are going to attempt to get better ones tomorrow.