Happy 2013!

Welcome to a New Year!! Ken and I thoroughly enjoyed hosting our party last night, and I am happy to report that everyone stayed within their alcohol limit and arrived home safely afterwards. 

We had way too much food as usual, but everyone had options on what they wanted to snack on. The decorations were tasteful (and I do say so myself) and then the friends were awesome!!  I am also happy to report that clean up this morning took less than an hour. Whoo-hoo!! AND, Mandy actually made it to the midnight toast - the first time ever!!

 Getting the house decorated and ready as well as setting out the party favors

 Ermanno wanted to be festive but didn't want to take off his hat

 Barbara (on the right) and her sister, Nancy

 Ken and Martin getting close again.

 Ken and Ermanno played a trick on Michael - they drank the beer he had, filled his glass to the same point with MGD and then colored it with Sweet Vermouth for color to match

 I thought for SURE that Michael would smell the problem

 Nope! He took a large swig and then regretted it!

 Ken and Ermanno getting close now.

 And then there's the love Ermanno and Ken have for Michael with Taylor looking on

 Ken goosed the ladies!

 Taylor was excited to play in her first poker game - which Mama totally won!

The best moment of the evening came with Jordan's celebration techniques. I am such the proud Mama as my youngest's skills: Jordan's New Year 2013 Celebration

This morning, we slept in, so we watched the last half of the Rose Parade and then watched the repeat in order to see what we missed. I loved the Dr. Seuss theme and the house favorite was The Cat in the Hat float! 

Ken had to work on a plumbing issue today, and I spent time getting everything ready for our Anniversary trip which starts tomorrow. Time for the beach!!

Christmas 2012

A very merry Christmas it was!! Is there such as thing as Holiday Hangover? I'm afraid that I will have one and it won't be from drinking. The boys spent Christmas Eve and Day coming and going, the girls were completely excited about opening gifts, and then there was all of the food!

Yesterday was very busy. I had not done any of the Christmas baking because Brian had requested to do it with me, so I was a bit of a stress case trying to get it all done in one day, but as I seriously held back on the amount of sweets we had, so it was just peppermint marshmallows and two batches of pfeffernüsse. Brian actually seemed to enjoy himself with me and was listening to the hows and whys of what I was doing, and he and Taylor made the second batch of cookies. Ken was surprised that I had distinguished some of the "control" and it was rather nice to have someone else doing the work. 

Last night, we had all of the kids over for supper and we enjoyed movies and laughter. Sean had requested enchilada pie, and he was very interested in how it was made. He keeps telling me it's one of his favorites, and he never realized how easy it is to make it. 

Mandy was way too excited about opening gifts, so I allowed each of the kids to open their ornaments from me. The girls all laughed about how each of their ornaments said "Mom's favorite" and the boys seemed to genuinely like the ornaments that I made them. Michael joined us, and I made him open his coffee mug and hand sanitizer - which were both very big hits with him.

So many plans were changed to accommodate the boys for this holiday, but they seemed to enjoy their time here - well, except Brian who would close himself into the guest room/office when he didn't "approve" of what was going on or being said. But, since Ken and I had prepared ourselves for it, we didn't let his air of superiority bother us. 

The girls were up by 7:30. Apparently, Jordan was up earlier, but she actually allowed her sisters to sleep in a little bit. By the time Ken and I were in the living room, Sean was trying to pretend that he couldn't hear us (he had slept on the sofa), and Brian didn't want to get out of bed either.

No one was lacking anything today. We had so many presents under the tree that I couldn't believe that Ken and I had gotten them all! The tree was very festive with all of the pretty packages underneath, and I enjoyed that we are blessed enough to be able to provide for our family this way. 

Michael joined us to celebrate again today. He managed to get his house as ready as possible for his son's visit, and because Seth was spending today with his mother, Michael took us up on our offer for him to spend the time with us so he wasn't alone on the holiday.

After all of the packages were unwrapped and the squealing was done, we settled down to breakfast of eggnog scones, and once the coffee had kicked in, I set out some snacks while I got everything ready for supper.

Supper was glazed spiral ham, brown rice and green beans. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves, and then it was time to enjoy the wine and company.

As tired as everyone was, no one seemed ready to get to bed any time soon. As I type this, there is still merriment from the living room. It was definitely a very Merry Christmas!