Happy New Year!

Finally lost that tooth!

See ya next year, Christmas!

Kitchen reno

Once  snow eater...

SO COLD

SO MUCH SNOW!

Pump It Up NYE party for the kiddos

They loved the balloon drop

And were very serious about pizza.

Because we are total idiots, we told the big boys they could stay up late tonight, which seriously hinders our Downton Abbey and decoupaging wooden nursery letters time.  But Ben made potato skins and buffalo wings and a killer fruit plate, along with veggies and dip and lots of crackers and cheeses, so that part sounds awesome.  And, thanks to bouncing, those two will be out in no time (**fingers crossed**).

Last year, I made some unkeepable resolutions.  This year, I am just going to enjoy myself-- the last time I'll be pregnant, the last time we'll have a newborn in the house, our little Jack going to kindergarten, another year with tons of little kids doing little kid things like losing teeth and learning to read.

2012 was a terrific little year.

Cooper started eating like a man. 

We made a mushroom cloud out of snow (Cooper's first foray into the snow, in fact).

Jack manned up and sat on the Easter Bunny's lap.

We hosted a holiday for our families.

Ben made his garage sale dreams come true while simultaneously helping Jack live his lemonade stand destiny.

Harry turned 6 and finished his first year of real school.

Cooper rode the merry-go-round!

We took the kids on a quintessential driving vacay and showed them the ocean.

A new baby on the way!  And our current baby turned 1!

WE MET THE FRESH BEAT BAND!!!!

Remember that whirlwind Thanksgiving weekend?

Chrismukkah was pretty much the best ever.

Cheers to 2013.

Notes from break

 Jack came with me to the OB yesterday because he wanted to hear the baby's heartbeat.  He was impressed with the waiting room reading material.  Which is good because when we walked in, the first thing we saw was a giant whiteboard telling me my doctor was running 20 minutes behind. 

We found out that I gained 7 pounds in the last 6 weeks (!) for a grand total of 17 pounds in 28 weeks, which would be totally fine and normal and puts me on track to gain the 30 pounds I always do EXCEPT I started this pregnancy 10 pounds heavier than normal, and I really only wanted to gain 20.  But, alas.  Thanksgiving.  Christmas.  You know.

Speaking of weight gain, Panera has grilled cheese and tomato soup.  Jack and I approve (he only eats a strawberry smoothie, chicken noodle soup, a baguette, a bagel, and a random bakery item at Panera with NO DEVIATION but he approves of how much I like the grilled cheese and tomato soup because that means MOAR PANERA)

 This kitchen was Santa's greatest hit of the season FOR SURE.  He also enjoys the cart and loves to ram it at full speed into the kitchen cabinets and/or our shins and calves.  SO FUN.  He also mimics the way we use the kitchen and shoves his cabinets full of random crap until they burst open.

The only problem with the kitchen is we don't have a space for it besides the middle of the main room.  We are hoping to put it in his new big boy room (along with a train table and a giant fire station), but that entails, you know, finishing his big boy room, which is a process.

 One of these things is not like the other:

 Room shuffle progress! We have cleaned out the guest room closet and the storage room and relocated the TV (adding a cable connection and wasting a whole day waiting on the cable guy to come do it) and elliptical.  We also went to a furniture store last night and bought a dresser and a nightstand for Cooper and a dresser and a nightstand for the baby.  We have big plans to head to IKEA and Pottery Barn Kids next week, but first, we have to dismantle the guest room bed and desk and well as Cooper's dresser and get them all out of the house.  We also have to dismantle and move the big boys' entire room.  I say we, but I mean Ben.

 Harry has been hard at work on his Geo Trax.

 Cooper hates the snow.

 Harry made a Sponge Bob out of a sponge and some bendy straws.

 He is kind of a wimp about pulling out loose teeth.  Hes been walking around with this one twisted sideways for hours, and he just can't quite bring himself to yank it out.

 I was delighted to find 19 bottles of OPI nail polish in my stocking, and Harry and Jack both demanded a pedicure when I was doing my own today.  Harry's are gold with gold sparkles.  Jack's are red with gold sparkles, and I went with mint green with gold sparkles.

Ben and I are counting down the minutes until the last kid is in bed, so we can resume our new Downton Abbey addiction.  We both thought the first episode was kind of boring, but by the second one, we were fully hooked.  Also, Apple TV is like magic.

Chrismukkah!

This is Toofy's best work of the season, wouldn't you say?

We attended a lovely Santa breakfast on the 22nd-- at a local coffee shop, with waffles, face painting, and, of course, Santa.

Harry was her first customer, and he insisted we get a business card for his birthday party needs.

Jack wanted to be Rudolph.  He was not messing around.

Cooper was cool with everything once we gave him unlimited whipped cream and a fork.

After breakfast, we hopped in the car and went straight to my parents' house.

How can you not take this guy seriously?

Especially when he's balanced on a bowling ball covered in marbles.

Cooper pretty much lost it during presents, but he had some pizza and rebounded until a very, very, very early bedtime.  The rest of us had an awesome time!  (Jack got a Taylor Swift poster, just a day after telling me in Target that he wanted to sit in the front row at her concert so he could touch her legs and maybe put her in a bag to take home with him.  Um.)

He cried for awhile.

Not your imagination.  Jon is wearing footie pajamas. So's Cooper.

 

We spent Christmas Eve at home, and it was really low key.  New PJ's and Arthur Christmas from Toofy, reading Night Before Christmas, cookies and snacks for Santa and the reindeer.  The cute kids' service at the Unitarian church we like was smack in the middle of nap, so we passed on that, and our favorite pizza place was closed, so we headed to our favorite local sports bar instead-- really fun and a Christmas Eve tradition we;d love to keep for the next 30 years.  We saw lots of families with grown up kids getting sloshed on craft beer.  Looked fun.

Kids decorated the sugar cookies, but the creepy ginger was all me

Santa had his shit together this year, and we were tucked in bed before 10, which was good because we had a pre-6 am wake up call and a full, full day.  Here are the highlights:

Today, we spent the whole day-- seriously, just finished at 10:35 pm-- cleaning out our storage room and the guest room closet and purging a few toys.  Tomorrow, the cable guy comes to put an outlet in storage, so we can move our elliptical there.  Then, we're headed dresser shopping.  AND we're on our way to IKEA in a few days for a new crib and more shelves.  The great room shuffle is underway!

Cookies!

I have been on some sort of weird baking kick since Thanksgiving, when I kicked off the season with 2 batches of salted caramel chocolate chip cookie bars and a gross of peanut butter blossoms.  Then there were weeks of chocolate chip cookies, monster cookies, no bake haystack cookies, etc.  And then candy cane blossoms and more peanut butter blossoms for the elementary school's staff exchange.  And then gingerbread people for the kids; classrooms.  And today.  CHRISTMAS COOKIES.  So many of them, considering they are really only for us (AND SANTA).

This picture is kind of a bummer:  Cooper clearly thought he was one of the guys (even though he had no naughty/nice apron) and then we put him down for a morning nap.

I have to mine the after Christmas sales for new aprons for these guys, so we can pass their current ones down to the little kids.  This one will not fit over Harry's giant head for another season.

Such concentration!  As much as they loved rolling them out and cutting shapes (and they LOVED it), decorating was their hands-down favorite.

Jack ate so much frosting that he needed a popcorn antidote.

Cooper was happy to decorate a few when he woke up.

I took the dough out to let it reach room temp at about 7:40.  This was when we dug out the huge bin of cookie cutters and debated which ones were Christmas-y (Ben always uses the T-Rex), let the frosting warm up, put parchment paper on cookie sheets, preheated the oven, etc.  By 8:30 when Cooper went down for a nap, we had everything ready, including sprinkles and colored sugar and wire cooling racks and a dubious looking batch of brightly colored icing that covered well but tasted kind of gross.  And I cleaned the last of it up around 12:45, just in time to go outside and shovel for 2 hours while Cooper took another nap.  So 5 HOURS spent prepping, making, and cleaning up cookies-- not counting the time it took to make the dough and frosting last night.  No wonder we only do these once a year.

In other news, I am fat.  My stomach is not that big, but oh, the rest of me sure is.  Good times.  In 12 or so weeks (zOMG-- we need to get it together fr the great bedroom shuffle) this might become a weightloss blog.