Happy New Year!

Happy 2008! While it's always exciting to usher in a new year, it's always rather sad for me to "pack up Christmas" for another year. We had such a great one, it's a total bummer that it's all over (and over so quick!). Couldn't Christmas last a little longer? The presents are unwrapped and put away, tree is gone, the decorations are all boxed up, and the house looks just plain normal again. Uggh. I think it's a good thing we go on vacation this month, or I would be really down in the dumps . . .

We were in Willmar, MN at my last post - we then headed home and had a terrific, peaceful, happy Christmas here at home. Christmas Eve we went to our church - had a really nice service - then came home and had an awesome dinner (if I do say so myself) :), then watched The Nativity Story with the boys. We were only planning on showing them a few parts of it, just so they could see what things might have looked like when and where Jesus was born, but they were hooked on this movie in the first 2 minutes, and wanted to watch it in it's entirety. So we spent a lot of time during the movie going over the people and events surrounding Jesus' birth, and it was just awesome. At one point Noah said this was "the best Christmas Eve ever" and when I asked why, he said "because I'm older now and I understand more of what's going on."

On Christmas morning, we had a wonderful, relaxed morning - first discovering Santa's goodies, then lounging a little while and having a yummy breakfast, then opening gifts. After lunch we headed out to Spearfish and celebrated with the Horaks until late into the night. The next day, my mom, sister and I went shopping - had to check out the after-Christmas sales - had a nice lunch out, and we had a really nice day together. Something we don't get to do very often!
Here's the boys on Christmas morning - can you tell they're excited??
And here they are with their stockings - yes, those are it, thanks to Grandma LaRayne, who must have thought Santa needed to leave a little more for her grandkids . . . . :)Jack and Noah's special gift from Daddy - Adrian Peterson (Vikings) jerseys . . .And Daddy got one from Jack and Noah too!

We spent the next few days putting away, re-organizing, cleaning out drawers, toy boxes and closets, cleaning the house and getting back to normal. Sunday we watched the Vikings end their season, much to my three boys' disappointment . . . Mark's already doing the countdown to next season - ever the optimist! Last night we had our friends the Rossons over for New Year's Eve - spent the evening eating, chatting and the kids all had a blast playing and watching movies. We stayed up LATE - 1:00 a.m. - who knew I could still do it? I was pretty proud of myself - I'm usually a 10:30 bedtime person and anything after that, I'm totally useless. This morning we all lounged around and they left around 11:00 - it was a great time - the perfect New Year's Eve!

This afternoon we're still lounging . . . Mark and Noah are napping and Jack and I are going through all the pictures we took over the past week. We have a Monopoly date with the boys once everyone wakes up and then movies until bedtime. We are all about RELAXATION today!

We did have a sad event Christmas Eve day - my sister had to put her dog, Muffy (a bichon), to sleep - she was 15 years old, and was a treasured part of our entire family for all of those years - even lived with Mark and I for a while. We'll miss her spunky nature and funny antics, but are thankful for the great (and long!) life she shared with us. Goodbye, old friend . . . .