......a photo a day........

So.

I am a slacker. The past few days have been a little crazy around here (ha! like that's something new!!)!! We were planning on having a quiet & relaxing weekend at home. And yeah, it didn't happen!

But anywho.....here's a few pictures from the past couple of days!!!

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Don't let him fool you.....he only looks sweet & innocent!!!

1.30.12

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He totally went down for his afternoon nap wearing a shirt & socks. He woke up in just a diaper! Amazing!

1.30.12

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Who knew Mickey Mouse was so mesmerizing?!

1.28.12

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I just LOVE when my kids play together!!!

1.29.12

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Typical Sunday Morning.....cartoons in bed with the family!!

1.29.12

happy friday!

This week was a pretty lazy one. Mostly because of the lack of sunshine we've been having. Monday & Tuesday were the only non-rainy days we've had. So far, today is looking like it might be a good one!! But that can change quite quickly! We spent the majority of our week at home playing, crafting, and being lazy!! We even skipped out on dance class Tuesday night!!

But anywho.....here's a few pictures from our lazy days!! Happy Friday!

Ava LOOOOVES doing puzzles!! Uncle Tom & Molly got her a few for Christmas.....and she has put them together & taken them apart about a million times since then!!! HUGE success!!

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Grayson found the diaper bag. He also found Ava's leftover Monkey Bar. He decided to finish it.

He's a bottomless pit.

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Who needs toys when you have a red solo cup?!

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More puzzles!!

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Just a Winnie the Pooh shirt I made for our neighbors daughter to wear for her 2nd birthday!

I am in LOVE with the yellow fabric. You can't really tell, but it has the classic Winnie the Pooh bumble bees on it! LOVE!

~home sweet home~

The hubby & I had our house built about 4yrs ago. It's not the biggest, or the best, or the most custom house.....but we did get to pick everything out & have it done the way we wanted. It was in our price range and was perfect for our little family of three plus one cat. Slowly but surely, we are starting to out grow it. It's amazing how this happens. While we were building the house, we lived in a fairly nice 2 bedroom apartment. We grew out of that QUICK! It's amazing how much space baby things take up!! Ava was only about six months old when we decided that we needed to upgrade our living quarters! All of her toys were taking over our apartment!

This morning, the hubby had another one of his great ideas......for me to come up with a list of things that needed to be done around the house. So, while the kids were playing after breakfast I decided to tackle said list. And OH.MY.GOODNESS!! There's so much more to be done than I thought! But thankfully, the majority of it is super easy and we won't need to spend much money on it. However, I have a feeling that I'll be the one stuck doing it. And I guess that's okay, as long as the hubby takes over watching the kids! I HIGHLY doubt that I'll be able to repaint baseboards with Grayson running around.....I can just see his little fingers getting into the paint and creating an even bigger mess!!!

One of our projects that we have to tackle asap is our back door. We have some wood damage on the outside. It's awesome. The entire door & frame need to be replaced. And I'm pretty sure it's going to cost us a nice little penny....or two. Right now, we have french doors. I really like them because other then the doors, we only have the two living room windows downstairs & they let in a lot of light. So the debate is whether or not we want to get the same kind of door or a sliding glass door with a screen. Ava (and now Grayson) has a really nice swing set in the backyard and we also have a decent sized patio......so it would be really nice to have the screen door. That way, when she's outside playing I can leave the door open and be able to hear what's going on if I'm not able to be out there. The downside of having the screen door is our dog. She's not the brightest. And I see us having to replace the screen because of her running through it. And if we do get a sliding glass door, then that means I'll have to get new curtains & a new curtain rod for over the door (but that could be a good thing....right!?).

Other then deciding on what type of door we want & actually getting it replaced, the rest is pretty easy stuff. I am in no hurry what so ever to get this stuff done. I figure it could be one project a month. Or maybe every other weekend.....depending on what we decide to work on!

Here's the list that I was able to come up with.......

• Repaint interior doors.
• Repaint baseboards.
• Touch up paint throughout house.
• Replace outside doorbell button.
• Recaulk around bathtubs.
• Fix up flower bed.
• Replace tarp on swing set.
• Replace front porch lights.
• Fix living room window.
• Get new back door.
• Install blinds on loft window.
• Replace sink in downstairs bathroom.
• Repaint dining room table.
• Install ceiling fans in living room & kids bedrooms.

I put what needs to be done first in bold letters. I'm hoping that we can do pretty much all of this ourselves. And I'm thinking the only things we'll need to have to pay someone to do is installing the door & the new sink. We can handle the rest......or at least I hope we can! The last time the hubby installed a ceiling fan I had to leave......he gets a little angry when stuff doesn't go the way he wants or it's not as easy as he thought it would be!

One "mini makeover" that we were able to do was in our living room. We had a pretty nice entertainment center that we had from when we lived in our apartment. Then our tv broke (or so the hubby said) and we had to get a new one (that was bigger & had wifi & was super fancy). The new, fancier tv didn't fit in our little entertainment center so of course it had to be mounted on the wall. All of the lovely stuff that goes along with the tv had no home. The hubby decided to put it all on Ava's downstairs toybox. And that was all fine & dandy until Grayson was starting to pull up and his little fingers had to touch everything. After not being able to find anything that I liked, I decided to move my kitchen cart into the living room to hold all of the tv stuff. How nice! We must have kept the kitchen cart in the living room for a good.....oh 6 or 7 months. It drove me nuts. I hated it.

Thankfully, my awesome Gram got us a Costco gift card for Christmas. We debated on whether or not we wanted to use it to renew our membership or have it go towards something we needed. We decided against renewing our membership because 1) it's a pretty far drive 2) we didn't really shop there much in the past year... other than going to get the new tv! and 3) it was just too far! I found a shelf with canvas bins that I really liked and the hubby gave me the go ahead to go get it. And then! My mom's aunt in Pennsylvania WON THE LOTTERY!!!! and was nice enough to send us a little bit of her winnings!!! (she won BIG TIME on a scratch off ticket! i'm lucky if i win a free ticket when i play!!) So, when I went out to Costco to get the shelf with the bins, I found this..............

I was in LOVE! I decided that I would get this instead of the shelf with the canvas bins.....we would have needed two anyway & I was worried that they wouldn't be that safe stacked! I had to wait until the hubby got home from work before I could go pick it up......the back of my SUV wasn't big enough for the box, imagine that! When I got it home, our awesome neighbor came over to put it together. He's weird like that & LOVES to assemble furniture!! He got it together for us in about an hour. We had a little scare because we didn't think it was going to fit under the tv. It seriously JUST fits! There's THIS much space between the top of the shelves and the bottom of the tv! I was SUPER worried about the wires. I DESPISE wires. Like seriously hate them with a passion!!!

On my way home from Costco, I stopped at Target and picked up baskets. Thankfully, I was able to arrange my pictures & the baskets to hide the wires. I guess it will have to work for now. I am in LOVE with the way the book shelf looks in the living room. It makes it look a lot bigger! I'm sure I'll mess with everything on the shelves a million times before I get them where I like them! I'm REALLY bad about that!! I do it with our furniture all the time!!

Thanks to my Gram & my mom's aunt, we didn't have to pay a penny for our new "entertainment center"!! Well, really I had to pay for a new picture frame. But that was it!!

......a photo a day........

1.21.12

Ava making muffins for breakfast!!

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1.22.12

Gray LOVES Chick's mashed potatoes!

What I'm working on......

I would like to thank my wonderful sister in law for introducing me to the wonderful world of Pinterest!! At first, I never really got it. Or think it was as wonderful as everyone made it out to be! Oh.My.Goodness. I think it's safe to say I have become quite addicted!! I got a TON of ideas for both kids birthday parties from Pinterest. I got a TON of holiday decorating ideas from Pinterest. And, I have even cooked quite a few recopies that I found on Pinterest!

I have always loved to do crafts and all that fun stuff. But lately, it's getting pretty intense! In the past few months, I have made five tutu's, six holiday/birthday shirts, and two bunting banners. I LOVE it! I even did a few painting projects for the kids bathroom & repainted Ava's table with some chalkboard paint. The husband (who is always full of wonderful ideas!!) thinks I should start selling the stuff I make. I would LOVE to, but there's just so many people in our area who do it already! But who knows.....maybe one of these days I'll start an Etsy shop!!

But for now.....here are a few of the projects I have started.

EASY centerpiece for the dining room table!

I already had the carafe. I used four different sized wooden dowels, foam hearts from WalMart, 2 bags of M&M's, ribbon, & of course, hot glue!
It seriously took me all of five minutes to put together!
Ava loved putting the sticks in the M&M's for me! I even caught her sneaking a few candies every now & then!!

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This would be the start of Ava's Valentine's Day shirt! I have my fabric. And the plain shirt. Now I just need to figure out what I'm going to do!

I used this fabric to make a bunting banner for one of my wonderful friends to use as a photo prop!!! She seriously keeps me busy!! But I love it!
I see a visit to the amazing Hobby Lobby in my VERY near future......as in after my hair appointment tomorrow!!

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And now for some past projects. I could honestly spend HOURS in Hobby Lobby. Hobby Lobby & Pinterest are a big part in my life. I don't know what I would do without them ;)

ava's shirt for gray's bday party......he has a matching one but with a "g".

my original plan for their shirts was to make my own transfer using picnik....yeah. that was a total failure!

so instead, i took some of the leftover fabric from his banner (the picture of that is down a little more) and made my very own applique!

i did a pretty awesome job hand sewing those suckers, if i must say so myself!!

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some fun art to fill up empty wall space in the kids bathroom. right now, i have the canvas' hanging up with ribbon....but i'm thinking i may get some white frames to stick them in......i can't decide!

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bunting banner i made for gray's birthday.

so.in.love with the way it turned out!
and yes.....it is all hand sewn! i have yet to convince the hubby to buy me a sewing machine!

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a close up of one of the tutu's i made for my photographer friend!
LOVE the ribbon!

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gray's thanksgiving shirt.

i found the idea on pinterest (duh!).... but it was a canvas.

the "body" of the turkey is g-man's foot!!
ava's shirt was the same...but with her big ol' foot!!

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again....the tutu's i made for the photographer!

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ava with her SUPER puffy "rapunzel" tutu & "rapunzel" hair!
she had on a shirt with rapunzel's crown on it...but imagine that...she was too busy for me to snap a good picture!!
i made her hair clip out of scrapbook flowers & curling ribbon. they were also party favors for all the girls that came!
they were a HUGE hit :)

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and finally......ribbon streamers for on gray's highchair for his birthday party.

we did a pirate themed party.....and you wouldn't believe how hard it was to find pirate fabric & ribbon!!!

i was afraid it was going to be too girly.....but i guess it turned out alright!!

Dear January....You can go now!

The past few days have been anything but relaxing. It seems that we just can't catch a break. Actually. It's pretty much been crazy for the last month....or maybe longer! I thought the craziness would settle down after the holidays. RIGHT! Needless to say, I am SO over the month of January. February can hurry up and get here because as of right now, the only thing that is planned for February is the possibility of a mini-getaway with the kids & my mom to go visit Colin & Molly in South Carolina. Oh. And my turning 29....but we won't go there quite yet.

January has been one of the GLOOMIEST months. And we are only 1/2 way through! UGH! It has rained almost every.single.day! Talk about depressing! But, thanks to all of this rain and cold and grossness, my laundry has been kept up with & my house has been as clean as it can be with a 1yr old and a 5yr old! I usually like the winter months and bundling up in big, comfy sweaters & wearing scarves......but this is just crazy! Getting out with two kids in the rain is the worst!

Okay. Enough ranting about the weather!! The beginning of January, not only did my husband 30(!!!!!) but Grayson turned ONE!!! Holy cow! I'm still in disbelief that he's one. It feels like 2011 flew by! But anyway! So yes, Grayson turned one! We celebrated his first birthday the first full weekend of this month. And planning it was super quick and rushed and felt like it totally snuck up on me! I mean, for Ava's 5th birthday, I started planning in September (she turned 5 Nov 30!) Thankfully, things came together great! Minus the fact that my brother wasn't going to be here.....and that meant that Molly wasn't going to be here either!! I was beyond bummed! Just my luck they would be moving into their new house the same weekend I was having Gray's party! But the BEST part of it was when my mom informed me that she was going to Paris with my dad that weekend.....and leaving the DAY of his party! Between not having either of my parents here OR my brother OR Molly......I had a minor nervous breakdown! Thankfully, my parents flight left later in the afternoon (& we live like maybe 10 minutes from the airport) so that meant that they could come hang out for the first part of his party & see him dig into his cake! My dad was great & convinced my Gram to come up from Florida for the birthday party. Even though she REALLY didn't want to be here.....she was a trooper!

Last weekend, we had a few of our good friends over for a game night. It was a BLAST!!! We played Cranium.......my stomach hurt SO much from laughing by the end of the night! And I saw a side of my VERY conservative neighbor that I didn't think existed! Things got a little hectic with the kids....there were 8 kids running around at one point! But. It was still fun! We decided that having a game night (with or without kids!!) is a MUST at least once a month! Honestly, it was nice to be able to have some "adult time". Minus having to stop at least every 5 minutes to deal with a "crisis" upstairs or to change a movie (that wasn't even watched!!)

Ava & I had a "girls day" on Sunday with our neighbor & her daughter Emmy. Ava & Emmy are best friends. We took the girls to go see "Beauty & the Beast 3D". But really, we just went to go see the "Tangled" short that played before the actual movie. Ava told me that it was her favorite. She's just a tad bit obsessed with Rapunzel.....and so is Emmy! Maybe that's why they're such good friends!

After the movie.....Ava & I made a quick trip home to pick up the boys. The hubby & I decided that we would bring dinner over to my mom's. She came home Sunday from Paris.....and Ava was so excited! Chick was SUPPOSED to be coming home around 6pm.......but of course.......the airport in DC had other plans for her. I had gotten a text from her while Ava & I were at the movies saying that she had landed, but her flight was delayed & she had no idea when she was going to be leaving. Awesome. But, what was even better.....was the fact that nobody told my Gram! So, by the time we made it out to my mom's house, Gram had already left for the airport. She was NOT happy when I broke the news to her! Thankfully, she turned around and came back to the house. Ava was bummed that she wasn't going to get to see Chick & give her the YUMMY (and incredibly small) cupcakes she made for her! We hung out with Gram until it was time to go pick up mom at the airport. Her flight FINALLY came in around 8:30pm. Talk about a long day!!!

Monday, Gram was leaving to head back down to Florida. And Lord knows she was ready to get home after being here for a week! Our plan was to meet Chick & Gram at the airport and then go to Cracker Barrel for breakfast. So not what Gray had in mind! Sunday night he woke up around 9:30 and was running a 101.5 fever. He's NEVER had a fever that high! It took him until 10:30-11pm to go back to sleep. He was back up at 6am with a 101.1 fever. NOT how I wanted to start my week! As soon as 8am rolled around I called our pediatrician's office (that is AMAZING!!!! and my former employer!!) to get him seen. While we were there, Gray broke out in this horrible rash while they were collecting samples for just a few (okay, maybe more like 4 or 5) lab tests. Thankfully, Chick came to pick Ava up on her way home from the airport....she was so worried about her baby brother!! The only test that came back a little elevated was his white blood cell count......so we were instructed to come back the next day for another CBC. Awesome. Tuesday morning he woke up with lovely sores on his hands, feet, and mouth. And even more miserable then the day before! Turns out, he has Hand-Foot-and-Mouth Disease. His WBC count did go down, so that was a plus. But, he had a lot more of the lovely sores in his mouth & in the back of his throat. My little piggy of a son has not been eating or drinking nearly as much as he used to!! We met Chick at Cracker Barrel for lunch......and all he ate was a few peas & lima beans from my soup. And maybe a tiny piece of chicken! I felt so bad for him!!! Oh, and, the best part of all of it, he does NOT -I repeat- DOES NOT want to go to bed at his normal bedtime!!! He has been staying up until at LEAST 10pm all week! Tonight was the first night that he went to bed at a decent time!! Thank Goodness!!! I forgot to mention........he's also teething! Yay for FOUR molars trying to make their debut!!!

So January......please please PLEASE get better! Or at least hurry up & be over! I know that I am ready to see you go!

i totally forgot to post a picture from yesterday.......so here are two from today!!! this morning was spent with the little dude since sister stayed with chick so she could go pick up the big dude at the airport!!

cheerios + milk + sunshine = a great start to the day!

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grayson decided to share some cheerios with zoe!

they're new found bff's!

**JUST A FEW PICS FROM THE PAST FEW DAYS**

gray really enjoyed his mini cupcake!!
(please excuse the "high chair".....we try to make things easy @ my moms!)

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my little betty crocker in the making!
she was so proud of her mini cupcakes!

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gray totally passed out after a visit to the doc!!

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ava & emmy after their movie!

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the hubby & kids playing while we waited to go to the airport!

.....a photo a day....

I'm pretty convinced that our chocolate lab Zoe is the laziest dog ever. But, she's the best!!

1.17.2012

....a photo a day....

I love seeing the kids playing so well together!

1.16.2012

....a photo a day.....

I decided I would try to take a quick picture every day of the kids. So, I'll start with one from last night.

Poor Gray wasn't feeling too well....
1.15.2012

2011 : In Review

This past year has been full of up's and down's.......but we'll just focus on the up's!

JANUARY:

• Grayson decided to make his appearance ON his due date.....that also happened to be the hubby's birthday! Such a great day!

We had a MASSIVE snow storm. And that's crazy for the south!!

FEBRUARY:

• February was fairly uneventful.....other than MORE snow & my 28th birthday.

MARCH:

• The family ventured up to Nashville to say good-bye to "Uncle Tom" (aka...my younger brother Colin). He was leaving out of Nashville to head to Parris Island, SC for Marine Corps Boot Camp. It was SO hard for me to say good-bye to him....but I knew it was the best decision he has ever made! I have never been more proud of him.

APRIL:

• Ava had her first experience with playing soccer. Even though she only played about 3 or 4 games, she seemed to really enjoy it!! Hopefully she'll want to play again this spring!!

• Northern Alabama was hit by massive tornado's. Our area was out of power for days. It was completely devastating. By far, it was the scariest thing I have ever been through.

• Because of said tornado's and not having any power......the hubby decided that we would leave town and head south! We ventured down to Destin, Florida with our awesome neighbors & spent about 4 days at the beach. It was so nice & relaxing!

• We offically started our count down to Tom graduating Boot Camp at the end of the month! Ava was BEYOND excited!!!!

• Ava also started swim lessons at the local YMCA. They were GREAT!!! She had NO fear when it came time to go swimming!!! We may even look into doing them again this year!

MAY:

• Celebrated Mother's Day with my awesome family! Other than that, it was a quiet month!

• Ava performed in her first ever dance recital! I am so proud of my tiny dancer!

JUNE:

• Summer has finally arrived!! And it was a HOT one!!! We spent a LOT of time in my mom (aka Chick) and dad's (aka Dude) pool.

• It was FINALLY time to go see Tom! The past three months seemed to go so slowly! We were all very excited to get to Parris Island.....but I am pretty sure that Ava won the award for "Most Excited"!!!

JULY:

• Grayson was Baptized. He slept through the ENTIRE ceremony. I was pretty impressed!! My very best friend from college made a trip down from North Carolina to join us! It was great!!

• The hubby & I celebrated our 3yr wedding anniversary. He seriously is the love of my life! There's nobody else I could imagine spending the rest of my life with!

• The kids & I ventured down to Pensacola, Florida with Molly (Colin's now wife) to spend the weekend with Uncle Tom.

• We took a trip to the Nashville Aquarium one day with Chick. We all had a really good day!!

• And of course, there was a lot of time spent relaxing in Chick & Dude's pool!

August:

• We had our great, big, Griswold Family beach vacation on Hilton Head Island. It was GREAT! (Minus the few arguments!) My mom & dad had won a week stay at a house at a silent auction the previous year. So, they were nice enough to let us come stay with them for the week......along with my mom's two older sister & their families from Pennsylvania. In total, there were 20 *yes TWENTY* of us at the house! Definitely a vacation none of us will ever forget!

• After all of the Pennsylvania family left, we decided to take a trip to Charleston, SC before heading home. We spent some time with the hubby's grandparents, then spent the night with my cousin & her family.

September:

• Colin made a surprise visit home from Florida! He was able to sneak away for the weekend before he had to leave for more school in California.

• The mom & I found a great new outlet mall about an hour away from us! We decided to check it out once the cooler weather started to sneak in!! Even though it didn't last too long!!

OCTOBER:

• The hubby & I were invited to attend a tailgate at Auburn University. We had a blast. AND!! We were even lucky enough to score tickets to the game! I am not a football fan by any means.....but I had one of the best times!! It truly is something I'm glad I was able to do!! Hopefully, we'll be lucky enough to go again next year!!

• We had a long weekend as a family of three.....Ava got to go to Florida to visit with my Grandmother with Chick & Dude. And did she get the biggest surprise ever......a trip to Disney! Despite the rain, she had a blast!

• Of course we had to take a trip out to the local pumpkin patch with the kids! And carve our pumpkins!!!!

• And there was Halloween!!! Which is also Dude's birthday!! We had a blast taking our little witch & garden gnome trick-or-treating!!

• Grayson started WALKING!!!!

NOVEMBER:

• November was the start of the craziness!!!!!!

• We celebrated Thanksgiving.

• Ava turned FIVE!!!!

• Christmas shopping began!

DECEMBER:

• Colin FINALLY finished all of his post-boot camp schooling......at least for now!! And was able to come home for a couple of days. It was so nice to have him home!

• Colin & Molly tied the knot!!! It was a quick wedding.....but I am so happy that she is now officially a part of our crazy family!!!

• We celebrated Christmas early with Colin & Molly. Ava thought it was a blast because she got to open so many presents!!! And Grayson......he was happy with all of the ripped up paper and ribbons!!!

• Our Christmas tree didn't go up until the middle of December.....mostly because Grayson is a monster and has to get in to EVERYTHING!!! But, he did better with it then I imagined!!!

• Christmas was busy, stressful, fun, and exciting! Ava got pretty much everything she asked Santa for. Grayson, again, was just happy with the paper!! And the hubby surprised me with a new iPhone! He even got what he asked for from Santa.....an Amazon Kindle!

• Christmas Day, Grayson took a good fall while we were at my mother in laws. We had to make a pit stop to see our wonderful pediatrician at home to have him glued back together! I see many, many more injuries in our future with this child!!!

• New Years Eve we had plans to drop the kids off with a family friend & have a "hubby & wife" date night. Didn't happen. So, we ended up having dinner with our neighbors & their 2 girls at Mellow Mushroom (yum!)! It was nice because we all get along so well!! After dinner, we all went home, put the kids to bed, and then had a game night with the adults! Who knew that having only 2 couples play Cranium would be so much fun?? This was the 2nd NYE that we spent with the neighbors......I think it's the start of a good tradition!

Well. That was pretty much our past year in a nut shell....kind of!! Hopefully this year is just as wonderful as the last!