Happy New Year!!!

We are the LAMEST family. It's 12 midnight, and Annie, Mindy and I are all online. (Hooray! Mom & Dad finally got high speed internet! Woohoo!) Adam and Talon are playing Rayman: Raving Rabbids, Cheryl is sacked out on the couch, and Lee is giving Talmadge a bottle and putting him to bed. Kira, thankfully, is sound asleep. All is well in Hidden Valley. We did watch the ball drop live in Times Square at 9:00 pm PST so that Kira could celebrate. There were silly hats, noise makers, and eventually even some fireworks. I guess maybe we're not all that lame after all.

We celebrated the new year with a yummy fondue dinner. Cheese-o-rama! We had two chocolate fondues for dessert, and they were both super good. I found a cool Nordic bundt pan on sale at Target after Christmas, and tried it out using the recipes that came with it. They were great, and I'll definitely use them again!

About the blog invites, my sister-in-law just showed me how to be selective about who can view my blog, even though there are only six or seven of you out there who I think ever look at this thing. I've gotten some weird computer generated (I assume) comments lately, and it kind of creeped me out a bit. So, I'm going to give this switch a shot.

Since I'm away from home, I don't have any photos to upload at the moment, but I'll have to share some of my very favorite Christmas gifts. My very favorite gift was from my sweet girl who spent every single penny she had (and a little extra from Daddy). She was SO CUTE on Christmas morning, and couldn't wait to give me my present, even before we opened presents from Santa. My next favorite gifts were from my little friend Zoe (and her uber talented, crafty mama)! I'll have to add a photo of the pair of ADORABLE gnomes that she made. I wanted to name them Sven and Ole, but Kira has named them Tinker and Stinker. According to Kira, Tinker is helpful and kind, but Stinker is always getting into mischief and causing problems. I love that she loves magical woodland creatures as much as I do!

Other Christmas highlights:

Adam's three little sisters and their husbands/families ALL came home for Christmas this year! It was NUTS, but fun. There were 14 people (and one dog) at my in-law's Christmas Eve & Christmas morning. We just wish that Rachel & Jeff could have stayed longer, but they had to go home on Christmas day to get back to work. : ( Kira loved playing with her cousins, and we all loved spending time together. I can only imagine what a let down next Christmas will be if everyone stays home or goes to visit their in-laws!

My nephew Aidan received a Transformer mask with a voice changing feature. My family had a BLAST trying it out, and we cracked each other up big time! I especially loved saying things like, "I like rainbows and ponies." And singing, "Little Bunny Foo Foo" while sounding like a big scary robot. It was awesome, and I want one! The Darth Vader one would be great too. Just imagine if Kira woke up in the middle of the night--Adam or I could pop that thing on and tell her "Go back to sleep" in a scary voice. (Just kidding, of course.)

Kira received the new American Girl Julie books, mini doll, and Nintendo DS game from Santa for Christmas, and she has already read six of the seven books! She got some money from my dad for Christmas, and has decided (for now) that she wants to save up for the big Julie doll. I think she's lucky to have one American Girl doll, and she should use her money for something else. We'll see what she decides. I sure do love their books though. They have such great lessons and messages.

Winter break is flying by, and Adam has been crazy busy at work as usual. I'm really hoping we can take some time to get away soon. I've got a tentative over-nighter planned (without Kira--gasp!) when he can actually take a day off. His workload has been totally insane lately, and we could really use a break. If I pull it off and all goes well, I'll have to share about the little B&B I found....

Alright, that's it for now. We've all got to get to bed since we know the little ones will be up early and will need tending to. I'm hoping we'll get to go see The Water Horse tomorrow. We'll see.... Happy New Year!!!