Happy 2008!

Hope everyone had a safe and happy New Year's Eve. We spent it at the Hughes' and they put on a great international dinner party. Our country was Morocco (does it have 2 C's or 2 R's or both?). I made Casablanca carrots - they were ok, not a recipe I'd repeat, but edible. Today is going to just be a chill day thankfully. We got like 6 inches of snow last night, so things will be slow. Maybe we'll do some more sledding. The girls are into the playing in the snow thing. I have to admit, I mostly use the excuse of the baby to send them out without me. It must be an old person thing, not wanting to go out in the cold. When I was a kid, I'd play in the snow or ice skate for hours. Kind of like the whole swimming thing, that's also lost some of its appeal. Oh to be a kid again! Speaking of age, welcoming in 2008 was a little bittersweet as I realized that I, and some of you, will mark this year with the number 30:( We'll have to commiserate on that later, I don't want to dwell on it.

So here are some belated Christmas photos of the fam.

Christmas party #1 was at Steve's family in Chicago the weekend before Christmas. This is Steve's cousin's wife Margie with Gabby, Rylee, and cousin Amanda.

C.J. playing with Auntie Tina.

Christmas Eve - we went to candlelight Christmas service at church then over to mom and dad's for Chinese dinner. Then we had Christmas #2 with Jason and Danielle. I think this is our first non-hospital family photo.

I'm not going to enter the world of drama that was Christmas Day. Let's just remember it by these pics of G.G. with her grandchildren. It was amazing how content and peaceful she was when she held C.J. in her arms. It was beautiful! It brings to mind one of my favorite Sarah McCloughlan songs "In the Arms of an Angel."

Here is the very cool snowman Gabby and Rylee cooperated to create! He was awesome! After an early attack by Dixie, he was restored to his full grandor. Aunt Marilyn gave us a great Christmas gift that was a box of snowman decorations, all you add is snow. Gabby later made a baby snowmas as well. It's great to have "good snow." For all you southerners, this is when the snow is actually useful for building and fighting. When it gets too cold, the snow doesn't stick together well and is really good for nothing - this is when we up north wonder why we live here. But we just got another dousing of "Good Snow" so hopefully I'll have some more cute winter pics soon.