New Year's Day/Houston Christmas 2015

New Year's Day is also the Christmas Celebration with the Houston side. Now that Grandma is in a facility, we kicked off the day visiting her in the morning and exchanging gifts with her. After awhile (she can't handle visitors for very long stretches), we all headed to Kim and David's house which isn't more than 10 minutes away. There, we spent the rest of the day snacking, doing the gift card exchange and letting the kiddos open their gifts. It was a good day and a nice time to catch up with Michael who wasn't able to join us last year.

It was a cold, wet day.

Might as well get a picture of our boys with Gramps while we wait.

This boy is a serious Daddy-Man. LOVES him!

These next three photos are perfect examples of what life is like with two boys. Some people try to convince me that girls and boys are the same at this age, but I have never seen girls flail and wrestle and hang-on like ours do. They never stop moving! And especially when we're doing something where they need to just wait around, they get all these wiggles they have to wiggle out. (Please note: the boys are not hanging off of Seth's shoulders because they're unhappy. He's simply picked them up to get them out of someone's way and they're thrilled to be getting attention like that. And, also, that is why I'm so thankful to have a hands-on husband to help me with these crazy boys! The word "man-handle" has never been so real to me as with these sons of ours.)

The kids were doing such a great job entertaining themselves once we got to Kim and David's that the adults decided to do our gift card exchange while they played. It was nice that the kids' gifts didn't take the center of attention on that day. I mean, it's nice that they all know each other well enough that they can just do their thing while the adults mingle and open gifts. It seemed like we spent more time in conversation than we normally get to. The boys got some Cars/Planes guys, kinetic sand, and a glow-in-the-dark crayon machine thing all of which were huge hits!

New Year's Eve; 2014

New Year's Eve. was an occasion of that phrase that's something like "best laid plans..." because though we had planned what we would do (fun dinner, board games, stream a countdown and have party favors), that didn't actually happen. I forget how long things take to do with kids, so we never had any time to play games. By the time we were done with dinner, it was time to get into jammies and get out our balloons and such. Don't get me wrong, we had a nice time, but it didn't live up to my expectations. Which I seem to have a hard time changing based on the fact that I have kids. Will I ever learn?

Seth bought balloons and noise makers.

We watched a special countdown Netflix did with the Madagascar cast. It wouldn't work with Wii, so we watched on the computer.

And once "midnight" hit (which was actually like 8:30), Seth threw some silver tinsel-like stuff in the air over the boys (his idea!) and they had mixed reactions. Austin loved it and asked for more and more and more and Graham kept asking us to remove little small parts from anywhere near him.

How did you spend New Years Eve.? I'm especially curious what you did if you have young children... Do you eat a special food? If so, what? Do you do anything otherwise festive? Do the kids stay up late?

Cute Pic Post -- December 2014

December was rough. The men of this house traded sickness around and around and thusly, we spent the first three weeks fighting all sorts of different symptoms. Each of them spent a period of a few days miserable and feverish and thusly hopped up on medicine. (Thankfully, I never got sick!) The worst of it was Graham who had a particularly bad night one night, screaming his head off, and urgent care gave antibiotic for ears that looked "maybe a little red." Once that finished, it was time for Christmas, so it was a bit hard to truly feel in The Spirit, but Christmas Eve and Day came whether we were ready or not and both were very good!

My favorite thing that was different this year was that Seth took Christmas Eve Day off. It meant we could spend more time together as a family and the whole day felt more like a holiday than just some regular day. Between the two of us, we cooked and baked up a storm! All sorts of goodies for the Christmas Eve. dinner (Seth's parents come over) and for Christmas Day (I make the Jesus Birthday cake) as well as plenty of things we just wanted around (me--No Bake Chocolate cookies, Seth-pralines). It was awesome. I'm hoping he'll make that a tradition--taking that day off.

Anyways, I'm sorta glad to have December over with. Despite all the sickness, I managed to get a few cute pictures I wanted to share. Enjoy!

Seth always does the tree and this year had some legitimate help!

Graham is seriously into looking through books. I don't remember if this is something Austin did at this age, but he'll often just go get a book and start paging through on his own. Love it!

One of our first broken ornaments. And I'm positive it won't be our last. (Austin actually broke my Cabbage Patch ornament as we were putting Christmas away, and I bawled like a baby bc of all it stood for... the Cabbage Patch place was on my Atlanta bucket list before we moved.) I didn't even see this one happen, Austin just called me into the family room from the office and given the tone of his voice, I knew to hurry. This is what I saw when I got there. It sucks as it was a gift from Anne Marie, but the biggest hassle was trying to get it cleaned up before little feet or paws stepped on it! They're always so desiring to help, and, well, I had my hands full trying to get this taken care of.

OMG, you guys! I MET JEN HATMAKER! 

And she snuggled right up to me after signing my books. I die.

Sweet Boy...

Y'all. One of the frustrating things about living away from where you grew up is not finding the things you're used to in the grocery store. I had a hankering for my mom's French onion soup, and needed this to make it. I checked and called everywhere and no one had it. But Amazon did! :-)

I love snuggles, but hate that it's sickness that brings them.

Graham loves puzzles just like Daddy does!

"Thank Heaven for Little Boys"

Graham and I were in Tom Thumb and he shouts "Gramps!" I looked around thinking that maybe David was actually in the store (one of his offices isn't too far away, so it's plausible), but then Graham started pointing up toward the ceiling where this big poster was hanging. There's a pretty strong resemblance, I think, and I find it adorable Graham noticed!

I love Fazoli's, but there's none in DFW.
Why are they selling the gift cards here!?

Sick Graham pictures...

Still a ham for the camera if he sees it.

Now we have two "Popples" around the house!

Boys are gonna be boys.

Seth went to his work party and I got an evening to myself with this classic!

After one particularly bad night, when Graham refused to stop screaming, Seth and he passed out on the couch. I found them this way the next morning. If it hadn't been so horrible, I might find this picture funny. Our time at urgent care was mostly horrible--we were there two hours and most of the time he was flailing and screaming his head off. So much so that he actually knocked a poster off the wall. But there were also calm moments scattered within. Love.

I came around the corner to find them playing with the nativity together! 

We baked for our neighbors..

Seth brushed up on some Christmas songs and had plenty of pedal help!

Graham became addicted to this costume.

This one acts like she's never loved on at all.

Laundry Helpers!

We got a lot of presents mailed to us this particular day and it was awesome!

They're listening to one of my old books on tape.

Graham doing more "reading."

All ready with summer shoes for Summer 2015.

Cyndi and I took these two to see Big Hero 6, which was awesome!

New Yoga/iPad playing position!?

Even Leonardo gets tired and falls asleep in the car.

They're actually really good at these. If you put the corners in, Graham can do the rest all on his own.

Movies & Jammies Day selfie!

2014's books

For the longest time, my goal was to out-do myself each year in terms of reading. I wanted to read one more book than the year previous. Well, since having kids, that's gone totally out the window! And in fact, the goal I'm setting for 2015 is half of what I accomplished in 2014--I'd rather find myself with more time to read than less! This past year, I read 24 books. I am satisfied with that number (but of course wish I could read more!) because it's about double what Chapters reads in a given year which means I'm not only participating with my book club, but reading about one extra book a month which means I'm reading the other ones I want to read too.

A summary of the past several years is:
2013 = 23 books
2012 = 26 books
2011 = 29 books

Here is the list of books I read in 2014
The Whole-Brain Child; Daniel Siegel
*Unbroken; Laura Hillenbrand   (top5!)
A Little Salty to Cut the Sweet; Sophie Hudson
The Marriage You've Always Wanted; Gary Chapman
*The Sisters; Nancy Jensen
The Antelope in the Living Room; Melanie Shankle
*Mrs. Kennedy and Me; Clint Hill
Historical Atlas of Russia; John Channon
*One Thousand Gifts; Ann Voskamp
*And Then There Were None; Agatha Christie
Dad is Fat; Jim Gaffigan
Sex and the Supremacy of Christ; John Piper
*Wild; Cheryl Strayed
*The Fault in Our Stars; John Green
*Bread & Wine; Shauna Niequist   (top5!)
Persecuted; Robin Parrish
Wherever the River Runs; Kelly Minter   (top5!)
*The American Heiress; Daisy Goodwin
Gone Girl; Gillian Flynn
People I Want to Punch in the Throat; Jen Mann
*Daring Greatly; Brene Brown
*All Joy and No Fun; Jennifer Senior   (top5!)
The Male Brain; Louann Brizendine
Interrupted; Jen Hatmaker   (top5!)
And technically I've read the first two books of the Anne of Green Gables series because I've finished those already, but they'll go on next year's list because they're to be finished by January's book club meeting.

Books with an * are ones I read with Chapters, my book club of 5+ years! I've written "(top5!)" after the ones I think are the top 5 best books I read last year. I would recommend nearly all of the books I read, though not exactly all, so ask if you're looking for an opinion on a certain book.

Note: I keep track of all of this via Goodreads. If you read a lot and don't use this site/app yet, start doing it now!

Do you have a reading/book goal for 2015? Can we help hold each other accountable?