Whirlwind!

Is it just me or is time speeding up in 2013? Wow! It has been a busy year so far and we are only 8 days into the new year! The new year started out tame enough.
For New Year's Eve, my mother and my aunt prepared a delicious meal of tuna and roast beef sandwiches along with boiled vegetables. This was a meal that my grandmother traditionally made for them on New Year's Eve when they were growing up. I prepared a pasta dish for the occasion and we all feasted well into the night.


 I dressed my daughter and myself both in red sweater dresses.


My son and his cousin wore matching spiderman shirts


My niece wore a cute floral dress. Isn't she so adorable?

My sister and my niece had braided matching hairstyles.

Do you think my daughter was enjoying all the attention my sister and I were giving her? At midnight it took a  long time for all of us to individually wish each other happy new years. I think that's because there were 20 of us altogether.

We thought it was too cold to go outside so we tried watching the fireworks from the window this year.

That wasn't a very good plan as the buildings around us blocked our view. We thought for sure the kids would be tired and want to go to sleep, but we were wrong. They were up well past midnight. I tried to recover on new years day but we came back home from my parents that day so I was exhausted from the trip. I was still kind of tired on my birthday. Still I had an amazing birthday. My husband got me a magic bullet to help me make smoothies to go in the morning. My sister gave me a cake decorating set that I can't wait to use. A really good friend of mine gave me a really nice candle holder and make up and another friend gave me this really nice bouquet of pink carnations.

The best part of my birthday though was being surrounded by my family. My parents came to visit on my birthday and they stayed the weekend with us. My son did something really funny. What do you think they're doing in this picture. I'll give you a hint, it's not hugging.


My son was measuring my daughter. By his measurements, she is "nose height' because she comes up to his nose. If you look closely at this image, you'll see that he is sticking his nose on the top of her head. If you want to see a real hug, this is how it's done.