Friday Night Fish Fry

“Think of all the beauty still left around you and be happy.”—Anne Frank

Bronx 4 and a half months.

baking cookies with Izzy

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Sick of Ham.

I have so much sodium in my body I don't know if I can drink enough water to flush it out.  Toonces loves the leftover Honey Baked Ham but you can only take so much ham.   One thing I am not sick of is walking around looking at all my awesome gifts.  I can't grow tired of that.

What a wonderful glorious holiday.   I had the best Christmas.   I think they get better every year and only those early years of memories waiting for Santa could be any more exciting.  I try to make gift opening time go as slow as possible with the kids so I can see everything and take in everything but that is a hard job.  They just want to get them open.  Can't blame them for that but as adults we know that once they are all opened it is basically over and time to clean up.

And I hate clean up time.  Packing up time.  We worked most of yesterday putting things back in storage except for taking down the tree.   It's real so it is pretty dry right now.  But the Toonces and Rollie tradition is New Years Day.  And it works for us so we're afraid to change it.   Man you really have to love it or it just isn't worth the work :)

Melanie's kids recorded 'The Night Before Christmas' in a book for me.  It is on the shelf now with Ben and Jackson doing 'We're not Afraid of Anything'...what wonderful gifts.  I love having their little voices frozen in time just as they are.  They grow up so quickly that any way I can preserve a part of them, well I want to do it.

Is everyone ready to ring in a new year?  We already have some fun things planned for 2012 but mostly I am making some internal promises to myself.  Though I don't list off resolutions there are things that I want to work on for myself.  And promises made to myself that I keep.  But mainly I want to do all things best for my family and give to those strangers that need my help without taking away their dignity.    The rest really doesn't matter so much.

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And some Christmas pics from the big day!

All my babies!

A Miami Heat sock monkey!

Bronx giving Ben kisses!

 

 

 

  

 

Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look once in awhile, you could miss it.”—From "Ferris Bueller's Day Off"

 

Life on the farm.  Chicks hatching in the cold of winter.  Usually unheard of for us but the 70 degree heat wave helped them along.  Their mom is the best mother hen ever.  She goes to the door of the tack room when she is done for the day.  Or when they've just gotten on her last nerve.  So far all ten are peeping away. 

Waiting on Santa like the rest of us!

The mama has all those babies scratching in the hay under ole Freck. 

Sweet Dora do.  Ready to get to work.

chasing this little guy back around to mom.