January Purge

I just deleted 37, 583 email messages from my "deleted items" folder in Outlook.
How's that for a fresh start?
Michaela is back at school. She told me last night before bed that she is looking forward to returning to school "so I can have some alone time."
Jenna and I are home in our jammies. It is -3 degrees outside so we have the fireplace cranking.
We are going out in the tundra later to mail Jenna's preschool registration forms for the fall. I am beside myself with excitement of two mornings a week to myself.
I want to sign Michaela up for some type of sport activity... she has chosen gymnastics as her next adventure. I think she'll love it. I am going to call around and look for a class today.

Holiday Catch-up

Just like Brian and Beth, I am starting my blog post with a picture of our backyard... heavy with snow from a storm on Sunday night and today. All the local meteorologists went crazy with the "One- Two Punch" description of the back-to-back storms. "A Winter Wallop" was another alliteration they loved to use. I spent the last two days saying those phrases over and over to Dan in my best newscaster voice, and God bless him, he laughed almost every time.

Happy 2008!! I spent the day pathetically hung over from last night's dinner out with two other couples... we had such a great time and I had three glasses of wine (Whoo-hooo! Big Drinker!) and that turned out to be two glasses too many. I was sick all night and completely exhausted. This happened a few months ago when we went out to dinner and I had a few glasses of wine... I tried to pass it off that I had a bug or something, but the bottom line is that I shouldn't drink more than one of anything.

We had a cozy day at home. We made our first belgian waffles with Dan's new waffle maker that he got from me for Christmas, reminiscent of the waffle maker we used on our summer vacation in Plymouth. They were so yummy! Michaela worked on a kid's scrapbook that she got for Christmas and she and Dan made a snowman outside. Jenna took full advantage of my weakened state and tried to nurse every few hours. We took a monster nap together this afternoon. Dan whipped up a kid-friendly dinner of chicken tenders and tater tots, which the girls call blubber-nuggets. There was lots of burping, tooting and talk of farts at the dinner table. Jenna was a bit gassy and was able to fart on cue and she was so proud to contribute to the hilarity. Michaela does a very good imitation of a fake burp and that kept us amused as well. Dinner with a two- and six-year old: completely lacking any sense of sophistication.

We had a really nice Christmas week and I will be posting pics and stories in the next few days. We had a great holiday but I am ready for the return of mundane life, with schedules and structure and school. I decided on Dec. 26th that I'm going to sleep all through January.

Home Improvement Rampage- Take 2

Home Improvement Rampage

Nothing makes you want to fix up your house like having 20-30 of your closest friends and relatives over. In light of the Birthday Party for Jesus and our upcoming hosting duties on Christmas Day, we decided to tackle some projects that we've been neglecting for a long time. Dan served as General Contractor, I was per diem labor and Final Inspector, and Jenna and Michaela served as Supervisors. Over all we are pleased with the results! Dan did a great job!

Three quick points:
1. I have decided I am going to make a "To Don't" List for next Christmas: I am going to write myself a letter now and tuck it into my calendar to read next December. It will hopefully put the brakes on some of my grand, optimistic ideas about what I can accomplish in one month. As I tell my mom, whenever I say, "We JUST have to do this, this and this..." those JUSTs are usually huge, time consuming steps. Scale back, be happy.
2. I have grown an official Christmas zit on my lip. Lovely.
3. I discovered tonight after giving the girls their baths that Jenna casually refers to her backside as "my booty". As in, "Put some lotion on my booty." (And suddenly the blog is red-flagged for questionable content...)
It's midnight. Time to pay a few bills and go to sleep.