So Much To Celebrate!

As you all know, December is a busy month for us! Between Ryan's Birthday, my Birthday, Christmas, our Wedding Anniversary, and Roo's Birthday... It's a bit overwhelming! We were talking the other week about Hanukkah and how that is some thing we've both always wanted to celebrate. I have some Jewish roots in my family and I just...I don't know, think it would be cool to celebrate such a neat family centered tradition.

As we discussed "next year" we had to laugh, do we REALLY need another excuse to celebrate, really?

No.

Maybe one year we'll have so much need to celebrate we'll get a Menorah and some candles and go for it...Maybe.

Between all the normal Holidays, and all the extras in our family... Well it's 8:30pm on the 31st, the kids are asleep. We made it through the craziest month of the year! Boy, are we wiped out.

But I have to sneak on here and write. I am so not going to make it to midnight, not even close. I'll ring in the new year in my subconscious, hopefully. But I have to share how thankful I am. Thankful for the zany, sweet, amazing little soul God blessed us with 3 years ago today. Roo. I can't thank God enough for the honor of getting to raise this amazing little person. The sensitivity, empathy, grace, love ,and joy she is and has brought into our home is more than we deserve. She is a gift.

[caption id="attachment_301" align="aligncenter" width="538" caption="Priceless! She was grinning SO big right before I went to take a picture. I said "Smiiile!" and she made this face."][/caption]

I can't believe 3 short years ago this was who she was: newborn wonderfulness (video)

Ryan got me a new camera for all of that (Christmas/Birthday/Anniversary) and so I've been taking pictures up a storm. So amazing to have a nice new digital camera what a blessing!

That said, there will be LOTS Of pictures coming soon!

It has been a wonderful few weeks. We don't usually celebrate our Birthdays separate from our anniversary. It saves time, energy, and money to do it all together. But this year...Well this has been a special year and we felt it was important to celebrate the goodness out of it all! Yesterday we celebrated 5 years of marriage. My Mom kept the girls for us and we went out for the whole day. Wad a wonderful breakfast, took a long walk through our "old stomping grounds", took in a great movie... Just had lots of wonderful time to talk and be. It's been a very BIG few years, we really would have loved to take a few days off and just go on a "get away". But our littles are still very little, and we just didn't feel a peace about leaving them yet. So we decided to take them with us! We got a room at nice local hotel, during our day away we spent a few hours there on our own, got to feel like we were really getting away for a few hours. Swimming without being life guard, eating chinese food without having to share, it was such a treat! And then we went and picked the kids up for a wonderful slumber party. It was THE best most fun thing we've done...ever. The girls were so excited, we watched the new Disney movie, Tangled (which Roo loved!) and ate popcorn and let the girls stay up way past their bedtime. In the morning we took them for a swim, let them splash in the jacuzzi in our room and snuggled in the big bed watching TV together. I think it might be a new tradition for our family...To just get a room for us all once or twice a year, mini "staycation" for a night. No one got nearly enough sleep, and we wore the girls out with all the swimming and water time: but it was worth it. I'll post pictures later, seriously we didn't get enough sleep last night (Roo was still partying hard at 11pm and Friendly was up and at em before 6...And that wasn't including the 3 other nights we had like that this week, thanks to Friendly cutting molars).

But I'll leave with you with 2 other pictures from today...

[caption id="attachment_303" align="aligncenter" width="717" caption="We took her to Friendly's for a Birthday lunch: they sang to her when they brought her sundae. She was impressed."][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_304" align="aligncenter" width="717" caption="A few months ago she said she wanted a "teddy bear and balloons" birthday cake. I was a little apprehensive about tackling that one. More recently she declared she'd like a "puppy dog" cake. This was my attempt! Thank you Mom for the wonderful giant cup cake pan! Really going to come in handy for animal cakes. ;0)"][/caption]

Happy New Year!!!!