New Year

It feels like it's been AGES since Christmas day, but really it's only been about a week and a half.  We even still have our tree up and it is always lit when we are at home.  I think all of us, but especially Julia, will be sad to take it down this weekend.  We didn't decorate the house too much this year - mostly just a tree inside and a wreath on our door - because of it being up For Sale and it has made both me and Chris surprisingly happy.  The less is more idea really worked well for us this year.  Our stress level was quite low and I haven't tired of the tree at all like I tired of our house being taken over by Christmas decorations in years past.

We celebrated New Year's Eve with dinner at a local steakhouse along with hundreds of other perfect strangers.  We phoned for call ahead seating at 3:30pm for a 4:30pm dinner slot and I figured we would beat the rush with such an early dinner.  Nope!  Apparently everyone headed out to dinner early and there was a 75 minute wait at the restaurant around 4:20pm when we arrived.  Thankfully we had done the call ahead seating and within 10 minutes we were shown to our booth and were all happy as could be.  I loved the fact that I wasn't cooking, Chris loved that we were at a place that served great steaks, Julia loved eating the peanuts that came in a bucket on the table and Emma loved that we were at a booth in the back giving her the best view of everything going on around her.  Have I mentioned that she is a busybody?  Well, she was in busybody heaven that night.  Having an early dinner put us at home right around 7pm, giving us plenty of time to give the girls a bath and shower and let them curl up on the couch to watch High School Musical 3.  It's so funny to see them so interested in a movie for the entire length of it.  I find it especially great that Emma loves watching it with Julia.  It's a nice activity they can do together and both of them seem to love snuggling on the couch watching a musical.  I think the key to their attention is breaking out into song every 10 minutes or so.  I might have to remember this and just break out in song next time I need their attention.  

When the girls went to bed, Chris and I put on our own movie.  We have been watching the Band of Brothers series for most of the holiday since Chris received the box set as a gift and it was nice to take a break for the evening and watch a very light comedy.  I managed to be sound asleep when the New Year arrived and I think Chris abandoned watching the ball drop and rung in the New Year watching a basketball game.  The best part of the night was that everyone slept through it!  Over the holiday there were very few continuous nighttime hours of sleep so a good night's sleep cannot be underrated in my book. We spent New Year's day with some close friends that we see all too infrequently and just had a great day.

The new year also brings with it Julia's birthday.  My big girl is now FIVE!!!!!  Oh, boy!  Because FIVE is such a special birthday (really, aren't they all at this age??!!!), I will do a post on Julia's big day all by itself shortly.  I'm just pulling together the year in photos video to go with it and then will get it up.  I am optimistic that this could happen as early as this weekend :-)