A Little Behind

I apologize now for letting time go between the last post and now. December is a bit crazy for us and this year we tried to make it less so but failed miserably.

We have been trying to work on finishing up projects, Christmas shopping, date night, work parties, family get togethers and can't forget my boys' birthdays. Unfortunately very few pictures were taken, at least that we have in our possession.

Very rarely do we get a date night, try maybe twice a year. I know we need to do it more often but the typical things stand in the way; time, money, babysitter or a combination. We were suppose to go to a dinner swearing in the new president for the Agents here but I failed to RSVP in time and our friends were gracious enough to still watch the boys. So off we went to dinner and some shopping although it was mainly to walk off what we ate. We did the typical thing of constantly talking about the kids even though we tried not to but it could be that we were able to discuss so much since we weren't having to shout over the boys and we certainly were not in the habit of taking our time to talk. We have become pretty good at getting out what we want to say quickly and effectively... I think.

Ah I forgot about one thing that helped keep us busy... Gizmo our elf. Luckily the days we forgot to move him he had excuses. For two days we was trapped in our bread safe (had to leave the door open the second day), stuck in the playroom drop down ceiling, and had adventures riding reindeer and my treadmill. He took a spill when I went for a run and "magically" ended up on top of the dog cage about a foot away.

Usually this is the time of year we are planning family Christmas' (which we did) and birthday parties, but this year we knew everything was already kind of crazy so we decided to keep it simple. This may be the point to mention the reason it is so hectic is that both of our boys' birthdays are in December not only that but they are the day before and day after Christmas (NOT PLANNED). We let them pick where they want to eat on their day and what we do. It was a little harder since one is on Christmas Eve and daddy worked but all he wanted to do was cuddle, have lunch at Panera, and then picked up the making for cupcakes. He fell asleep while his brother and I made them but we woke him up to help decorate and devour. (We only took video that day) He never ate the cupcake, just wanted the icing. They left cupcakes for Santa and headed to bed, although they didn't fall asleep until midnight.

We try to make sure we keep most of Christmas and Birthday's separate but it is hard. We try to keep everything low key especially when it comes to presents. So Christmas morning we had to wake them up so we could do our gifts and head to my parents. My husband was able to pull off a surprise for me despite me almost ruining it. I now have some nice running gear :) We quickly dressed and packed to head to my parents' for brunch. 

Sorry for the blurriness but you can tell they wanted to go back to bed instead of opening gifts.

About 1/2 the family is not in the picture

 It was great getting to spend time with my mom's side, due to ice/snow we took dinner to my dad's side. There were 16 of us in a tiny 1 bedroom apartment but it was good to be surrounded by family. We took turns walking the boys up and down the hall since there was very little room for them to play in the apartment. It truly was a day that reminded me of my childhood watching our children. We ended the evening going to see my sister's and her husband's new house, I think they will be very happy.

On the 26th my sister spoiled her 3 nephews by helping them make gingerbread houses with leftover supplies from her class. I am a little ashamed to say this was their breakfast.

 Then it was off to Chuck E Cheese for lunch and some fun. Who would have thought that the kids would just want to hang out on the jungle gym and it was the adults going around playing games. Not only was it just my brother and his wife joining us but my mom and my other brother. Again a day that we didn't do a big party but probably one of the most memorable days he will have.

 We ended up staying the night and playing Quelf, very entertaining. Headed home early on Friday and since our oldest didn't get a cake let him pick out an ice cream cake.

The rest of 2013 was spent packing up our office, we will soon be having a house guest staying in that room and moving it upstairs. We also had a wedding for one of our nephews. Not terribly exciting of a post but hopefully not as exciting as the start to 2014 has been, but need to save something for the next post ;)