In holiday recovery mode.

We survived yet another holiday season.

Christmas Eve was spent at my sister and BIL's house with family. It was the beginning of new family traditions and meant a lot less packing and traveling for us. This was the first Christmas morning that we spent in our own home with the kids. Brodie was pretty pleased with what Santa brought him. The girls are still too little to really "enjoy" holidays. We went back to my sister's for Christmas dinner to celebrate with our family and her in-laws.

New Year's Eve was a fun time. Bill, Cheryl, Mike, and Elizabeth came over. The adults played games in the kitchen while Brodie and Elizabeth played Hullaballoo, and watched videos. It was definitely a good time. We played a few games of Apples to Apples and Catch Phrase.

Today was a day of hard work. After a lunch of panettone french toast, we dismantled the fish tank, rearranged the living room, weeded out some old toys, and put a 1 gallon fish tank in Brodie's room (removing his shelf of plastic bins). I am slowly but surely taking back ownership of this house from all of the toys.

Our living room looks HUGE to me. This is the first time in almost 16 months that this room has not had a Pack N Play, infant carriers, swing, bouncy chairs, saucers, walkers, or a playard in it. We have a toy box, and a corner of toys now. All the off-limit items are in the same corner, somewhat blocked in by the computer and couch. Less chasing is good. ;)

Kid updates:
~Cate is still running everywhere. Cailey is cruising along, holding onto furniture. Cailey says, "hi," shakes her head, "no," and sometimes will wave bye-bye. Both girls say ma-ma and da-da, but not always in a meaningful fashion. They have nearly perfected the divide and conquer bit, and both freeze when the other is told, "no."
~Brodie saw Charlotte's Web before Christmas, and really enjoyed it. He is loving his T-Rex Mountain and dinosaurs, and his Spiderman karaoke boombox. He expressed his holiday disgust on Christmas Eve, following me around with his box of Moonsand. I told him I was too busy for him to play with it right now, so he dropped it in the middle of the kitchen, and stormed out, muttering, "I'm getting sick of this place." LOL. I let him play with it.