It's a New Year!

So the Christmas cookie plate must be removed from the top of the blog.  Along with a new year, comes new BIG ideas about life.  Number one is admittedly unimaginative, but important all the same, "Eat More Healthy".  Every letter got capitalized because that's how important it is :)  Treats are out!  At least for a month while we detox from our Christmas gorging.  Admittedly, I would not love Christmas as much as I do, if Trader Joe didn't invent mint Joe Joes and all of it's various delicious brothers and sisters.  And admittedly, I ate entirely too many of them in the month of December.  Or maybe it wasn't too many at all.  Maybe it was just enough to make the season merry.  And just enough to prompt me to eat more healthfully in January.  I am not alone, Darin made the salad for dinner tonight.  Secretly, I think I can live without treats longer than he can.  But not so secretly, he thinks he can live without them longer than me.  So I would say we are smartly set up for a good old "battle of the healthy living", or something like that.  I will keep you posted.

Since we're starting off fresh with a new year, I hate to go back and talk about stuff that happened last year, but I also hate to not wrap things up.

Before the Fitzgeralds left to go back to Virginia, Rachel F. orchestrated a family Skpye gingerbread decorating party.  That was a clever idea, because we were all apart for Christmas this year.  It was fun to spend one evening together, albeit through a computer monitor:

D.C. Row Houses, Gingerbread style.

Later that night the adults got to sneak away to a late showing of True Grit, thanks to our best babysitter in the world (I made him, so I'm allowed to be biased).  The next morning the Fitzgeralds drove away, and that was sad, because it made it seem like Christmas was really over, and that I would have to probably clean my house again, not being able to claim I was being sociable with the company, etc.

I don't really remember what we did for the next two days.  Maybe Henry's basketball hoop got built, and maybe the boys suddenly spent hours of time outside.  And now that I'm remembering,  I think that was all made possible by our 60 degree and sunny weather that we had, all the way up until New Year's Eve!  Those are some great Christmas memories.

New Year's Eve was spent in our traditional manner, a la Fondue pot.  It was so delicious!

Le Fromage:

After devouring the entire pot of cheese, we sent the kids away while we cleared it all and set out the second (and most important) course:

Le Chocolat:

The boys were determined to stay awake until midnight.  I was determined to sew two new dresses before Sunday, so the evening was thus spent until 11:56pm when we all gathered together in the attic to toast in the new year with Sprit Zero and Crandberry Gingerale.

The end of an era.  Henry will turn 12 this year.  The girls will be 6 in a few short weeks.  I don't know how it's gone by so fast.  I look forward to all of it.  Life is grand.

Happy New Year!