Happy New Year 2011

We had an awesome New Year's celebration.  We went to First Night.  This is a crazy Boston tradition of spending the evening outside, viewing ice sculptures, watching performances and eating street vender food.  Kind of like a summer street festival, EXCEPT IT IS 10 degrees outside!  There are fireworks at midnight.  Really?  Who the heck thinks this is a good idea?  I suppose, only the people who would hang out in Times Square to watch the ball drop would be interested in this.  At least at First Night you are not corralled by bike racks and left to stand in a huge crowd - you are free to walk around.  After 6 years in Boston, this was our first First Night.  And, admittedly it was only interesting b/c we had a lack of better plans, our friends were going to the parade, and it was unseasonably warm in the 40s or something.  And if we were going all the way downtown, we might as well get a hotel room and make the most of it (note downtown is 6 miles away).  And if we were getting a hotel room, we should get one with a pool and make it a family fun date.  We did.  And it was.  Awesome.  One of my favorite New Years Eves.

If you would have told me 6 years ago that my idea of a good New Years Eve would be to be 8.5 months pregnant, staying in a chain hotel to use their indoor pool, walking in the freezing crowded streets for 2 miles to see ice sculptures and a parade, followed by running back to the hotel to avoid fireworks, realizing we missed the non-cranky dinner window and have no reservations and room service looks sucky and will take an hour, so we have to eat at "Champions" the hotel bar, (which admittedly was very good for what it was, and I was not sad for this option), and running up to our 2 double beds to put 2 toddlers to sleep while we all watched the ABC scrubbed version of "Wild Hogs" (with John Travolta & Wm H Macy) in bed ... and that falling asleep as the Dick Clark Ryan Seacrest special was just STARTING would be a great New Years Eve, I would have said, hand me the mom jeans and push me over a cliff.  But instead it was AWESOME.  I loved it.  Want a repeat next year.  (And incidentally I was awake for New Years at midnight, only b.c i was awake 47 times that night - and I am not exaggerating the 47 times.  I have a new Fitbit activity monitor and it told me so!)

Christmas Collage

Elliot sporting her newly fitting Patriot's Sweatsito.

Sam making Christmas Egg strata and Ben making Christmas  Eve Lobsta Corn Chowda

Shepherd cousin and the flock at the church pageant.

And the stockings were laid on the presents with care.

And, just showing you, still pregnant ;-) 

Opening presents on Christmas morning.

The aftermath

Grandma, the first aid kit was a surprising hit, for not really being a toy,  and the girls have mostly burned through the bandaids already. 

New Doll house.  

Sam has decided the picture of grandma and grandpa is hers and she put it in the doll house on her own.  And then put her little ponies down for a nap!

I love that the Critters of Calico Corner bunnies are riding on the Tech Deck skateboards.

And then, the next day, it snowed about 18 inches here.  We all went outside.  I couldn't/wouldn't shovel,  but my primary job was to lift Sammy out of the snow every 2 steps she took, "I need help!  I can't get up!" 

This is our Christmas Card

Maybe there will even be some commentary or holiday letter posted here ... but for now this is our Christmas card.  And if you did not see it here, you won't see it anywhere else either, so don't go checking your mailboxes this year and feeling left out.  Everybody was.

Pregnant Me + 60s Style

Okay, so I was asked by the 3rd person this week to please send some photos of my belly.  Somehow, Mindy had a whole pregnancy without one tiny glimpse of her being pregnant, but I am caving in.  After all, this blog was started over 4 years ago (yeesh!) basically to chronicle my growing belly and morphed into so much more.  But now, who has time for the monthly photo.  You can scroll through the Disney post to see how pregnant I was in October.  These beauties were taken recently.  I am currently 31 weeks along (and don't remember how many weeks pregnancy is), though we are due on Feb 9th.  You know its funny, I have less knowledge about this pregnancy than the other 2.  People (doctors) keep brushing by things and saying, "well, its your 3rd, its old hat, you know whats up..."  when really, nothing could be further from the truth.  I've forgotten all the words and the things to watch out for, and to prepare for (like, oh yeah, we should probably find the car seat?) and worse, is I am not consulting any of the books.  I was waaaay more prepared for Elliot, and then with Sam, it was right away so I remembered most things and still consulted books...but now, ha!

So, here I am.  And, that is my husband Ben.  We went to a YPO Holiday party with a 60s theme/costume flare.  And I was way nervous after these get-ups that we would get there find out that by 60s they meant "Mad Men" 60s.  Oh, thank goodness they did not...

This last photo is with the girls when we went through our house for the last time once the movers came...I am sure I will get around to posting about that someday.  Enjoy!