And, here we go again...

Trying to play catch up! I am going to get all of my detailed posts up soon, but I wanted to document some things while they were on my mind, and I had a minute to do it. :) After Abby's birthday celebrations died down, we went full force into Christmas celebrations...Gingerbread house decorating (see above). The house was only up for about 5min before the destroyed it, so I am glad I got this lovely photo first!

We had our annual Ornament Exchange Party. We usually do it at my friend Aimee's house, but she had a baby not too long ago and she wanted to get out of the house, so we all met at this awesome new winery called the Weingarten. It was yummy and it's always so much fun to get together with this group of ladies. We used to play bunco every month, but as people have gotten busier, some have moved, more kiddos have been born, etc. it's hard to get together each month, so we really enjoy the times when we can all meet up for some girl time! :)
One weekend while Mom was in town, we all went to the Nutcracker! Mom and I loved it, the girls loved it at first but then decided it was too long and the dancers needed to talk! ha! (We goofed and thought we had tickets to the shorter, narrated kids version and we didn't...it was 2hrs of the original version...they were OVER it! ha!) But, we had a great time, got all dressed up, went to dinner afterwards and all of that fun stuff! :)
LOTS and LOTS of baking! That same weekend Mom helped us bake and decorate 11 dozen cookies. We had a blast.
Abby had her Christmas Program at school...'A Bugs Christmas!' It was adorable and so was she, of course! :)
We also had a special 'Watch Night' at dance class! The girls had been working on dances to show us. I can not say enough good things about the studio where the girls take dance. They love it, they learn so much. Abby is really, really into it these days. She works hard. She is in a more advanced class with girls that are a little older than her, and she holds her own. I was so impressed that they placed her with that group, and even more impressed at how much she is learning and improving. Liv loves it, too. And, I won't be surprised if they are dancing together in a couple of years. But, Abby loves ballet (she's even asked to take an extra class each week) and Liv loves tap (probably because it's louder, wilder and involves shaking your booty more-ha!) I have videos and more pictures that I will post, too.
We went to see Santa! :)
And, he didn't disappoint! :) (lovely pose, Abby...thanks! ha!)
We rang in the New Year (at 9:30, but they thought it was midnight...more on that later! ha!)
And...we FINALLY settled everything from the accident and got a new car! YAY! Yes, I realize that is a horrible picture of a charcoal colored car at night time, but it's the best I have for now, so it will have to do! ha!
*We have had one heck of a time around here. We were slammed with Christmas programs, Christmas related festivities, dance, school, work, and everything else the weeks leading up to Christmas. We decided to ask Santa to come a night early, so Mom and Dad came up on the 23rd and Santa came on the 24th. We then went home to Mom and Dad's on Christmas Eve and stayed there until the 28th. We had to rush home on the morning of the 28th because they called and said they had decided to total our old car (after telling us it would just be fixed which we knew it wouldn't be the case, but anyways), they had to meet me to give us the check for the old car, and I had to clean the old car out before they came to haul off. So, we hauled ass home to meet with everyone for that! You can image the state we were in...me, the girls, Dixon (the dog), all crammed into our old car, traveling 4 hours and driving straight in to meet everyone. I believe the claims adjusters exact words were, 'you sure have your hands full, huh?' Translation: 'you are a 'effing disaster and your kids are wild animals!' haha!

*Anyway, we did that, came home went straight to work on taking Christmas stuff down. Thursday Abby had a party for a classmate. We went to look at some cars, went to the party, came home to pack again and we headed to Dixon, KY for Christmas with Scott's side of the family. All was well and fun with that until Sat night (New Years Eve). I started feeling tired and off after dinner, we let the girls believe it was midnight, showed the celebration in Sydney, Australia, took them out to bang pots and pans and then went to bed. Woke up that next morning SICK. AS. A. DOG! Spent the next 24 hours sick, puking my guts out, etc. Thank goodness we were there, though, so that I had someone to take care of the girls. I wasn't any where near well to drive home until Monday afternoon (and even then I was still in pretty bad shape). But, Abby had school Tuesday, we had a new car waiting for us at home, and Liv had just busted my in-laws flat screen TV, so we headed home! haha! ;)

*It's now a week later. I do feel better but still not back to normal, still can barely eat, so I will probably have to go and have tests to make sure it's not salmonella or E.Coli. I have felt my best today, though and did eat a pretzel and half of a sandwich and so far so good...that is MAJOR improvement. We had a long week getting back into the swing of things. With me getting sick, we were only able to be home 1 1/2 days of the entire Christmas break, so it was nice to get back into a routine and to be home. We hosted Mom, Brittney and Deana this weekend. Britt's cheer squad competed here this weekend, so we made the most of their time here and went down to the Arch yesterday, hung out at Britt's hotel, went to Dave and Buster's and spent all day at the competition today.

*Oh, and I have hired someone to keep the girls while I work. It was just getting too hard to take them with me ALL. THE. TIME. And, I feel bad asking friends to keep them. So, I found a great girl that lives right down the road. She's a senior in high school, she's been a nanny to triplets in the summertime, she does her service hours at a daycare, she's a doll and the girls are excited, so she starts tomorrow! :)

Soooooo....LOTS going on around here! I will try to get all the detailed posts up soon. We have lots of pictures from all of our Christmas celebrations, etc.

*Oh, and 2012 is the Year of NO! I am sick and tired of always being the YES! person, so I am making a concentrated effort to not spread myself too thin or get sucked into doing things that I don't really want to do, etc. More on that later, too! :) (As I am off practicing saying, 'that just doesn't work for me/us, sorry!' haha!)