Here's Brooke.
Brooke is my sister (maybe by marriage, but my sister none-the-less)
Brooke is the best part of my extended family, my brother-in-law couldn't have chosen a more fantastic woman to spend his life with.
Brooke is my favorite person to scrapbook with and we don't get to do it often enough.
Brooke is turning 31 today.
Happy Birthday Brooke!!! Love you sister.
I know it's January and I'm still writing about Christmas but we just had our last Christmas celebration on January 7th. We celebrated Christmas with Jeff's family this weekend. We decided to have Christmas at our house this year for a few reasons. The first being that as a part of Jeff's parents Christmas gift we bought a family photo session with a local photographer, the second being that we wanted to spend more than just a few short hours celebrating with family and lastly so that Carson and Bennett wouldn't be so tired because we celebrated so late at night, like usual.
It was a nice, mostly relaxing weekend. We spent Friday night chatting and catching up, LOTS of good conversation. Then on Saturday morning we opened gifts (just like it was Christmas morning). Of course everyone loved everything they got and we all got more than our fair share. Saturday afternoon we had a wonderful lasagna dinner with Caesar salad and garlic bread sticks. For dinner that evening we had an appetizer assortment. Lastly, on Sunday we had our family pictures and I'm eagerly waiting to see them.
So for my picture, and there were plenty to choose from, is of me opening some of Bennett's gifts. I rarely take photos of myself and I decided now was a great time to include one of me in with the rest.
A typical weekday morning in our house starts around 7 a.m. If Carson hasn't already snuck into our bed when Jeff leaves, I go and wake him up and carry him into bed where cartoons wait for him. I'm a little sad about this part of our morning. It used to be all Team Oomizoomi, Dora and Spongebob Squarepants but lately it's been Bakugan & Pokemon (double uhh) and on occasion Ben 10 (which I don't mind). Gone are the days of innocence (or so it seems) and here are the days of Japanese Anime, which I despise.
While I'm getting dressed Carson will have his breakfast in bed and watch cartoons. Then when it's time for Bennett to start waking up I'll go in and get him out of his crib so he can watch cartoons with Carson while enjoying his pacifier. I love listening to the two of them in the morning. Some mornings Bennett is a little fussy and just wants to be with mom and some mornings he and Carson giggle and play together.
I love my little family.
Thanks to my boss I have been hooked on the Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins. I read the first book, Hunger Games, in no time and because I couldn't wait to get my hands on the second book, Catching Fire, I went right out and bought it at night. Both books have been fabulous reads. I loved them so much that I bought my sister-in-law, Brooke the first one for Christmas. It's the next Twilight series.
I love how the fleece jacket that Bennett got for Christmas brings out his blue eyes. Carson has gorgeous eyes and we've always said so, but Bennett's are BLUE, BLUE, BLUE! Every time I look into those eyes I just melt. What's a mother to do. I'm sure one day my boys will melt some hearts with their eyes.
Without a doubt the best part of my life is family. I'm not just talking about my immediate family but I'll focus on that for this post. God blessed me with two beautiful boys, brothers. Nothing makes me happier than to see those boys giggle and play with eachother. I know it won't be long before they are fighting with one another and time outs are plenty, but for now I'm cherishing every moment I can. When I saw Carson & Bennnett sitting side-by-side in their striped shirts watching t.v. with eachother while I made dinner I just knew that this was my picture. Then I went to grab my camera and they moved away from eachother. So while I snapped pictures they caught me and posed a little, so instead of the picture of the two of them sitting side-by-side I got this little gem. Like I said.....Cherish every moment.
In addition to keeping up with this blog I'm also going to try my hand at the picture a day again.
We started 2012 by ringing in the new year with my parents and the boys. Poor little Bennett was such a good sport, he hung in there until 10:40 and then he just couldn't fight it any longer and the poor baby went to bed. Carson was so cute by counting down and clanging our champagne glasses and saying "CHEERS" over and over again. He loved that part.
Mom and I, as usual, prepared too much food for the evening. We always make enough food to feed a small army and this year was no exception. The best part of the food was how much Carson was willing to try. He tried the bacon wrapped pretzels, the chocolate covered bacon and the shrimp cocktail. I was so impressed. He even seemed to enjoy the shrimp. And unlike most typical five-year-olds his favorite nosh seemed to be the medium boneless buffalo wings from B-dubs. That's our boy liking the spicy stuff. I just hope Bennett like spicy food as much as the rest of us.
Mom and I couldn't help ourselves and had to have some sushi. We bought some sushi and made up our own platter. We wish we could have had it from Tegry Bistro but this platter sufficed. So my picture for January 1st, 2012 is said platter. Yummy!!
