Happy New Year! Bring on 2012!!
I am going to publicize my near year's resolutions. I tend to be a person of my word, so if I tell you what my resolutions are, I'm more likely to keep them.
1. Get affairs in order. We have two precious children, and in our absense they will need care and financial support. We will have a plan, trust, and will by the end of 2012.
2. Date nights. Dan and I need a Saturday night date now and then. We love spending the weekends with our girls but our marriage would benefit from dinner and a movie every now and then.
3. Healthier eating. I said healthiER not healthy. I am not promising to eat organic and not have junk. I am resolving to replace a bad choice with a better choice when it's possible. Dan's dad having a heart attack was a real reminder we'd better all take care of ourselves.
I hope everyone has a blessed and happy year!

If Erin was checking this blog already, she'd be giving me far too much credit. But just in case, here it is: ;-)

HO HO HO!!! Christmas party gone personal this year. I decided not to have a big to-do. I'm spread a little more thin this year, and here lately it seems so is everyone else. So I invited three of Daniley's friends for a Christmas spend-the-night. Sarah Katherine was first on the scene.
After a snack and some laughs, the girls were in party mode!
Shortly after, Anna, Bray, and Ryan arrived. Anna LOVES playing with Little Darlin'. We watched The Polar Express to get ready for our ride on it tomorrow!! Both Daniley and Sarah Katherine have tickets, but not together. After the movie, the girls found Santa outside peeking at them behind a tree. He gave them a very personal visit. When Sarah Katherine saw him, she had a small, very miniature meltdown. No one said anything about her seeing Santa, but she just got a tad bit upset. Now Erin had ASSURED me SK would be primed for Santa this year. LOL. Well....by the time Santa made it inside, Sarah Katherine was his best friend!!
Daniley is always first in Santa's lap and I guess when you are the party host, that's your reward!
Here are Anna, Ryan, and Bray with Santa!
Little Darlin' liked Santa too! She asked for her Big Sister to always be nice to her. I'm not sure if Santa can really pull that out of his bag. Santa, please, Show me what you've got!! Here is everyone telling Santa goodbye. I love the expressions on everyone's faces.
Now I have two tired little girls all ready for bed! It's 10:45pm, and they're still in there giggling! :-) Goodnight everyone!! :-)

Brooke, (sis-in-law, mom to my new niece, bride to my brother) and I had a girls day out Saturday and decided to write posts about it without looking at the others' first, just to see how our perspectives differed. So here's my story: (You can view Brookie's by clicking her link on my sidebar, when it's updated.)

Saturday--we decided to get the girls together and do some shopping. My mom warned me we were crazy. I packed one of everything, so hopefully no matter what went "wrong" that day, I'd have a solution in the bag. (Everyone does know that with 3 kids the day isn't going to be like a walk in the park, right?) After some amount of chaos, and a trip back for what we forgot, only later to think of more stuff we forgot, we were on our way. Stop #1: Chick-fil-A. It was a mad house; we had to park at NTB and walk to CFA (with 3 kids and 80 lb. of luggage). Daniley ran into the play area (which was great for me) so Little Darlin and I got the food and sat down. I went to retrieve Daniley and I saw her before I got there. "OH MY GOSH!" I exclaimed! I heard some other parents say "Yeh we were wondering who she belonged to." Her pants were sopping wet. I was praying someone spilled a drink, but oh no. Daniley has never flat out peed in her pants, and she's been potty trained since well before she turned 2. I really couldn't understand what I was seeing but it was what it was so all I could do was deal with the mess. I just really wanted to get out of there without being seen and run away as quickly as possible. So I got the spare set of clothes and went to the bathroom (no spare panties, Commando). I was telling Daniley how upset I was with her and asking her why she did that (we had peed just half an hour prior). I said "Where did you pee pee at?" Reply: "In the car seat. In that hole." OMG. Well THAT situation just went from bad to worse. .... We sat down to eat finally and Daniley kept trying to drink my tea. I politely moved it to my other side and helped Daniley eat. I looked back over suddenly to find Little Darlin had swiped it off the table...it was upside down in her lap. At that point I just started giggling because Brooke is there and I'm supposed to look "experienced." LOL. Yeh she was getting the "experience" alright. So the lid was on and the spill wasn't too bad. I wiped her up, asked CFA for a couple plastic bags (because we were NOT going home!) and Daniley was just gonna have to sit on the pee in the car seat. So we get out to the car....and I'm ready.....but the car seat is dry. So I started perusing the carpet for pee. NONE. Everything was dry. I was perplexed. So again, I questioned Daniley. "Daniley, I thought you said you peed in your car seat. This car seat is dry. Tell me where you peed." Reply: "Mom, I peed in that car in Chick-fil-A, in the square hole." Well...it hit me like a ton of bricks. There's a car up in the play area. And by the way, she AIMED for that hole. That wasn't an accident. It was all coming together. I am so sorry world. Only a few times have I been more embarrassed. After we found out what really happened me and Brooke just died in laughter (even though it's not "funny"), and once again, we were on our way. It was off to get gas, then Hobby Lobby. Then JoAnn's. Then Costco. The rest of the day was pretty alright. (Really fun, actually.) It just takes a long time and a lot of effort to run around with a lot of kids. I wouldn't trade a minute of it.
After we got home I was holding Bentley and feeding her and Little Darlin' decided she would help: And then she started drooling: And then she decided she'd try to get her a bite.
Can't wait til our next outing!!!!!!!!!!!!!