Happy New Year!

Growing up, New Year's was always a special time for my Mom and me.  As the youngest, by a large margin in years, it often was just my mom and I at home for New Year's eve.  She would make it as special as she could while my siblings were out at cool church dances inside of shopping malls. 

Every year she would prepare a dinner of special items, things outside of our norm, we would sit on the couch with our spread in front of us and we would watch TV.

Tonight, I did the same for my kids.  It was frozen pizza, fruit, Cheeto's and Ritz crackers.  A feast for champions!  We had Martinelli's and made a toast of "Cheers" while we watch Transformers. 

Lucas was trying to copy his brother's cracker eye's

Lucas' 1st Birthday

I know this post is beyond late but I figured it's better late than never.  For Lucas' first birthday, I wanted something very low key, just family, gathered for dinner and cake.  I wanted a special day, where only the one's who are an integral part of his life, and his life to come, could come together and celebrate with us. 

My sister and I had taken a cake decorating class in anticipation of his birthday.  We wanted to make him an awesome birthday cake.  After 8 hours of work, I owed my sister HUGE.  I had chosen a "Curious George" theme for his birthday as I thought that fit him to a tee.  He is my curious little monkey, and I couldn't wait for his birthday to come. 

Well as with all things that you have high expectations for, I was ultimately disappointed with the whole event.  We encountered problem after problem with the cake, having to re-bake one cake, and I came to realize much too late that after the cake was finished, that we couldn't put it back in the refrigerator causing a major problem with the filling in the other cake.  In the end, one cake was short on flavor and the other was mushy...at least it looked great. 

Here's some pictures from our cake class, as well.

 I've realized building amazing looking cakes is much harder than I thought.  So much can go wrong, and this is a skill I have much to learn about still.  It's going to take time to make the sort of creations I envision in my head, but this coming year, everyone in our little family will get a great birthday cake while I practice, and maybe one for Valentine's Day and random Friday's.

Our Nativity

As I was preparing to set up our Nativity for Christmas, I got the idea that it would be a good teaching time.  So I asked LL to help me, and as we unwrapped each piece I explained why it was important and where it should be placed.  He did all the unwrapping and arranging of the scene.  In the end, we discussed the whole story of Christ's birth and he had a firm understanding of each piece, their role, and the symbolism they play in the story.  I was quite proud of my boy...

Until I explained that Christmas was really about Christ and not gifts.  He completely freaked like a wacko.  It made me sad, for one, that commercialism has already captured this little guy so strongly that he feels Santa is the most important part of Christmas.  Two, it made me ashamed, that I let it become that way, instead of pushing the theme of Christ more.  Three, it made me laugh, because he's 4 and he is a wacko but we'll get it eventually.

As for L2, he is walking and playing and getting into everything.  He likes to wash his hand and put on hand sanitizer.  He now says "agua", "Da-Ka" (Dakota) for our dog, and "uh-oh".  I think he has some sort of word or grunt for bye but it hasn't really formed yet.  He's trying at least.

I'll post again, sooner this time.  Bye for now.