Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, All That Jazz

***UPDATED DISCLAIMER*** Wow, this is a really, really boring post. I tried to read it and bored myself. Part of me thinks it would be great to go back and re-write this and make our awesome Winter Vacation Spectacular much more fun to read about, but that is probably NOT going to happen. Sorry. Let's still be friends. Life has been going by crazy fast. I can't believe it is already February! I guess it is time to share some things from a couple months ago, eh? Christmas this year (last year) was fantastic! Ethan was able to take his first break from work and was home for two weeks straight. I'm way cool mom of the year and have no pictures of Christmas except a random picture of the stockings on the fireplace because I thought it was hilarious that we have two kids and hung six stockings. When Kendall was little we had three stockings. One for her, one for Ethan, one for me. Makes sense, right? Then along came Bryan. We still only had three stockings, so we used one for Bryan, one for Kendall, one for the awesome parents to share. That went on for quite a few years until one Christmas I thought, "Hey, why don't we buy another stocking." Except we couldn't find a matching stocking for the three we had anywhere. It was time for new stockings, which means time to go to Target. At Target I found some super cute red and green stockings. They were nice and big with cute animal faces - they were perfect. And as I am there I am thinking, I don't want to have another baby in a year go through this whole ordeal again, I am going to buy FIVE stockings so I will be prepared. Ha!Ha! I am genius. Then the next year we didn't have a baby like we thought, but we did have a dog, which means we used all five stockings. So this year, when we knew we actually would be having a baby next Christmas I decided to see if I could find a matching stocking. Target, being the awesome place that it is, did have another matching stocking which I ordered to hang next year. When it came I put all six stockings up on the fireplace just to see how it would look, and then when I tried to take it down it made me feel sad. So I kept it up. And I thought it was hilarious when people would stop by for a visit to try and see them figure out who all the stockings belong to. Ahhh, the simple pleasures of life.

But I didn't get any other pictures, which makes me sad because we had THREE Christmas trees this year, including our first ever real Christmas tree, and I loved it. And Ethan did a fabulous job, as always, hanging Christmas lights. Christmas morning we filmed the kidlets with our video camera, but didn't take any pictures with our crummy camera. I'd put up a video, but I'll be honest, I just really don't know how to do that. But take my word for it, the kids were adorable. It was a wonderful Christmas season with parties and friends and love, and I enjoyed every second of it. For New Year's we drove down to Myrtle Beach and spent a couple of days there with some friends of ours. Myrtle Beach is fantastic. We went to Medieval Times where Ethan and Tim made quite a stir with their constant shouting at the actors. It was hilarious, the kids loved it, and the guy behind us wanted to know how much our rowdy husbands had to drink because they were going to try to catch up. Imagine their surprise when they found out they were totally sober.

Myrtle Beach has so much to do, and we had a blast tie dying shirts...

...in the heated pools... ...playing miniature golf... ...checking out the Aquarium... ...just hanging out... ...falling asleep at dinner... ...and of course the beach. The water was freezing. I just put my feet in and I knew that was enough for me. Kendall played in it for a bit, that girl doesn't worry about cold as long as she is having fun. Bryan went into the water one time with Ethan and decided it was not as fun as the last time we were at the beach. His body got so cold that he thought he had bruises all over him because his muscles were hurting. We got him dry and dressed and he spent most of our time at the beach like this. Naomi and I hung out on the sand looking for shells and watching the kids play. Ethan and Tim kept running out into the water to body surf. All of the natives were walking on the beach in snow boots and parkas and laughing their heads off at the crazy men in the water. They were even asked if they were eskimo people. But even when it is cold out the beach is amazing. Just walking in the sand and hearing the waves made me happy. I can't wait to go back. It was a wonderful way to ring in the new year. This is how we looked at midnight! It was a great vacation, I love my family, and I am excited about 2011 and everything it has in store for us!