Christmas & New Years

We had a blast! This year was so special because everything was so magical about Christmas to Hattie. She loved hearing the story of Jesus' birth. She loved hearing about Santa. She loved all of the decorations and carols and fun traditions we are trying to set.

And Mary Ellen was so much more aware this year, too. She got really good at ripping presents open and playing with those boxes :).

We got to spend Christmas Eve at home mostly, and we attended Christmas Eve mass, which was crazy and packed and noisy with the kids, but then we came home to a gumbo that was warming in the crockpot and dined at the dining room table which I had decorated and fancied before church. After dinner, Mary Ellen hit the hay, and Hattie cuddled up on the couch and got to watch A Charlie Brown Christmas - one of my faves as a child. Then she dictated this Christmas letter to me for Santa:

Dear Santa,

Happy Christmas! Rudolph has a shiny nose. Jesus was born in a manger with lots of angels.
I want....... a wand, a barbie, a pony, and my own manger with Mary and Joseph and Baby Jesus laying in a manger.
Sissy wants..... a rattle, a Baby Jesus laying in a manger, a snowman, and her own Christmas tree, and a Rudolph like me.
Mommy and Daddy want...... a bookmark, their own bottle of wine, and their own snow globe.
Merry Christmas!

Love,
Hattie

Hehe, our own bottle of wine! I guess she saw how stressed out we were after Christmas Eve mass ;)!

I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas that was filled with love, laughter, family, friends, and most importantly, the promise of hope that the birth of our Lord brought us!

And Happy New Year!!! 2010!!!!

We celebrated by going out to dinner with some friends. We went here, and it was fantastic and like nothing I have ever experienced. It was a 5 course dinner, and each course came with a wine pairing. By course number 4, I had to decline the wine ;).

I am not really good with New Year's Resolutions. I break them habitually, but I also love to make them, so this year, to cut myself some slack, I have decided to pick two words that will guide me and remind me throughout this year of what my focus is/should be on {hopefully}. The first is discipline. I want to be disciplined in my prayer life, the way I eat, the way I conduct myself when I'm stressed out, working out, ect. And the second word is youthful. I am about to enter the last year of my twenties {gasp!}, so to honor my last year in this decade, I am going to strive to be more youthful or more energetic, more acting on a whim, more MY age and less my mother's age. Even Wii Fit put me past my 30s, but I am blaming that on my balance. I have terrible balance. Was way off on the board! Must be why I trip so much?!?!

And yes, I know thatYouthful and Disciplined don't really go together as a pair. They contradict each other. Maybe Balance is better? That would help improve my Wii Fit age, too :)!!!

So, do you make New Year's Resolutions? If so, what are they this year?