Whew!

The last week has been pretty crazy around here, and we apologize for our lack of blog entries. A quick recap:

• Christmas Eve day the girls and I were baking cookies when we heard a strange sound coming from upstairs. Turns out that Santa had made a quick stop to our house to deliver a gift for Cici -- a kitty named Peanut. We could only surmise that he needed to drop Peanut off a little early so Peanut wouldn't get too cold riding around in Santa's sleigh all night. Cici was thrilled to say the very, very least.
  
• Christmas Eve was spent here at our house with the S--- family, and we opened presents, played games, and enjoyed pork posole for dinner (go me!). It was a wonderful evening spent with people we love and the girls were over the moon with their new toys and kitty.
• Christmas morning the girlies were up around 6:30 to check out their loot from Santa and the grown-ups were right on their heels. We spent the morning lounging around and playing with the stuff from Santa, and then we were off to the airport.
• Some good friends who live in Arizona were en route to Chicago and had a lengthy layover in Minneapolis, so we spent some time with them in the warm and cozy Starbucks near baggage claim #4. Oh well, sometimes you just take what you can get.
• After that we scooted off to Grandma 2's house for the rest of the day and had a blast with the M---- family. Ruby caught some sort of bug and spent most of the day in Grandma's bed sleeping through Christmas, but Cici played games with her cousins and probably ate a lot more sugar than we realized. We also made our usual Christmas trip to my grandpa's grave where we said some prayers and sang a couple songs (in single digit weather no less). It's a special part of the day and a way to honor a man who was very important to me -- I think Cecilia has really come to enjoy this tradition, too (especially the part where she rides in the back of Uncle Ramon's truck on the way to the cemetery with all her big-kid cousins -- nevermind that this year Ramon was pulled over by the police...). Anyway, we gathered our gang and left around 9:30 with all four of us totally exhausted.
  
• We spent the next couple days recovering and putting the house back together -- a giant feat in and of itself. We still managed to have some friends over and the girls had a playdate and a nice time was had by all.
• On Sunday we took the girls to a giant water park to celebrate Auntie Sarah's birthday -- SO MUCH FUN! Cecilia was her usual brave self, and there were a couple of water slides that scared the grown-ups more than the 6-year old (I'm talking to you, JUDY!). She even attempted the surfing thing, and even though it didn't exactly work out, we were all very impressed that she tried. Here she is:

• The last couple of days have been dedicated to cleaning, purging, and organizing. Not much to report there, but it sure does feel good!
  
• Today we're preparing for our New Year's Eve celebration and our big lobster-fest! I'm sure we'll have pictures to share in the next few days.

Finally, thanks for reading the blog over the past year -- we've had so much fun writing and sharing the goings-on of our girls and we've already had fun going back and reading entries that we wrote months earlier. It's amazing how fast it all goes, and so easy to forget all the little moments that make parenting so stinkin' fun. Thanks for playing along with us. Happy New Year!