Happy New Year!

I have never been a big fan of celebrating the new year. It used to be because I thought there was too much hype that rarely lived up to expectation but now it's simply because the thought of staying up past midnight is not very appealing. Throw in two 18 month olds in tow and I'm sure you can understand why I wasn't all that keen on going anywhere. We always get together with our university friends for New Years and this year we were all set to go to Liv's. We had exchanged emails on how we were going to get her twin boys, her three year old, Amelia and the girls settled and sleeping so we could enjoy New Years. Unfortunately Liv's family came down with the flu so plans changed to Alicia's. The girls have been a disaster since Christmas. I know they say kids thrive on schedules but I always thought that didn't apply to us. Now I'm not so sure. They have been hard to get to sleep at night (hysterical crying etc) and they have given up a set bedtime or wake up time. I'm hoping it's the cold they have because to be quite honest it sucks. They are not happy so we are not happy. So back to New Years, I was pretty skeptical about getting them to settle at Alicia's but we packed the trunk full of their stuff and crossed our fingers that maybe we'd get to spend some alone time with our friends. No such luck. We were there a total of 3 hours where John and I took turns attempting to have conversations with people while keeping the girls out of trouble. We gave them their bottles but we just couldn't get them settled. We might have stayed if they were willing to play happily but Leah was in full tempter tantrum mode and there was no reasoning with her. We left. We were home by 9pm. Emma went to bed...Leah, fully recovered from her tantrum, was miss happy til 9:57 (yes, I kept on looking at my watch!) when she finally fell asleep. John and I were in bed by 10:30 talking about our evening when the neighbours behind us set off the best home display of fireworks I have ever seen. I was glad I got to see it. We were all fast asleep at the stroke of midnight...which was good because Leah was up bright and early this morning. Today was a lazy day. John finished painting our room so we got it all put back together. It is so nice to have some colour in the house. We took the girls out this afternoon and shoveled the driveway and went for a walk. Emma likes to walk but Leah gets fed up pretty quickly. The rest of the day was spent napping (thankfully they still nap!) and playing with the girls. I just went back and read what I wrote last year on New Years day. Apparently 2005 was everything I thought it would be...we sold the condo, moved into the house, the girls sat, crawled, walked and started talking. It was a busy year. I don't think 2006 will be quite as eventful but hopefully it will be just as much fun...with maybe a bit more sleep! It's 8:50pm...they are still not settled. John is back at work tomorrow. Leah peed in the potty again tonight!

Off to work

All done

Pretty snow

Walking with Dad

Posing with Dad