Christmas 2010!

Happy New Year, loyal readers!

Before time gets away from me again, I thought I'd better do a quick Christmas update.

As always, celebrating the birth of Jesus is a huge event in our house - and also very fun. Here's the rundown...

First up was trying to take a picture for our family Christmas card. I can pretty much just call it a flat-out disaster.

Not because of me, of course. Here I am being super photogenic and charismatic.

And here is Sully ruining a picture by trying to stuff an entire jingle bell into his mouth. So not photogenic.

Oops... I might have something to do with this situation denigrating. Pretty sure that it was after this picture when Mom gave up entirely.

Next on the agenda was my first ever Christmas concert!! It was pretty amazing - I had a captive audience for roughly 30 minutes. Trust me - I made the most of it.

Here I am angelically making my way across the stage.

And here I am belting out one of the eight songs we sang. Notice the tip of my head and the open mouth? During our practice sessions, I was a quick study and figured out how to best project my voice above the others.

Believe me. It worked.

Per usual, preparing for Christmas was almost as fun as the actual event itself! Peedles and Poppy rolled in just in time to help us make Santa the standard cookie fare.

On four pans of spritz cookies, Sully and I manged to use two-and-a-half bottles of sprinkles. Nice ratio, eh?

Poppy rewarded us both with hugs for going heavy on the sprinkles.

Mmmm...beaters!

Enjoying the fruits of our labor is the best! You can see in this picture that we are already starting to get a little crazy-eyed from the sugar rush.

Later, we packed everyone into the car and traveled south to a state park in FL that was having a big light festival.

True to form and despite the amazing display of Christmas delights, Sully treated everyone and everything like they were highly suspect. In case this hasn't come across in past updates, he is a very cynical, hard-to-crack individual.

While I was busy stuffing my face with roasted marshmallows,

he was busy policing the grounds of the state park. Who knows what he was looking for, but he was on a hunt. Peedles and Poppy most certainly had their hands full as they tried to contain his fast little legs.

No matter. We had a great time - even if it was in our own distinct (and in someone's case, weird) way.

FINALLY... Christmas morning rolled around!!!! Here is a brief snapshot of what went down.

And yes, you see correctly. I got a real-deal, big-kid bike!! I loved it SO much and immediately promised that it would be my favorite toy for LIFE.

Until I got this. An awesome jet plane. See ya, bike. This is my new fave!

And you can imagine how things progressed when I got this camera...

Meanwhile, Sully could not be bothered to open hardly any gifts once he opened his beloved recorder. Who knows what Santa was thinking when he brought us us both one, plus harmonicas and kazoos! Our house, which was not quiet to begin with, is now constantly alive with beautiful songs. Or, if Sully is playing, just one note of a song --played over and over and over.

So once Christmas wrapped up, we still had plenty of things to do including watching some new movies that we received for gifts.

Do you have any idea how annoying it is to watch a movie with that jumping on the bed the entire time beside you? Oh yeah. It's pretty awful.

We have also spent a fair amount of time playing with bubbles.

Precious. Look at Sully just having the time of his life.

Oooohhh...scratch that.

Bubbles - 1. Sully - 0.

Meanwhile, I have been learning to ride my bike - sans training wheels!!

Things are going okay on this front, but it is definitely more difficult than originally anticipated. More on this later.

Ah yes... and here we are again with the face of stone. Only Sul can make something as exhilarating as riding a bike into a completely sober event.

Ah, well done, Peedles! After searching high and low, she found him the perfect ride-on (or -in) toy. A tiny box. Now that makes Sul smile.

So I am sure there is more to report, but I am gonna wrap it up for now. Until the next update (and I promise there will be a next), we wish you a peaceful (ignore Sul's double fisting) and silly New Year!

** See below for a quick update on our fall.

Playing catch-up...

Soooo... contrary to rumors you may have heard circulating out there, I have not quit the blog. I've just taken a brief hiatus to attend to some business matters, but now I'm back. Big time.

What was missed during my absence? First was Halloween...

Nothing crazy going on here. Just pumpkin carving...

...and me being the perfect little angel I usually am. See? My hands are even together in a prayer-like fashion and being held on the side of my face! I am sooooo sweet.

Well, I was until I put on my ghost costume. Then I became very spooky.

During trick-or-treating, the stroller brigade was out in full force. Sully is developing quite the little social network!

Sul was a fierce, chubby dragon. Look familiar?? People seemed to really take to his costume. He had more candy than pretty much anyone else. It's not clear why, but Mom was very happy about this.

Mom and Dad kept commenting on how remarkably clear this photo was. Something about us moving fast and causing blurry pictures?

Yes. I literally sprinted from house-to-house. You know... making the most of the allotted time to collect free candy and all. I have to say that when all was said and done, I was quite happy with my loot.

Sul tried to keep the spirit of Halloween alive even after it passed. He kept suggesting that we all still dress-up as different characters. Unfortunately for him, his idea never really got off the ground.

Not even Sul's GF, Charli, would dress up with him. Poor kid. He eventually gave up and stopped dressing all together. See? No pants in this pic...

So after celebrating the day on which you receive a bucket full of free candy, we had a huge event in our family. UNCLE STEW GOT MARRIED!!!

Let me walk you through it.

Here we are prepping for the big day.

Upon arrival at the ceremony, Sully and I each took Uncle Stew aside to give him some sage advice.

Knowing that this was a serious, matrimonial event, I kept my comments quietly appropriate for the situation.

Sully? Yeaaahhhh... notsomuch.

In fact, at the reception, Sully really gave us all a good preview of what his life as a future fraternity pledge is going to be like.

Naturally, this is very unsettling to all of us.

So now for what you have all been waiting for - meet our awesome Aunt Danielle!! We could not love her more - she fits right in with our family and doesn't even seem to be phased by our chaos!

The day after the wedding, we had a whole day to hang out with family before the big reception that night. Uncle Paul and Aunt Kathleen even came down to join in the fun!

It took Uncle Stew some time to coax Sully into the water, but once he did...

...things started to get craaaazyyyyy!

Daddy and Uncle Paul had a kid-throwing contest. Poor Uncle Paul drew the short straw. I'm double Sul's weight.

After all of the action, Sully needed some time to decompress.

Later that night, things got ramped up again.

Since he can't hold his own yet, Sully was put into pajamas and banished to his bed while the rest of us got ready to partay!

As you can, I am more than ready for a good time.

Aunt Kathleen and I did our own little version of Dancing With the Stars. Believe me. That dance floor was smokin' hot by the time everyone else joined us.

And then Uncle Paul and I cooled off with a drink (obviously, mine is water).

Throughout the entire weekend, everyone had a great time and the happy couple couldn't stop smiling. I'm sure that is largely due in part to how hilarious Sully and I are - and not at all because they are newlyweds. We are that funny.

Before we left, Sully and I crammed in some time to play with leaves! Since we don't have a lot of leaves where we live, this was a new phenomenon for Sul. He was slightly confused as to what all of that "trash" was doing on the ground.

Crammed in one more pic with some family...

And then - BAM! Asleep before we even got out of the parking lot.

All in all, we had a great time this fall!