Running the gauntlet

Sorry for the lack of posting lately--the last week and a half of the year always kicks my trash, this year more than usual! We party, party, party, party until we're practically begging to go back to school and work and normal life. Unless you're Madelyn, in which case you stall going to bed the last night of vacation and spend a full half hour lying on the floor in the morning arguing over whether she can wear her fancy New Year's dress and snow boots to school. So here's what we've been up to:

The last day of school, Mark went to Madelyn's class and helped her make this "gingerbread" house. She ate most of it as soon as she got home.

The night before her birthday, I snuck in and decorated her room with balloons, streamers and a happy birthday sign. Luckily, she sleeps like a log. If I'd tried this in Luke's room he'd have woken up after about .025 seconds...

Dec. 21st:

Happy 7th birthday, Little Miss! Since she'd already had her friend party the week before, this day was pretty low key. Mark had to work all day and also the night clinic, but while he was home for lunch she opened presents and had some homemade cheesecake. That night she wanted to go to McDonald's for dinner. Of course neither she nor Luke actually ate their happy meals--they just ran around on the play place for an hour. That place gives me the heebs. And probably for good reason! Three of us ended up with colds a few days later! :/

The next few days were spent frantically trying to get goodies made and delivered. I made two batches of English toffee, a batch of peppermint bark, some peanut butter fudge, two batches of peppermint fudge, and hand dipped 10 dozen oreos in white candy melts and crushed peppermint. Yum yum.

 

 About 30 bags had to be delivered to friends, family and church associates

 

 And another 20 were passed out to everyone at Mark's work. Geesh. 

Dec. 24th:

I spent a lovely, frantic morning Christmas Eve sewing mini stockings, rice heating pads (more posts on those later), making a red agate necklace and earrings set for my mom (didn't take a picture, because I made them in the car while traveling to Hurricane with a cake on my knee), and put the finishing touches on Madelyn's double layer devil's food cake with white chocolate peppermint mousse and chocolate peppermint ganache. (Which, by the way, was divine but it's my s-i-law's secret recipe.) Peppermint, peppermint, peppermint. There, now I've said it eight times in this post.

Had the traditional Mexican feast at my parent's house, followed by the Nativity play...

 Madelyn had birthday celebration #3..........(spoiled). Let's pretend that instead of melting and oozing everywhere on the car ride over, the mousse layer of the cake had been given proper time to chill, shall we? Mhmmm..

 And finally made it home and got ready for Santa to come!

Dec. 25th:

Santa really came through this year. Madelyn got a Nintendo DS Lite, Luke got several alphabet themed toys and they both got little pianos.

One of my favorite presents?

This Old Navy coat I gifted to myself. ♥♥♥ It's sold out now in the teal color but just wanted to show it to you. I got it for $15! It was a $60 coat, which I had my eye on for weeks, and when I found out that there was a 5-hour sale in the store in St. George, where all adult coats were 75% off, I hightailed it down there. I've only worn it one day out in public and already got at least five compliments. Isn't that a heartwarming story? ♥♥♥ :)

Anyway.....

Dec. 28th:

Our 10 year anniversary!! Sorry if my Christmas card/letter led you to believe that we spent the day lolling on a beach in Mexico....we are planning that trip but won't be leaving till probably the end of May. Mark had asked for the day off, but then his boss evidently "forgot" about it and decided to take that whole week off himself, so Mark did end up having to go into work. I was fuming mad for a while but eventually got over it.

Mark surprised me with a bouquet of red roses in the morning, and then when he went back to work after lunch, this other bouquet of roses, daisies and carnations was delivered by a local florist!! I was so surprised! ♥ Aww! ♥ 

That night, my dad came over and watched the kids while we went out for Japanese food at Ninja here in Cedar City. We had potstickers, soup and salad, sushi and teryaki beef. It was delish and very pricey.

The next day we went down to St. George for date #2. We dropped the kids off at Tyler and Monica's (thanks!) and while they played with their cousins, we went shoooopping. We went to Best Buy, TJ Maxx and Ross, and then capped it off with dinner at Larsen's Frostop. We had a gift card to Olive Garden, but hamburgers, french fries and milkshakes really hit the spot. Larsen's is THE BEST hamburger joint anywhere--I am telling you. I wish I was eating there right now.

So after our shopping spree, Mark ended up with a new Xbox game called Skyrim, which he claims he's only played 15 hours on so far, but I know it's more. He also scored and found an RC helicopter at Ross for $20. I got to pick out a new camera for myself! That's why the pics I have from my anniversary dates are from my cell phone. My old Nikon Coolpix has pretty much died. Luke's beat up on it repeatedly--it's been dropped, scratched, the batteries chewed on, the zoom stuck....it was time to replace it. I got this beaut on sale:

Canon PowerShot ELPH 300 HS. 

It takes video and shoots very snappy pictures. Can't wait to break it in! :D

Then on New Year's Eve, Mark and I (after spending about 10 hours cleaning the house and putting Christmas stuff away) stayed up till 1:30am watching this:

It was very philosophical and spacey...not quite what I expected but what did come out of it was a double album called LOVE Part I and II by Angels and Airwaves, which was pretty much the best thing that happened to us in 2011 aside from Harry Potter DH2.

I have more (a lot more) to wrap up the year, but that's all for now. I'm glad to have survived the holidays!!