First Annual New Year's Day Waffle Extravaganza

Nate has been baking waffles for two weeks!  Chocolate, lemon poppyseed, blueberry, cranberry orange pecan, chocolate chip pecan, gingerbread, pumpkin, buttermilk, coconut, old-world raised Belgian and regular waffles.

So we invited everyone we know and had a party.  We counted up at the end and found that we had 72 people for brunch at our house.  It turned out pretty well and everyone went home stuffed.

What a great way to start off the new year!  Here's to a fantastic 2010.

Farewell 2009

We are finally to that point in our lives where our children have their own parties to go to on New Year's Eve instead of hanging out with us.  So Toby and Aspen went to a church friend's house for a party, and Nate and I went to a different party.  Hazel and Isaac watched movies until midnight and Nate and I came home to ring in the new year with them.  

Consequences

When I was a kid, one of the consequences for poor choices was doing dishes...for 10 people...by hand (no dishwasher)...by yourself.  Unfortunately, I got really good at doing the dishes.  My parents would share this method with all their friends (through visiting or in a sacrament meeting talk since my Dad was either in the bishopric or a high councilman when I was a teenager).  My friends were not happy with me about that. 

 

Recently, Aspen made some poor choices and so I decided to try out this dishes-as-consequences method.  I love it!  Not only do my dishes magically get done, but it provides a repeated reminder (for as long as the consequence lasts) about making better decisions.  Aspen performed her duty without complaining too!  More joy!  I think this will be my go-to consequence from now on.  My children are generally good kids.  But there are the occasional squabbles, attitudes, and rule side-stepping that is normal.  So big chores for big mistakes; smaller chores for smaller rule infractions.  Poor choices on the part of my children will equal a cleaner, more sparkling house for me! 

Vacation attitude

When Nate is on vacation, he usually doesn't shave very often.  Usually though, he gets annoyed with the irritation caused by growing facial hair and shaves it off before too long.  This break he went about 10 days!  I thought he would go longer, but he shaved for church on Sunday so I didn't get a picture.  But, while looking for some other old photos, I found these:

The first two are from the first Christmas we were married (1994).

 The second is from January 1996.

Not a fan of facial hair.  Still...these pictures make me smile...and laugh.

One way to get a project to the top of the to-do list

I did this about a month ago.  I just got really sick of my living room carpet. (5 years of 4 kids, a dog, and a sand box will do this to you.)  So I tore it up.

I had planned on replacing it with...something by the next week (I was hosting a baby shower at my house and thought that was a good deadline.)  I ended up having the party at our neighborhood clubhouse.  And my floor still looks like this.  We are having another party on New Year's Day.  I would love for something to be in place by then.  But...who knows?  For now the kids enjoy riding their scooters in the living room.  Besides, if it's still like this by January 1st, at least it won't matter if someone spills their drink!

It is a bit cold though.