New Years Eve and January 2013

This New Years we spent at my Dad's house.  It was extra special because my brother and sister in law and their kids, came out from Illinois to spend it with us.  It has been over 2 years since we have seen them.  Nicholas and their son Nathan (who is 5) were best friends in about 20 seconds.  It was so cute.  Nicholas doesn't have a lot of boys to hang out with his age on Chad's side of the family so having another boy who loved all the same things was just heaven.  The kids went sledding together with Chad and my brother Kyle.  The had a blast!  We had a fun "Christmas" with my Dad and Debby since we didn't see them for actual Christmas.  The boys got cool digital piggy banks with some money in them.  They LOVE earning money now and watching the amount go up.  They also got some awesome cars (also very loud!!) from their Aunt and Uncle.  They love playing with them. New Years started with Chad watching the ball drop in NYC.  Everyone else fell asleep.  I made it to about 11pm and couldn't stay awake a second longer.  This is the first year I haven't stayed awake since as far back as I can remember.  Oh well.  We also went and visited my brother Brian and his wife Carrie.  They have 2 girls and a boy.  The kids were so excited.  Especially Jacob who seems to have a sweet relationship with Olivia.  They are just adorable together. We got to hold our newest nephew Owen who has to be the most calm baby ever. Unfortunately, we had to leave later that day because the boys had school in the morning.  I loved hanging out with my family and seeing all my nieces and nephews.  Kyle and Stacey called us later that week and decided to get a hotel down our way one night and go swimming and invited us to come over.  The boys were so happy to be able to spend time with them.  They swam for over an hour and then we went back to the hotel room and had pizza and watched a movie together.  Hopefully it won't be another 2 years until we see them again.  January has been quiet.  We had some snow.  Not too much but enough for the boys to play.  Getting back into our school schedule has been harder to do.  Vacation was just too fun.  Well that's all for now.  Happy New Year Everyone:)