Starting off the New Year

We rang in "2011" at our annual New Year's Eve bash at my parents' house. Whew, we had SO much food that it was nearly impossible to decide what to try, and there was NO way I could sample it all! We enjoyed the evening nibbling away, playing games and yapping. We played BINGO with the little kids, Apples to Apples, Scattergories, and Balderdash. Matthew didn't make it remotely close to midnight, but Jacob was wired and ready to go. We watched the ball drop, and then folks began to scatter.

Jacob and I sporting our new jammies. :)

Matthew all snug and just about asleep...with one sock on and one sock off. :)

Jacob at midnight. I'm pretty sure he has been awake for just about every New Years....except maybe his first one, and he was only four months old!

Matthew at midnight...I'm pretty sure he's been asleep for every New Years!

On New Years Day, we headed over to Jeromy and Christie's for dinner. We always follow tradition and have our jowl bacon, cabbage and black-eyed peas, and Christie has been our cook for the past few years. LOVE her cabbage! We enjoyed some rounds of Scattergories, and then we ended up playing my new Twilight/New Moon/Eclipse SceneIt game and the girls beat the boys two games in a row....don't mess with us Twi-Moms! :)

I simply knew that Monday would be horrific for us all. Jason had some vacation days inter-mingled into the days he was off for the holidays, and we enjoyed having him home for four and five days at a time. Not to mention that the kids were practically off three weeks with the exception of one 1/2 day in there. I knew Matthew would be AWFUL come Monday morning, and I braced myself for a terrible tantrum. HA!!! He was an absolute PERFECT child! He never fussed on the way to school and even giggled when we pulled into the parking lot. He went to the door smiling and giggling, and I was amazed! Ha...I joked with his teacher when I picked him up that perhaps he thought he would only have to go the one day and be off for a couple of weeks again! :) He has continued to do fairly well each day, but has had much less enthusiasm as the week has wore on. Thursday night we went to Cracker Barrel and he was one happy camper. He laughed and giggled practically the entire time we were there. :) He used his gift card from Uncle Jonathan and Aunt Tiffany to fill up his belly with mac & cheese, fried apples and root beer, then SO sweetly signed and said, "Ball". He knows that they have those stringy, stretchy toys in the store and he loves them. Even though they aren't actually balls, that's what he calls them, so that's what he got. Ha...he's still having Christmas! :)

Jacob is usually the one that gets ready without much fuss. He has been a little more fretful about getting up this week. Even though he is going to bed early, he has been used to sleeping much later than what he gets to on school days. He tells me I wake him up too early every day. He was SO excited to tell me that his best friend moved back to school after the break. He and his buddy have been in the same class every year except one since kindergarten, and was supposed to be in class together this year. His friend didn't start school at Kyrock this time, and Jacob has mentioned him different times through the last few months. He really did miss his buddy. He was glad that he moved back, even though they aren't in the same class now, but he said that his friend acted like he didn't even know him on Monday. Well, he was happy to tell me Thursday that they are playing together at every recess when they get to go outside. :)

While I'm not one to want a lot of snow days because it cuts into summer break, we took yesterday gratefully...Jacob was supposed to have a science test among his usual reading, spelling and grammar, and study as we might, he just didn't have some of it. Surely we didn't have tests like this in third grade?! We have studied every night and while he is able to answer a majority of the questions now compared to answering NONE of them correctly Monday and Tuesday night, there are some questions that require a bit of writing that we will gladly work on over the extra days! The first thing he did when I pulled up the Polar Report and he happily found our county listed was start singing a little chant "I don't have to take my science test today!" :) He is also on a reading rampage...he has been enjoyed reading for a while now...especially since he is "competing" to get AR points, but now there are apparently Hot Rods tickets on the line if he reads enough books and takes the AR tests. He says it's two tickets and he wants to take his Daddy. He told me I couldn't go because I was mean. Ummm...yep. I'm the one who makes him study for his tests, and some nights haven't been so pretty. Ha!

We definitely enjoyed our SNOW day, and the best part was that Daddy was at home with us. His press was down at work, so he already had the day off, but it was nice for him to get a snow day too. ;) We enjoyed watching it snow all day long! The flakes were so big and pretty, and it just fogged down most of the day. Jacob kept saying we were getting an "Arctic Blast". Apparently not everyone in the county got the amount we did. This picture was taken around 11:00 yesterday morning.

And I snapped these photos from the front porch this morning...

Might I add that I think Jacob was right and the Arctic Blast came on through...it is COLD out there this morning! I thought I might let Jacob play in the snow for a bit today, but it's gonna have to warm up a smidge first!