Happy New Year!

Happy New year!

This year has, obviously, been much better than last year! For one, we were not in a hospital for it. Joe and the kids and I were all together and we got to be with our good friends. Last year really sucked! I was at Kohl's house with the girls at midnight. I woke up at about 11:30 so that Joe and I could toast in the new year together. Joe came over at about 11:45 and at midnight we toasted to a better new year, and kissed. At 12:10, he went back to the PICU to be with Ben. We were so sad that we weren't all together at that time. The girls were still in bed sleeping. I went back to bed and the next day we traded off who was in the PICU with Ben and who was with the girls at the Brown family Life center. I really loved the Life center for all that they did with the girls. They made it a little easier to be there. The girls loved going there and they had volunteers that would play with them while we had conferences with the dr's and whatnot.

 Yummy lemons!

This year though, was much better. While I am grateful for all the dr's and nurses and the volunteers and everyone else. I am so glad we are not seeing them this year. We toasted in the New Year as a family of 5 at our friends house. Ben and his little baby friend were asleep upstairs at the time. But the girls and their friend were still awake. They had little glasses of sparkling cider, as did I. And the rest of the adults had champagne. They were so excited to get to stay up so late. And they actually did really well with it. Except for getting a little slap happy and silly at around 11:30, and then not listening very well at around 12:30, they were pretty good. I mean, when you have two 4 year olds and a 5 year old playing together, things are bound to get goofy and silly. And loud! But all in all, it was a wonderful day. Especially compared to last year. And even better, since they were up so late last night, they slept in until 11 today. It was SO nice to be able to have both Joe and I sleep in for once in, oh probably 6 years. Then we went out for brunch and some shopping and came home and relaxed. Ben was a bit more tired today, but that may be due to teething as well. He is getting 4 teeth in right now. All told, this has been a good year and I am looking forward to what 2013 will bring us.