I’ve been on a bit of a blogging hiatus due to the craziness of the holidays so I thought I’d give a quick update on some of the more exciting things we’ve been up to.

First and foremost, I became an aunt! That’s right, my brother and his wife had a little boy earlier this month. He’s the sweetest, most amazing little guy and I can’t believe how wonderful he is. I am completely smitten with him. This is me with my brother at the hospital.

Next up, my husband celebrated his 37th birthday.  This year the boys made him gifts at Color Me Mine in Crestview Hills. Here’s Sean painting a fish-shaped picture frame that he picked out for his Dad. One of his favorite things to do with his dad is fishing and so he thought it was the perfect gift (and it was). It’s cut off a bit, but if you look closely you’ll see he painted the number ’37′ on the tail

Our family is a Food Network family. When we do watch TV, you’ll typically find us on this channel.  As such, over the winter break the boys challenged my husband and I to compete in a little “Iron Chef” competition. They gave us 20 minutes and we had to prepare two dishes using Ritz crackers.  While I feel that I was the obvious winner…. The results were a tie!  My dishes, seen here, were mini-smores and mini pepperoni pizzas (I of course was playing up to dishes I  know the boys love….). We had an absolute blast and I am sure this won’t be the last Iron Chef challenge at our house.

Finally, this year we started a new Christmas Eve tradition and it was awesome.  Rather than just do a big Christmas Eve dinner or watch movies, we did a fire pit and spent the evening outside, making smores, sipping hot apple cider and just talking about the year we’d had. We invited my parents over and it was lovely.  I can’t wait to do it again next year. It’s something I think the boys will always remember.