A Couple Other Par-tays

We spent a low-key New Year's Eve at my sister in law's house with our friends and kids. The kids had a blast playing in Celia's castle ball pit again.

Playing on the chalkboard on the first floor of the castle.

We brought our new Guess Who game along (a gift from Nana & Papa, per my suggestion) because it has been a constant request from a certain four year old... and Aunt Jill kindly played a couple rounds with him.

Will and Sophie opened gifts with Cecilia and new baby Veronica on New Year's Eve because Christmas Eve had been a bit too hectic and overwhelming to squeeze in our gift exchange. I haven't done a birth announcement here yet, but Cecilia became a big sister on December 16th! Veronica Grace was born a couple weeks early and spent about a week in the NICU for having fluid in her lungs. She arrived home on December 23rd and the Munoz family was just getting re-acclimated to life went the holidays arrived. :) I had been to see Veronica at the hospital during her stay, but New Year's was the first time I got to hold her!

Cecilia opened a "rain stick", some water color paints, a Lakeshore color sorting ring puzzle (just like Sophie's that she enjoyed so much) and a couple books.

Will was elated to receive Hungry Hungry Hippos, which he has been talking about ever since he first played a very old version of it from when Craig was a kid. (I think I'm forgetting something else that Will received...)

Sophie got a cute sweater dress, a memory game and a new Diego puzzle.

And both kids played with lots of Celia's toys that evening.

Baby V is doing so well since being home. She is nursing exclusively and really filling out since this picture was taken. And she looks so much like her big sis. :)

It wasn't easy getting the kids to bed. Will is easier to reason with, but Sophie considered the whole experience a big game. Sigh. We brought sleeping bags, pillow pets and a night light and they were in separate rooms. But it took a LONG time for them to finally fall asleep. We had eaten dinner earlier and made some fun blender drinks with snacks for our games later on.

Q90 is a super fun game. We played guys against girls as we've done before and we ask questions of our teammate (the "it" person rotates) to try to guess a noun that was drawn from the deck. Their are categories such as person, place, object, food, animal, etc. and the "it" person can only answer "yes", "no" or "maybe". It is hysterical a lot of the time as we race the time to guess the noun. Craig always gets REALLY intense with his questions and fires one after another non-stop, leaving little room for other questions. We all just laugh at him. ;-)

Veronica slept peacefully through the whole noisy evening. :)

The following weekend, Craig was off skiing with his dad and friend for a couple days, but the kids and I had a busy weekend too! I actually got a babysitter and got out to see The Girl With the Dragon Tatoo on Saturday late morning with my friend Nichole. And then Saturday evening, the kids and I went over to the Rethman's where Casey was hosting a casual Girls Game Night with my cousin Brittany, my aunt, my mom and another friend. Brittany's husband, Troy, was having their diaper party that evening so Casey thought it would be fun to do a casual girl thing too. The kids ate and played and then MAJORLY fought me on going to bed (even worse than New Year's, but the same type of scenario with sleeping bags and separate rooms). We had lots of yummy snacks and I attempted to enjoy a fun evening, but in the end, I just packed it up and headed home around 10:30 with Sophie still awake. Boo.

Here's a pic of Soph and the twins "stirring" a big container of plastic food in their play room.

I kind of wish I hadn't even attempted that sort of evening, but I did come home and go straight to bed after giving up on it... so I happily got a little over eight hours of sleep that night!

On Sunday, I rustled up my espresso maker and made several small pots on the stove to prepare the amaretto floats for our Skees Christmas party later that evening. The espresso needed to chill before making the floats. P.S. - I feel very authentic and Italian when I use this thing. ;)

Also got to break in my new Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker (a Christmas present from my in-laws) to make some homemade vanilla for our floats. Mmm!

My parents hosted our Skees Christmas party on my mom's birthday - January 8th. Awesome food, as always with that group!

Will and Cora - a very distinguished looking pair - deep in concentration for another game of Guess Who.

All the little girls took turns playing "baby" in an elaborate game of make-believe. Somehow there was always someone playing "baby" and someone playing "monster" and the other girls were supposed to protect the baby, I think. Where on Earth do they get this stuff? Cora cracked me up with her leadership and directions given. Reminds me of me as a child. :)

Sweet, adorable Lincoln joined in briefly. :)

I'm once again lacking in my usual plethora of pictures... but I'm here!