Happy New Year

We've had a great in-between Christmas and New Year's week here. Karsen had a sleepover at Miss Beth's with her friend Kate, which was a blast by all accounts. The girls stayed up until "12:59" according to Kate, who is able to tell time. Miss Beth enjoyed the Hannah Montana movie very much, but didn't get to hear a lot of it due to the girls' incessant talking during it. Austin had a quiet night here (and rather enjoyed the attention!) and then the next morning when daddy went to work mommy and Austin got to have a breakfast date at McDonalds.

On Wednesday after the sleepover, both kids went to play at the Nelsons for a couple of hours while mommy cleaned a lot. We are trying to put the house up for sale in the next couple of weeks so we are tidying up and paring down and moving a lot of things into the storage area of the garage. Then the fun girls came over--cousin Katie and auntie Erin. There was much laughing, dancing, limbo-ing, playing games, and other funny things. We had plans to eat dinner out at Los Amigos, but Karsen and I had to skip out of dinner due to one of us having a huge meltdown over the limbo game. Austin enjoyed his dinner date with the lovely Erin and Katie, however, and was rewarded for his fine manners and polite demeanor with a huge gumball. Meanwhile, Karsen had her dinner of peanut butter and jelly and was in much better spirits when everyone arrived home. Twister was played, and many dance moves were shared. Warning: never ask Karsen to demonstrate "The Victor Petrenko," which she learned from aunt Erin. It is most definitely not age appropriate for either Karsen or Erin.

Twister. This game may have been more successful had Karsen not "fluffed" her way through it. However, Karsen's "fluffing" also caused many people whose faces were near to her derriere to quit the game prematurely, so maybe Karsen considered it successful.

On New Years Eve we went to uncle Gary and aunt Betty's for a fun and very well organized (by aunt Betty) euchre party. It was fun to get a chance to play with so many different people. Then we played Catchphrase until the ball dropped. The kids were very well behaved and enjoyed the company as well.

Happy New Year everyone! Hope 2010 is filled with wonderful blessings and memories!