Happy New Year!

So if I had one word to describe all of our holiday festivities this year it would be...RELAXING!  Amazing huh?  But it really was.

We had our annual Begg family party at my aunt's house the Sunday before Christmas, a potluck, so I only had to make one dish.  Then over the course of the next four days, we as a family made some homemade gifts for our friends and family. 

We attended church service Christmas Eve and they had added a 2:30 service which was perfect, as it gave us time to get home and prepare some of our dishes for our annual Mexican Christmas Eve dinner at Uncle Gene & Aunt Joan's house.  We did stay a little late at their place, so the kiddos didn't get to bed quite as early as I would have liked.  But Santa was able to complete his task and get to bed before midnight! 

Everyone was up by 6:30 am (I think I'll be putting "telling time" high on my school to-do list this year). Santa had filled the stockings, and both Nolan and Leah recieved a gift from him.  (Mom & Dad were not too sure about Nolan...we thought he might get coal this year)   Both kids were pleased with what Santa had brought and we had a leisurely gift-opening morning.  With no where to be until noon, we had time to eat breakfast, get the house back in order and play with our new toys before we headed to Mema's & Grandpa's for our Thorne gift exchange.

The gift exchange here was a little more frenzied than mom would like.  I don't exactly know who gave the kids what in som cases...and it was hard keeping an eye on what each Nolan & Leah received, as everyone in the room was opening gifts at the same time.  But both kids did well thanking people for what they received.  (Thank you cards will hopefully go out in the next week or so). 

After the gifts, the kids played with their new toys/games and then we headed home for a couple of hours to play some new Wii games we had received.  We then returned again to Mema's for dinner (I didn't know what to do with myself for the 2 hours the kids were playing-as Chris prepared the entire Christmas dinner this year.)

Then on Sunday, we got up and did it all over again at my mom's house.  Our menu for that dinner was lasagna, salad & bread.  I baked a few loaves of homemade bread that morning and we headed to Somerset for the day.  This gift exchange was less hectic as each family handed their gifts out to the kids seperately.  Which you would think would help me out...but I'm not sure I paid too much attention to Nolan opening his gifts :(  I did however take lots of pictures...so hopefully those will refresh my poor memory.  For the rest of the day we visited, the kids played, we ate some food and then ate some more, and toward the end of the day, I even had time to play a game of Scrabble with my mom and Aunt Susan.  It was lovely :)

Now...it's back to the daily grind and I am now tasked with trying to figure out how to do the financials for an S-Corporation, as Scott has filed to incorporate his business.  With that comes learning how to do payroll (which could be a good thing for me, since I'll now receive a salary).  Of course the downside is that there still has to be money coming in to pay our employees, ie: Scott & myself, so we'll have to wait and see how this all pans out.  Stay tuned...

Though I started a long list of goals for this New Year...it basically boils down to this:

Fine tune my time management skills so I can get done what NEEDS to get done for my sanity and still have time to "Just Be" with Scott and the kids.  Wish me luck.

Happy New Year to all of our friends & family and may 2011 be your best year yet!