Happy New Year

Hello 2012! Our first activity of the New Year: building a race track:
There were some alterations to be made:

But the results were awesome! Those cars flew...sometimes right off the track:

I love Issa's face. How fast will it go? Will it crash? Thank goodness Daddy is an engineer:

It was big fun.

Last night, as we stood at the grocery checkout at six o'clock, buying groceries for the week and the bagel dogs and Kraft mac and cheese that had been voted the New Year's dinner treat, Brad and I couldn't help but laugh. We vaguely remember years where we would get dressed up and go out to a fabulous meal. Those years were followed by big fiestas at Mom's once the kids arrived. This was the first year we have ever celebrated at home. It was a quiet night of playing with new toys after a long day of reorganizing (more on that tomorrow). The kids were in bed early, and Brad and I just hung out, enjoyed a lovely bottle of wine, toasted the new year, and braced ourselves for this morning when we finally headed to bed way too late.

This morning, in addition to racing cars, we played dolls and made what I like to call Midwest tapas. New Year's Day was always an appetizer munchy kind of day, and I'm embracing that. French onion dip, cheese ball, sausage roll-ups, and oyster crackers. Yum.

There will be more playing and more unpacking later today, but it's a quiet day, and I like that. Happy 2012, y'all. I have a feeling it's going to be a great year.