Happy New Year!!

Can  you believe 2011 is in the past and 2012 is upon us? Where does time go?

Never mind, it IS one of my 4-letter words.

 T. I. M. E.

It ranks right up there with L. I. F. E. and a few others. ;-)

With littel boys that like to wake everyone, especially mom and dad, up at 6 AM we have long abandoned our New Years festivities. We might stay up till 12:00 after tucking the little ones in but not always. 6:00 comes awfully early and sleep is too precious to miss.

Instead of New Years traditions I thought I would share a couple of our Christmas traditions.

Each year we let off red balloons and sing Happy Birthday to the One whose birthday it is. This year we also sang Silent Night. My boys are great even though they HATE to sing.

They do love to watch the balloons float up.

Of course mom and dad rather enjoy it as well.

There is just something about watching that red balloon get smaller and smaller and smaller.

The boys thought we should let them go one at a time so we had a great trail of red balloons. It was cool to watch them get caught in the jet stream and suddenly start floating the other direction. We even had an airplane fly over head. Wonder what all those passengers thought to look out the window and see the balloons next to them. We are near the airport so the plane wasn't too high yet. Kinda made us chuckle. Imagine seeing a balloon from and airplane window, high in the sky.

Matthew LOVES this. I made sure to get extra balloons so that he could keep one for himself.

As evening approached we made sure Santa's reigndeer were taken care of too. We laid out a great buffet of oatmeal with red sprinkles for Rudolf and his friends.

Each year we give the boys a new pair of PJ's to open on Christmas Eve night. Mr. J thought he was ever so smart that he knew the plan. Little did he know mom threw a kink in his plan. Instead of PJ's they got comfy sweats. *UHH???*

Surprise! Mom still has a few tricks.

Of course Mr. M still got PJ's. He needed them and the sweats just fall down on him anyway. They just don't make clothes for the skinny kids anymore.

Then just before bed we set out our treat to Santa. Now I realize that Santa has to maintain his figure and all but we thought he would enjoy some homemade bread and jam for a change. We added the orange to take along his way and a glass o cold milk to wash it all down with.

I think it was a hit cuz the only think left in the morning was a few crumbs.

We had a great holiday season. I hope yours was too!