New Start???

Well, I survived the holidays. Made it through the decorating and preparing for Christmas. Made it through all the Christmas masses. Made it through the end of month business at the office. Now it's time to start the new year. I was fortunate enough to attend not one, but TWO of Father Miller's glorious Christmas masses. I played for both of them and the Christmas Day mass was kind of a Hejlik family mass...I played, Mike was the lector and the boys were mass servers. It's hard to come up with people to fill these positions on Christmas morning so I made the offer to Carolyn, the church secretary, for her to use them since I was going to be there playing. Gabby had to work from 10-4 on Christmas Day so she stayed home and made breakfast for us before heading to work. I tried a few Pinterest recipes for our family meals this year. Christmas Day was tried Cinnamon Roll casserole. This was sitting on the island in the kitchen, still warm (Gabby did eat a little corner before she went to work!) and Gabby wrote "Merry Christmas" on the message plate and this was all waiting for us when we arrived home from mass. Gabby brought home Christmas dinner -- Casey's taco pizza (and a pepperoni for Micah! After supper we finally opened presents. The kids did get to go through their stockings which contained one of the biggest hits of the season, calendars with pictures of family and family birthdays on it. They all thought it was really neat. They all scored pretty big in the present department. Micah was the last one opening presents, but Reed got some really nice presents. He got a new winter coat -- I actually went to the "big and tall" department to find a coat for him that the sleeves actually come all the way to the end of his arms. Who would ever have thought that I would have to shop in the "tall" department for any of my offspring?!? He also got a laptop so that now he can get online at his apartment once he gets internet ready there. I think that he will enjoy it and maybe we can keep in touch with him if he gets his own e-mail address. Micah got a lot of littler things -- the only thing he asked for was an alarm clock so he kind of got stuck with some kind of boring but useful things like clothes. Gabby asked for either a camera or a Kindle...I wanted the Kindle so I got her a camera. I got her a camera that uploads pictures straight to the internet. I thought that was pretty cool and was pretty sure she could figure that kind of technology out easier than myself (and I was right by the way!) Mike got a picture of the Last Supper that, since I am the one who gave it to him, I must say is very awesome. He mentioned earlier this year that we didn't have anything like that in our home and so I kept that in my brain (not so easy to do I find as the years go by!) and kept looking online for something unique periodically though the year. I finally found this one and had it shipped to my mom's so the surprise wouldn't be ruined (or the dogs wouldn't intercept the package!). Reed also gave Mike a game called Cyclonopoly. I think we will have to have Father Miller over to play it. It is pretty cool with a lot of different ISU landmarks, etc.. as properties and terms. The day after Christmas, a.k.a. my birthday, arrived and this year I went to work (I usually try to avoid the office on my birthday). After work, our family went to John and Becky's to join their family and Jeff for supper. It was good to see all the girls and their families. Andrea's kids are really growing and they definitely keep them busy. Amber's birthday is the same day as mine so we got to share the birthday wishes from everyone. Her little girl, Macy, is an absolute doll. She is quite the busy little thing...crawls everywhere and is pretty darn good at climbing, I must say. We got to meet Allison's fiance', Luke, as well. She was home from Colorado and they plan on being married in May. Kate wanted to have a NPP (night pool party) so she and one of her brothers, her mom and her aunt went to the pool house and went swimming. The guys went out to play some ping pong and the rest of us visited inside. It was a pretty nice, relaxing evening. Of course, as is the case for this week as well, I was all screwed up about what day of the week it was for the remainder of the week. The week felt like it had two Mondays and that Friday would never get here. The weekend did come and it was time to try another Pinterest recipe! After Sunday mass we came home and utilized the last bit of our Christmas ham in the Breakfast Tater Tot casserole recipe. Since I was kind of short on ham (the recipe called for 1 lb.) I added some green and red pepper and some mushrooms. This recipe was deemed a winner...how can you go wrong with tater tots! Monday came and a busy day at work with entering charges and receiving lost patients trying to find the business office so they could pay their bill before year end. Everything eventually turned out fine and it was off to mass. For some reason, I was thinking that mass started at 5. I wondered why no one was there yet...turned out it started at 5:30. Gabby arrived shortly so we went inside together. No Hejlik guys showed up so we assumed (wrongly, I might add) that they were making supper for us. So by the time we got home (Fr. Lippstock was the priest, need I say more) we were starving and had nothing prepared at home. We all ended up fending for ourselves...there was a mixture of a frozen appetizer, taco meat was made and eaten in various ways and for dessert...pumpkin pie! I ended up making some cranberry feta roll up appetizers and drinking some wine throughout the evening. Even stayed up until 10:45! This morning I got out of bed and made yet another Pinterest recipe...Cinnabon Cinnamon Roll cake. While it was in the oven I looked at the time and decided to kick the guys out of bed to go to mass in Garner. Gabby and I ate warm coffee cake and the guys had some when they got home. Micah deemed this recipe "a definite keeper". The men then went out to do chores and Gabby and I set out to take down the Christmas decorations. I still don't have all my "non-holiday" decorations out but have decided that I need to get rid of some of them. Sounds like I might have a little shopping to do! There's a goal for 2013!