Happy New Year!

Christmas!

As always, a beautiful Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. I love my family so very much.

Christmas Movie & Christmas Pageant

Another fun holiday weekend. On Friday, the girls had a pajama/hot chocolate/Christmas movie party. Delilah got to invite 4 friends and Noelle got to invite 1. I told the moms to drop off the girls at 4pm in their pj's, and they could come at 6:30 to pick up their daughters, or come at 5:30 if they wanted to share a glass of wine...they all came at 5:30. :) Everyone had a blast with hot cocoa, popcorn, pizza, apple juice, and wine. I also told the moms that siblings were welcome at 5:30, too, so our house was loud and crazy...just like I like it. Our girls were cherubs in the Christmas pageant this year. They were absolutely adorable, of course. Noelle was wrangled by Miss Sarah. Sarah is the girls' beloved babysitter here in Rye and she was one of the awesome high school assistants who help wrangle all the kids at the pageant. Noelle did not leave her side. One of the cutest things about the pageant was that Delilah had a fan in the audience! :) Her best friend, Liv, asked her parents if she could come watch Delilah...how is she so thoughtful and supportive at only 7 years old?!? So sweet.

Holiday Cheer!

We've been getting in the holiday spirit lately: the town square's Christmas fair, the Christmas party at Noelle's preschool, gingerbread house parties and the best part: a visit with Jenny & Addie (and their friends Rae & Chloe) in the city!!

Costa Rica: Trip of a Lifetime!

Cannon and Amy have cemented their position as the most generous people on the planet. They wanted our whole family to have a vacation in Costa Rica, but they knew everyone was of varying means. They didn't want anyone to be left out, so they paid for the entire vacation for all 29 of us, including airfare. Unbelievable. Almost as unbelievable as where we stayed. We went to Manuel Antonio and stayed in two large houses, each of which had a couple casitas. Each house had its own pool, as well as private chefs, who made us breakfast and dinner every night. We stayed in a house with Cannon/Amy/Greyson/Easton, with her parents and the DH in casitas on our property. Everyone else was at the other main house and its casitas. Every day around 5pm, we would meet by our pool for happy hour: a bartender had been hired (his name was Jonathan and he was great), so all we had to do was relax. Our property also had an amazing tree fort and every day monkeys would come to be fed bananas by the kids...we joked that the monkeys got to have their happy hour, too! We spent most of our time at the beach, but also had a lot of fun white water rafting and watching alligators, and sailing. It was over Thanksgiving, so we even had a full Thanksgiving dinner by the pool The girls were too little for zip lining and surfing, so we'll just have to go back again!