A New Year of Friends, Family, and Fun!

New Years Eve
We had a nice, quiet New Year's celebration with Kimsan, John, Sean, and Cole. Rai and Sean played most of the night while Cole had a few good naps from dinner until the time they left, shortly after the boys' normal bedtime. Rai went to bed right after they left, and we didn't last too much longer. Needless to say, our lights were out by midnight.

Aaron had fun playing with the boys




New Years
It is a Japanese (Shinto) custom to clean (purify) the house BEFORE the New Year. I am generally very particular about this and only started to get behind last year when Aaron decided to make the entire New Year's Day a day of cleaning and reorganization. This year, Rai and I cleaned up almost everything before New Year's and moved the Christmas decorations to the garage. The donation boxes were ready to take as well, but there was no way we were going to get everything done before 2010 began. We did follow the tradition of not spending money and laying low. Outside of going out for a walk with my parents, we stayed at home the entire day and enjoyed the quiet time together.


Weekend with Great-Grandparents
For Christmas, Patty (Aaron's grandmother) got us tickets to see BB King in Wichita Falls and a night of babysitting. In addition to the concert, we enjoyed building a snowman (yes, more snow), and playing cards.








Yes, Rai was a bit squirmy, but look at how big he's getting!

That Sunday we spent the day with Aaron's great-grandparents' house in Wichita Falls. It was great to see everyone even if we didn't have as much time to visit as we'd like.


A "Warm" Day at the Park
We've had abnormally cold weather this year! From snow to several days of ice, we've felt a bit stir crazy being stuck at home. Well, I've stir crazy. Aaron is perfectly content never leaving the house, and Rai is just happy as long as he can find something to make into a toy. In any case, we had a predicted day of above freezing weather, so I dragged the boys out to the park. Aaron constantly reminded me that 34 degrees was NOT warm, but I think they had fun. Rai stayed warm with seven, yes seven, jackets, many layers of pants, and his winter gear.




A Few Gray Hairs
A young girl (possibly late teens or early twenties) looked over at me while I straightened my hair at the gym the other day and said something along the lines of "When I get older, I hope my hair is as pretty gray as yours is. My mom has hair just like that." As most women would have given her a look of death, I was quite amused by this comment. I've spent most of my adult life being mistaken for a teenager and yet I finally found someone who think I look "older." I thought it was actually quite funny. My mother has beautiful salt and pepper colored hair, but I don't think hers was nearly this gray at my age. Here is the "pretty gray" hair of a new mommy: