New Years Eve!

 Y'all, we have made it to the end of 2020. Was it a garbage year? 

Yes and no. But that's neither here nor there, we will talk of this later. 

But, we got together with family, and had a good night. Originally, my sister was going to quarantine from us, as we had mentioned, but then since it has been a week and we have had no symptoms, we were like, we're probably fine. So we hung out. 

We just had a chill night. Pizza, games, fun times. 

He just wanted to show us how strong he was, that he could pick up my container of paper. 

Epifanio just gets slighted in small forms, and then he spends time thinking about it. It makes me laugh so hard. 

Then, we actually stayed awake until midnight! Not the kids of course, they all went home at like, 8:00. But my SIL and her new boy played games with us, and then we celebrated at midnight. And then I promptly went to sleep.

Happy New Years! 

I'm Blue (Da ba dee da ba di)

 I got these snapchats whilst I was at work today and I about died laughing. 

What a swell guy haha.

The best Christmas Lights

We spent a last day with some of our family before they left. As we were hanging out, my 3 year old nephew asked me for some milk. I gave him some, and then I told him he needed to be so so so careful. He listened well. 

Then they left and we were sorry to see them go, we barely got to spend any time with them. 

Then this evening, we went to a house in Saratoga Springs, called the Meridian House. They have an amazing light show! I was so impressed, I stayed for the whole thing, it was like 45 minutes. I had planned to go with my sister's family, but since we were quarantining from them now, we still did it, we just stayed in our separate cars and communicated by texting haha. 

It was amazing! We did it so spontaneously and it was such a fun night. And it felt like we extended Christmas a little bit, which was great. 

Happy Christmas!

 And now for Christmas! We spent today with Husband's family. with this in mind, we figured we wouldn't see any of my family for two weeks or so, make sure to quarantine. We originally were supposed to have seen them already at this point in time, for Husband's sister's wedding. But then he got sick (we thought it was Corona but thankfully it wasn't) but we didn't get the test results back in time for us to attend any wedding festivities, alas. But we got to see everyone today, so that was nice. 

First order of business was to see all the new babies. In addition to the new baby that my sister birthed, my sister in law had another surrogate have a baby as well, so she had two babies that were essentially 2 weeks apart. 

Not a great pic, dang it. But here they both are, cuties. Then we had a fun day of games, presents, food, and good times. 

The kids did a little concert for us in the evening. 

We had a fun time doing just sort of nothing, to be honest, the best kind of holiday there is. 

And then we returned to our own home, where we watched Wonder Woman 1984...which wasn't very good but we still had a good time. 

Hope y'all had a good day also! 

Christmas Eve Celebrations!

 Merry Christmas Eve, y'all! Today we spent the day with my family, and had a smaller thing than usual with the corona. Basically, just seeing the people I see on a regular basis and are already in our quarantine circle. I started the day by going to Sodalicious, where my favorite employee was wearing the best suit I have ever seen. 

Then the fellas came over and we had to take some pics together, of course. 

We decorated some cookies and I made Epifanio reenact Dirty Dancing with me. 

Then we ran a quick errand before dinner, Darth looked amazing when he masked up to go out. 

After a yummy dinner and some fun games, they went home to prepare for Santa. 

What a fabulous day! 

Conjunction Junction, What's your Function?

 Tonight is the Great Conjunction! Jupiter and Saturn are going to be close together in our view tonight! According to reports, it hasn't happened in 400 years, what a treat! They are calling it a Christmas Star. I went out to look at it tonight, and tried to snap a pic. Of course it isn't a great photo, but I did my best. 

You can sort of see it in my pic, in the center there. Hopefully everyone got to partake of this tonight! 

Niece and Fellas

 So, because their mom had been pregnant with my tiny niece, the fellas wanted to meet her. Because she's so new, we knew we had to be careful. So we masked up and headed over to say hello. 

They brought her this teddy bear, definitely bigger than her. 

Then after they had fawned over the baby for a bit, they wanted to play with all the instruments they saw in the music room. They don't even know how to play, but they did their best. 

They look so great, I love it. 

Babysitting Cuties

 Since my sister was in the hospital delivering a baby, when I got home from work today, I babysat the fellas so that her husband could go see her. They were animals! But Epifanio was so cute as always. 

He was just so cute! I love that he's figuring out how cameras work. 

He's too cute! 

New Baby Niece!

 I got a new baby niece today!

My sister was a surrogate for my sister-in-law (Husband's sister) and today she went into labor. She's about 4 weeks early - it was a surprise. She went in for a regular check up, and her blood pressure was too too too high. So they told her to come to the hospital to be monitored for 24 hours. Since I am her birthing buddy, I took her in. After we had been there for a while, they told us that she would be delivering today. Yikes! So we got all set up and we then just had to play the waiting game. 

After many many hours and many many scares, we finally had baby girl at 12:45 AM. She was tiny (5 lbs) but very healthy. 

In the interest of not having any gross or revealing pics, here is this pic of me right after the baby was born and my sister is still doing ... stuff. 

Then I got to hold the tiny baby! 

So so smol but so cute. I went home around 1:30 and then had to be at work the next day at 8:00, yikes! But we made it! And then I came back to the hospital to check on everyone. 

Everyone is good and healthy and we are ready to welcome tiny baby into our family! 

Christmas Officially Starts

 Y'all, Christmas can officially start, Gecko has his Christmas sweater. 

So close so close!

 I collect Legos, we all know this. Lately there has been another set of the Lego Harry Potter, and I have been trying like crazy to get them. I took stock today to see what I am missing. 

So close! I am only missing three - Harry, Luna, and Professor Sprout. Here's to hoping I can find them soon! 

Hype for a Lollipop

 Today, Epifanio got a lollipop at the store, and he couldn't believe his good fortune. 

Look at that adorable face! I can't even! 

Post Office Tips

Recently, Husband ordered something like 180 boxes of hot chocolate from an online store. My older brother works at the post office, and texted me the morning they arrived there, because one of the boxes had broken and the hot chocolates were everywhere. He let me know that he had written a note on one of the other boxes. 

Ah thanks, good tip.

Card Swap Neighbor Gifts

Tonight, I had all of my card swap dropped off by Chelle. I was so hype to see what everyone did and the cards they made! 

Everyone did such a great job, it always makes me feel inadequate! But I love being part of such a great group of women who are so talented. 

Homemade Ornaments

 I have a new calling this year (I can't remember if I've blogged about this before and tbh I am too lazy to go check) but I am now the Relief Society secretary. A definite change from a YW advisor haha but it's been a good time. Doing it during a pandemic is challenging, but still fine. We were trying to find a Christmas gift for the Sisters in the ward, and I found a lovely Nativity scene ornament on Oriental Trading's website. Whilst I was there looking, I found some do-it-yourself ornaments that seemed fun. Since I have a gaggle of nieces and nephews, I decided to buy them and then give them to these niblings, and then they can have a Christmas craft. Yesterday, the nephews came over, so we ended up making the ornaments. And I loved them! They were so easy and it was so fun. 

The snowman in the middle was done with hot glue, but the other two are just stickers, so they are very kid friendly and so much fun. Totally recommend this activity. 

Chocolate Gingerbread Cupcakes

 I was watching a Lifetime Christmas movie this past weekend, and in it, they made a chocolate gingerbread cake. It looked AMAZING so I knew I had to try. I found a recipe on Pinterest, and decided to make it into cupcakes instead. So, here's the recipe: 

https://livforcake.com/chocolate-gingerbread-cake/

But instead of making it into pans, I put it into cupcake liners and baked for 14 minutes. 

Then, for frosting, I used this gingerbread one: 

https://www.imperialsugar.com/recipes/gingerbread-cupcakes-with-gingerbread-butter-cream-frosting

And frosted them, of course. 

They were so good! I was so happy and proud of them. 

I'm Mary Poppins, y'all.

 This absolute nut of a nephew of mine is just the best. 

I love him haha. 

Christmas Card Time!

 Card Swap is this weekend, and while we won't be meeting in person (hecking Covid, I am absolutely sick of it ruining everything) we are still doing our card and neighbor gift. So I made mine and while it's really simple, I just love it. 

Then for my neighbor gift, I chose a simple bath bomb.

I got the printable from a Pinterest page of course, and it was so easy to attach with a ribbon. And voila!