A fresh, clean, new year

New Year's is quickly becoming my favorite holiday.  It's so fresh and clean, with so much promise in front of it.  I was so eager to usher it in that I was actually awake when the clock struck midnight.  Okay, so maybe it was due to one of my offspring waking up and not my eagerness, but hey, that's an improvement over last year!

I think it's safe to say our little family is on the upswing after last week's colds and coughs.  We had a few rough days, and a couple of long nights with a feverish Jude smooshed in between us.  Well, he wasn't smooshed.  For being so little, it's amazing how much space Jude can take up when he's sleeping.  He also still likes to think that he can sleep on top of me.  When he realized it wasn't really comfortable for either of us he opted to just lay his head on my chest and curl his little legs beneath him.  A few hours later his fever broke and he decided to let me know by kissing me on the forehead.  Boys. They sure do love their mamas!

And girls... Julia's made of tough stuff.   She still has a nasty cough, enough to make me cringe when she goes into a fit.  But the little sweetie continues to sleep all night.  And coo all day.

And Jack is much improved.  He had to take some antibiotics for the pneumonia but he appears to be fully-recovered and back to his Jack-like ways!

I've decided, the only thing worse than being sick yourself is having a sick kid.  And the only thing worse than having a sick kid is being sick yourself AND having a sick kid, or three sick kids. So as excited as I was to throw open the shades on this new year, all this coughing and snotting has set things back a bit.  Thankfully, the only person in the family who wasn't sick had a long weekend.  There's something about having your husband home that makes parenting so much more enjoyable.  And we did have a wonderful weekend, with much accomplished around the house.  Namely, removing the Christmas decorations.  It seemed to go so fast this year, it felt like we barely had the tree up.  But now it's all put away and the house is ... well, sparse.

I suppose it goes with the whole "newness" theme.  It was a little too bland for me, and the current cold snap we're in has me thinking of snow.  So we hung paper snowflakes on the window.  And now I'm REALLY wishing for snow!

I actually laminated these bad boys so hopefully they won't get "lost" like all thes ones I made over the past few years.  And in case you're wondering when I had time to cut these all out, well Marmie was a huge help!

The only trouble with the cold weather is that it keeps us inside.  Well, it would, if Jack didn't have preschool.  So that's three days a week when I'm forced to heat up the car, bundle up the little ones and venture down the road.  I suppose it's good for us all to get a little fresh air, even if it takes a good hour to get us to that point!

And being stuck in the house gives us plenty of time to think and plan and do.  I've got a lot of great ideas for 2012.  I'm sure some of them will never come to fruition, but it makes me excited just to think about them.  The fresh, clean, new year seems to stretch on and on forever.  But I'm wiser now and realize just how fast the time goes. Here's to a new year and filling the next 360 days with as much happiness as possible!