New Year Update

I meant to post about New Year's when it happened....but better late than never, right? It was nice to have my mom home and she cooked us all a very delicious new chicken recipe...but as usual...she combined several recipes to make her own, so not even sure if she can remember what she did!! Caitlin also made some very yummy Sangria! (Sis, still need to get that recipe!) Then my parents offered to watch the girls while Jason and I joined my sister Caitlin and her fiance Casey to actually go to a theater to watch a movie!! We had been laughing because the last time we were at a movie theater was when I was pregnant with Angelica in 2006 and saw Narnia!! Wow, have our lives changed since then!! So we went and THOROUGHLY enjoyed the movie, VALKYRIE. An amazing story about truly a brave and virtuous man....loved it!! Still want to google his family and see what his wife (who just recently passed away) and children ended up doing. It was nice too because the theater was practically empty!! I was commenting on how nice the seats were and Casey replied that it must have been a long time since I was in a theater...hehe. So while we enjoyed the film, Angel and Emma had fun time watching one too with Marmee and Poppy. We made it back with ten minutes to spare before we wished everyone a Happy New Year!!

On New Years Day we decided to host (what has now turned into our annual) Holiday Open House. We invited the young couples and friends we knew and then additional friends and family for later on. It was a lot of fun to use all the Christmas serving dishes I have and cook yummy foods and drinks. The homemade Egg Nog was a hit and of course the lumpia went fast!! Thanks Mom Hartsell for my new gorgeous poinsettia platter that I used to hold the chocolate cherry cake (which Angel thought was a big donut) which you can see in the pic. Love it! And thanks to the Herrings, Beuchels, Cichy, Campbells, PopPop, My Family, Sullivans, Linda, and Grays for stopping by...it was great to see all of you and hope to next year as well. Angel had a blast with the open food, candy canes and all the dancing with the girls!! I think next year though Jason will decide to take the following day off!! Happy New Year.