I'm back.

I am back from a brief blog hiatus.  I missed you!

I had a wonderful Christmas, full of family, friends, and new memories made.  I didn't take as many pictures as I probably should have, but I did manage to take a few with my phone, so I'll share my break with you thanks to Apple and Instagram.

Here's what has gone down in my world in the past two weeks:

It snowed, and made pretty tree branches.

Christmas lights and decorations were in abundance.  LOVE.

Yeah, I spent a LOT of time in hockey rinks.  Six different ones, to be exact.  And we are headed to a seventh one tonight.

Always room for a little sparkle, no?

I found this ornament on the in-law's tree.  Super cute!

Emma, the in-law's cat, loved to snuggle up on Morgan's lap.

A little Phase 10 action with the fam.  (It took me FOREVER to get through Phase 1, but once I did I DOMINATED!)

LOTS of knitting time.  Yep, even at the rink.  With my new Essie Sand Tropez polish on from Santa!

(More info coming soon on what this baby turned out to be!)

More hockey...

And more hockey....

We covered lots of miles to hockey games.  Luckily when it snowed, it was only a few inches at a time, so the roads weren't too bad.

Hockey sisters have to stick together when their brothers are on the ice.

Going crazy from too much hockey.  And it's not even over yet.

National Anthem at the third place game!  (We lost, but I'm very happy with fourth place out of twelve!)

I got to ring in the new year with two of my favorite boys, Tom and Jerry.

And Morgan got to ring it in by going in the hot tub with friends and cousins!

This is what 10 and 11 year olds do.  Fixin hair, playin on phones, waiting for midnight.  Most of the adults had to be woken at 11:50 so they didn't "miss it".  It's sad when it's so hard to stay up until midnight anymore!

We are now back into the swing of things.  I'm happy to report that the tree did not fall over again this year.  One time is enough thankyouverymuch. 

The house is almost all de-Christmased, and I'm on a de-clutter rampage thanks to the new Rubbermaid containers my mom got me for Christmas.  I went through the cupboard and got rid of all the old junk that was older than my marriage, and replaced it with gorgeous, unscratched, matching, not spaghetti sauce stained, stackable, pretty little containers with lids that all snap together.  There is a happiness that I haven't felt in a long time that surfaces when I now open that door to the cabinet.  Next up is the pan cupboard.  Ugh. That one needs some serious help.   Then it will be time to take off the child safety locks on the cupboards that have only remained because we rely on them to keep the cupboards closed.  What?

How was your Christmas???

XOXOX

NH