January 2016

^ My 2015 Best Nine.  I never posted this, but it was fun to see my top pictures of 2015, it was such a great year!

^ It was in the 60s and 70s here during the last weeks of December.  We came home from CA to find daffodils growing in our yard!

^ The girls got some great presents for Christmas this year. They've spent so much time playing with new magformers, lego sets, and a doll house camper.   

^ I just love this picture of Mattie holding up her fancy dress-up to go potty, this girl kills me!

^ The girls and I went down to Richmond for a few days to help out while my mom was in Utah.  Mattie loved wearing this Snow White dress, and I remember it was a favorite of Jilly's when she was 2.

^ Usually I'm so happy to clear out Christmas decorations and get rid of the clutter, but this year our house feels empty and sad without them!  So I've decided I need to spend some more time decorating and finishing projects around the house. 

^ I've loved having all our friends hanging above our kitchen table and I just can't take these cards down!  We'll see how long they last. 

^ One Sunday the weather was amazing so we got out for an afternoon adventure.  We walked around the grounds of the Hampton House, a beautiful 18th century manor house that's just a few minutes away from us.  The girls weren't interested in my history lesson and instead called it "Elsa's Palace."  

^  Facetimeing with the girls' sweet new cousin Evie who lives in California.  Wish we could snuggle her!

 ^ I won our family's Bowl Pool, yet again proving that the less you know, the better you do.

^ I had to go through our 2013 pictures to make more memory space on our computer and I remembered how cute baby Mattie was!

New Year's 2016

We flew home from California on the 30th and my family came up on the 31st to celebrate New Year's with us.  My girls loved finally meeting their new cousin (and I loved getting to hold that sweet baby again!)   We took a timer picture while the whole family was together then Bryan found a Care Bears countdown on youtube so we could celebrate the new year with the girls and put them to bed.  Katie, Neal and Joe went home but the rest of us made it til the real new year thanks to lots of snacks and games.

On New Year's Day we took everyone down to the harbor.  At the last minute we bought a groupon to go to the "Top of the World"- a building right on the harbor where they have a lookout on the 27th floor.  We had low expectations but it ended up being really great- the view was amazing and it was fun to see the whole city from above, we could almost see our house! We ate at Shake Shack (of course!) and some of us went to the aquarium for a bit.  I realized thanks to Timehop that we had all been right there in the harbor 8 years earlier so we had to re-create some pictures.  

^ our family has A LOT of hair 

^ January 2008, we'd been married for 6 months and had no clue we'd be living in Baltimore 8 years later with our two kids!

2008

 ^ 2016 - Tyler grew up a bit in 8 years.  

2008 - Apparently Bryan spent a lot of time carrying my siblings that day

2016 - we laughed so hard recreating these pictures

It was a fun way to start 2016, it's going to be a great year!

A California Christmas

Our trip out to California started out not-so-smoothly.  I thought we had left plenty early enough but the traffic was much worse than we had expected.  It's in moments like this that I realize what a good match Bryan is for me.  I was in total panic mode and spent the whole drive hyperventilating while Bryan calmly reassured me, "It will be fine, we're going to make it."  We got to the airport at 8:00 and somehow miraculously made it on our 8:45 flight (along with all our luggage!)  Bryan later admitted he thought there was no way we were going to make it, but he figured at least one of us should keep their cool.  We got on the plane and breathed a huge sigh of relief then 20 minutes into the 6 hour flight Mattie threw up allllll over her lap and my lap.  Thank goodness I had packed some wipes because it took the entire package to clean up the mess.  And luckily Mattie had a Halloween shirt under her dress that remained unscathed.  The rest of the flight was less eventful and I've never been happier to be back on solid ground.

The rest of the trip went much more smoothly.  We had a fun Christmas party with all of the Griffins that included a sweet nativity.  Jilly was pleased as punch to play Mary and Mattie was a happy and adorable cow.

Other Christmas prep included decorating a gingerbread house, doing puzzles, and playing outside in the cold (for most of the time California was a solid 20 degrees colder than it was in Maryland!)

On Christmas Eve Bryan's dad always reads 'Twas the Night Before Christmas.  This year before reading he told the girls, "And now we're going to read a really fun story."  And Mattie replied, "Oh, I know- Frozen!  I will go get it!"  She was just a tiny bit disappointed to find out the book was already chosen, but she was perfectly content once he started reading.

Christmas was so fun with the girls.  Jilly had most wanted a jack-in-the-box and Mattie wanted clothes for her baby, and Santa really pulled through.  The girls also got matching nightgowns, magformers, books, new clothes, legos, and sparkly princess capes made by their Nana. 

The rest of the trip was spent relaxing and enjoying time with family.  Mattie was shocked when Bryan finally shaved and kept telling him that he should put his mustache back on.  We went bowling and my two-year-old beat me handily, we went to see Star Wars, and ate some real Mexican food.  

We went to the beach one day and it was pretty cold but some sand and salt did us lots of good.  

Our last day in California was my 30th birthday.  Bryan's parents offered to watch the girls while we went away for the night but I'm so glad we stuck around because the girls were SO excited and treated me like a queen.  Bryan and I did go out for lunch and a movie and the celebrations continue because we're going to New York in a few weeks!

It was a week of fun and great company, and we're already counting down the days til we get to see our Martinez family again.

Fourth Quarter Books 2015

My goal for the past few years has been to read 50 books in a year and I've never been successful.  But this year I did it!  It helped that I spent nearly a full week this summer listening to books while I unpacked and painted our house.  It also helped that I finally started listening to books at 1.5 or 2x speed.  It's been a great year for reading.

Excellent
42. The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown - I LOVED this, definitely the best book I read in 2015.  It's similar to Unbroken in that it takes place pre-WWII and tells the story of the rowing team from the University of Washington that competed at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin.  The book was inspiring and fascinating, and the audio version is read by Edward Hermann (Richard from Gilmore Girls.)

43. Rebecca by Daphne DuMaurier - I read this in high school and I remember it having a slow start, but eventually loving it.  We read it for book club this fall, and again it took me a little while to get into it but once I got halfway through I couldn't put it down.  It's the story of a young girl who marries a wealthy widower and moves with him to his estate where she is haunted by his beautiful previous wife Rebecca.

44. The Martian by Andy Weir - This was just as excellent as everyone says.  So funny and so fascinating how much of it is scientifically accurate.  I still haven't seen the movie, but I'm really  hoping Matt Damon lives up to the Mark Watney in my mind.

Great
45. One Plus One by Jojo Moyes - I checked this out from the library early last year and then promptly dropped it in a puddle.  The library of course wouldn't take it back so I had to pay for the book but I did get to keep it.  After all the hassle, I was really hoping it would be good.  I read most of it on the airplane on the way to California and I really enjoyed it.  Jess is a single mom struggling to make ends meet who through a series of unlikely events ends up on a road trip with Ed, who is very wealthy and also happens to be in a lot of trouble.  Some parts of the story were a bit kooky but I thought the end was really terrific.

46. In This Together by Ann Romney - I just really love Ann Romney.  I got the audio version and loved hearing her tell her own story.

Pretty Good
47. Bringing Up Bebe by Pamela Druckerman - I've realized that I find parenting books much more palatable when I'm not an overtired, irrational, slightly hysterical mother of a newborn.  I thought parts of this were really interesting and helpful and the other parts I was happy to ignore. ;)

48. More Than Happy: the Wisdom of Amish Parenting by Serena B. Miller with Paul Stutzman - I kind of love reading parenting books from different cultures.  I enjoyed learning more about Amish parenting, but I felt like the author included a lot of her own opinions that I found a tad annoying.

49. Winter Street by Elin Hilderbrand - This was a fluffy Christmas read; it could easily be made into one of those Christmas family drama movies.

Dumb
50. I Feel Bad About My Neck by Norah Ephron - Parts of this were funny but for the most part I just thought it was dumb.

First quarter, Second quarter, Third quarter