Happy New Year everyone!

The end of 2011 was definitely a whirlwind for Team Bolen, but we are past it and looking forward to 2012 being even better.

The end of 2011 craziness started off on November 10th when Alexandria was born. Another redhead to add to my collection! :) She weighed 8lbs 3oz and was 20 inches long (almost a full pound bigger than V and an inch shorter!). The birth itself was uneventful but it was the aftermath that was "exciting." In a nutshell, for the first 6 weeks of A's life, all of Team Bolen was sick. We all played round-robin with pink eye, head colds, coughs and trips to the hospital for A's jaundice photo-therapy treatment. J.E.B.'s mom got caught up in the sickness game as well when they came for Thanksgiving and we were still sick when my parents came at Christmas so my dad ended up getting a cold here too! Alexandria was puking almost every meal for a while there, but it has lessened thankfully. Add in another trip to the hospital for an upper GI to rule out any severe reflux or problems with her digestive tract to the sickness game! But everything looked good on the upper GI results and we assume it was due to all the phlegm and congestion she has going on and thankfully not a milk allergy!

But even with all that sickness and exhaustion, we had a great holiday season. As I mentioned above, J.E.B.'s parents spent Thanksgiving with us. It was a great day out so we decided to eat our dinner outside in the backyard. I even felt well enough and ambitious enough to try a new dessert recipe: Caramel-Bacon Brownies. Wow! They were amazing! Had the consistency more of a thick cake than brownie, but wow were they delicious!

Christmas was fun too. My parents flew down from PA to meet Alexandria and play with V...cough... I mean to spend Christmas with us for two weeks. J.E.B. had to go to CA for a few days during that time for work, so they helped me out tremendously as we were all still slightly sick at this point. You know, you don't realize how much a low-grade fever saps your energy until you have a toddler and a newborn to take care of. Or maybe that's just me!

The girls made out like bandits this year from Santa and all our relatives. The tree looked like it was sitting on top of gifts instead of in a tree stand! Similar to last year, we had to stretch our gift-opening session into three or four as V got overwhelmed and then needed lunch, then a nap, then another break...you get the idea. It killed me! I am still a child when it comes to Christmas morning/day. I started tossing in bed around 3 am and when A woke me up to feed her at 3:30, I popped out of bed. I really didn't think I'd get back to sleep after feeding her but I managed to toss and turn and sleep somewhat until about 6.  J.E.B. woke up to A's fussing to find me grinning, wide awake. He rolled his eyes, called me a child and told me to go back to sleep! Then he mumbled something about how in a few years he'd have all three of his girls waking him up at 5am to open gifts, but I didn't catch all of it!

New Years was spent at home, doing nothing, asleep before 11:30! After the "excitement" of the past two months, we both decided that it was a perfect opportunity to just lay low. We watched Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid on netflix streaming but I fell asleep with 15 minutes left to go. We don't have cable tv anymore, so we would have missed the ball dropping even if we had managed to stay awake for it.

So 2011 ended with quite a bang for Team Bolen, but we have high hopes that 2012 will bring us good things.

(I added a ton of videos to dropshots, so be sure to check 'em out!)

I love this shot!

Making Christmas cookies with BeBe