Merry and Married

Happy New Year! 

I have to say, I was a little sad to see 2013 go. It was one of the best years of my life - and when I look back on it, every single month was filled with friends, family, travels, health, and adventures. Can you beat that? 

Before I fully accept that a new chapter is among us, I want to recap our Christmas week and vacation to Mexico...and then I may actually get around to a 2013 recap and my 2014 resolutions. 

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 The weekend before Christmas...

 we had Joel's brother and sister-in-law come up from San Diego. The four of us have always have so much fun together, we are so lucky to have them 2 hours away.

We decided to do a pizza competition for dinner. All four of us went to Trader Joe's in the afternoon to pick out the ingredients we needed and then got to cooking.

 

Joel's brother had the best pizza by far - I'm still thinking about it. After we had finished eating - we polished off a few more bottles of wine and played a bunch of games that we had bought at Target earlier in the day. 

It was the perfect kick off to Christmas

Christmas Eve's Eve

Our friends Brent and Dawn, and their perfect baby Max came over for dinner. The four (now 5) of us have formed our own little family out here in California and I couldn't be more grateful for their friendship.

Also, I made this bruschetta garlic bread for dinner and it was a huge hit. It's a perfect side dish - I would highly recommend putting in on your next dinner party menu.

It was so fun having a little bambino at the house - kids really make Christmas more fun...even if they're only 4 months.

 

and to top it off, Joely got to change a diaper for the first time!

 

Christmas Eve

In the morning we took a family hike in effort to negate the aggressive amounts of calories we planned to take in. I'm regretting all of the indulgences now, but in the moment, holy hell were they good!

 After the hike we got dressed and made like it was party time. Since it was just the two of us, we had to make it special and fun - so out came the wedding china.

 

We've never cooked lobster before, so we figured Christmas Eve was the perfect night to give it a try. 

Joel did most of the work - and made us a Christmas cocktail in the midst of it all.

 

The lobster turned out perfectly and we capped off the night with a fantastic bottle of wine and a viewing of It's a Wonderful Life. 

 

 Christmas Day

We were so excited to wake up on Christmas morning - probably more so than some kids, which is semi-embarrassing, but true.

We did make it to  Christmas morning mass before we opened presents. After mass we made mimosas, turned "on" our fire, and tried the extend the morning as long as we could.

  

For food on Christmas day, I made homemade deep dish pizza. I was a little intimated about making the dough but it turned out to be really easy and SO friggen good.

 

 It'll be a repeat offender, that's for damn sure (but, not in January, time for a detox).

Everyone had a great Christmas and we are all sad that it's over.

 

Lucky for me, I left my boys the next day in Los Angeles and jet-setted to Mexico for a week with my family.

More on that tomorrow.