Happy New Year (a little late...)

Where has the time gone?  I swear I just blogged the other day, but I checked and it has been 19 days!  Not really that long in the grand scheme of life, but amazing how much can happen in that amount of time.  What follows is a condensed version of life since 12/22/11:

• Christmas went off without a hitch.  We spent Christmas Eve celebrating with Patrick's family at his sister's house.  Due to the high volume of children under the age of 6, we had a buffet style dinner consisting of heavy appetizers on paper plates.  Genuis!  So much better than trying to have a sit down dinner for 14 ( like we did at Thanksgiving).  There were relatively few tears during the night, and lots of joyful smiles as the cousins exchanged gifts and sang Christmas carols at top volume.  After we snuggled our kids into their beds, I stuffed the stockings and Patrick set about nailing the train tracks to the train table for the kids.  We were (shockingly) in bed by 11pm and ready for the morning.  Laney was ecstatic upon discovering her gifts in the morning and unwrapped all 4 of our stockings for us.  Liam was only interested in playing with toys once they were unwrapped, holding no interest in ripping paper off of gifts.  Oma and Opa arrived at 730am and we enjoyed muffins and coffee as the kids finished opening their presents.  We headed to the Perry's after Liam's morning nap and snacked on Jessica's cinnamon rolls and Shesh's Christmas strata as we exchanged gifts with my family.  I was overwhelmed by the generosity of my family, and our car was quickly laden down in amazing gifts (including a new Cuisinart and an iPad).  We had the Olsons and the Shepners over for dinner that night and Shesh served a delicious standing rib roast with Yorkshire pudding made by the Birminghams.  Gavin whipped up some English trifles which were fantastic and an interesting change to our holiday meal.  At the end of the 2 wonderful days, we were exhausted by overwhelmed by such an amazing holiday spent with our 2 families.
• I planned to go to see a movie at Cineopolis, the new luxury theater in Del Mar, with my family on the 26th.  We arrived at Shesh's house to gather everyone up mid morning.  While the kids were playing, Laney tried to coax Liam away from the powder room and managed to smash his pinky finger between the doorjam and the door, repeatedly trying to pull it shut unaware of his small obstruction.  Patrick and I were standing in the kitchen when we heard a blood-curdling scream and he raced around the corner.  The next thing I heard was , "oh my God, his finger!  Oh my God!"  As Patrick turned around with Liam in his arms, his pinky came into view and I was horrified.  It was purple at the end and twisted out to the side, the middle squished to half its normal size.  I grabbed our diaper bag, my mom took over watching Laney, and Patrick put Liam in the car.  We called Dr. Schmottlach's office while en route and let them know we were coming in.  Liam screamed and cried the entire way, as I sat unbelted on the console hugging him around his seat belt.  Luckily his finger started returning to normal and the doctor pronounced it not broken.  He was encouraged by the fact that Liam was bending it on his own and advised us to watch it for 24 hours for swelling or stiffness.  By the next morning he was grasping everything on his own and not too upset about the minor cuts and bruising on the joint.  We got so lucky!  We didn't punish Laney seeing as how she felt genuinely bad about hurting her brother.  I did ask her to come get me the next time he tried to go into the bathroom by himself instead of trying to shut the door.  We made it through our first true emergency, and didn't even have to spend the day in the emergency room!  I even made it to the movie with my family that afternoon (thanks to Sean and Patrick babysitting).
• Patrick found out right before Christmas that he would be offered a job at Cricket between Christmas and New Years.  It was truly an answer to our prayers after his early October notification that he would be laid off January 31st.  The job description was just what he was looking for, and best of all, it meant that I would be able to stay home this year with the kids.  It was my favorite Christmas gift of all.  
• We were enjoying our time together as a family since Patrick had the week off from work.  We took a misguided trip to Sea World (unbelievably busy!) on the 27th and that night Liam woke up at 4am crying and never went back to sleep.  In fact he spent the entire morning on my lap crying, refusing to play at all.  Now I knew something was wrong!  I ran him into see Dr. Schmottlach that morning and he had an ear infection.  It was a first for me, and I feel lucky to have been a mom for 3.5 years before an ear infection in our home.  A few doses of antibiotics later, and he was a new kid.  Thank goodness for modern medicine
• We spent New Year's Eve at a friend's house participating in a "round the world" party with wine and appetizers from different countries, followed by cheese fondue and a chocolate fountain.  It was a relatively new group of friends for Patrick and I, and it felt nice to break out of our comfort zone for awhile.  The evening was so enjoyable, and it was fun to have some wine with people who could say a prayer before a meal and still party afterwards.  We capped off our evening by stopping by the Goodales' for a nightcap on our way home from the New Year's party.  The kids spent the night with Shesh and Pop Pop, and we all met up the next morning at church.
• New Year's Day is reserved for the Miller family tradition of eating fried Dutch treats with the whole family.  Appelflappen (fried apple fritters) and Oliebollen (fried pastry with raisins in it) were served along with champagne and quiche.  The morning was so fun (as usual) but the afternoon took a turn for the worse for me.  I ended up vomiting for a few hours, not sure if I had the flu or if my body just couldn't handle all that fried food after a decent amount of drinks the night before.  I felt better by the 2nd, but 2012 got off to a rocky start for me
• I got good news from my sister a few days ago after her 20 week ultrasound and anatomy screening.  Not only is her baby super healthy, but IT'S A BOY!  She sent us a 4D image of his face, and I am already in love with my new nephew.  I can't wait to meet him in May, and am even more excited to plan her shower for March 31st now :)
• We are now back into the full swing of our normal routine:  dance class Monday, school Tuesday, Wednesdays free, school and gymnastic Thursday, and mops every other Friday.  I started working out with my mom and her trainer, Brian, MWF mornings while Sonia watches the kids.  It's funny how quickly I forgot how tough mornings are when there is a schedule involved.  I definitely have to do more pre-planning/packing the night before to pull it all off.