iHope you had a merry Christmas.

The holidays began with a new Christmas Eve tradition: International Night. We began with Asia. Jake made three wonderful kinds of meat, Nate made California rolls, I made minute rice and heated up some egg rolls. What can I say. Everyone was adventurous and we pretty much devoured everything.

Who knows where next year will take us.  Mexico?  France?  Ethiopia?

After dinner we opened presents from another new tradition: cousin gift exchange.  All the kids drew names and got to shop for each other.  It was so much fun to see the kids thinking about what their cousins would really like.  Everyone was very happy with the choices!  It was a really nice evening at Jill's.

Me and my favorite kindergartener.

Me and my favorite.

The boys sporting their new head lights from Grandma and Grandpa.  Melissa and I might have to borrow these when we resume our early morning running.

Christmas morning was calm and quiet.  And once again, over in 15 minutes.  And I was worried that we'd have to get up super early so that we could open presents and get ready for church.  We could have slept in another half hour!

The biggest hit of the day across the entire family was the iPod.  Emma and Leah got theirs last year, but this year, with Brooke, Sydney, and Becca all receiving them it was iPod central all Christmas long.  From Christmas morning...

...to Christmas day at Grandma and Grandpa Franklin's...

...to New Year's Eve...

...everyone was iPod crazy.  The Franklin and Ryan cousins even made up some sort of hide-n-seek game using Facetime.  Kids these days!

New Year's Eve was of course the lovely spread of hors d'oeuvres.  Mmmm-mmm!  I think the cranberry salsa Jill made takes the top prize.  If there were one.  Everything was delish.

Most of the evening was spent playing Just Dance.  Very fun game!  I did a "15 minute non-stop shuffle," and I might have even started to sweat.  In my defense I don't usually exercise in a sweater, but still--it was a good workout after all that food. 

We were all prepared to do the chocolate fountain, but I kind of wasn't into cleaning up the mess it makes.  So Jill and I quickly melted some chocolate and did some dipping so as not to disappoint the littles.

And at midnight as the ball was dropping, the kids all whipped the iPods back out (were they ever really put away?) and recorded the countdown and the cheering and the "Happy New Year!"  Andrew recorded his on the flip cam he got for his birthday and I think has watched the video every day since.

The rest of Christmas break was low-key, with lots of time spent with Grandma and Grandpa Brooks. There was shopping, the new Muppet movie, the traditional trip to Wendy's for a frosty, games, and puzzles, and more Just Dance. And it mustn't have been that crazy, because Grandma ended up extending her stay! It was nice to have everyone together for so long. We ended one year and started another in the best possible way...with lots and lots of family!