Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to all my dear readers. I hope this year has started well for you all!

We had a really nice and impromptu dinner with some of our favorite people last night. Originally, we'd just planned to have an early dinner with Amber, Jon and Abigail, with the kids in bed by 8pm at the latest. But the fates smiled down on us and after sending out a couple of "not sure what you're doing, but if you're interested...." emails, we managed to snag Amanda, Mark and the gorgeous Peter as well as Annie, Paul and the very late Miles. Miles, if you're not aware, was due to be born on Christmas Day, but he's decided that he's so snug in mummy's tummy, that he wanted to stay put. As you can see from the photos below however, Annie looks amazing and despite our pleading, didn't go into labour after dessert was served.

The other thing you should know about is that this was the first time Peter has been to our house. I don't think his mummy will mind me sharing that unlike Miles, Peter decided to come out rather early - at 26 weeks! - and we haven't been able to have a proper playdate with him since his birthday last April thanks to our continuous stream of colds, flus and general ill-health. But, like I said, the stars aligned and this young man, who won the best-dressed award for the night, was able to come see us and charm us all with his smiles and giggles.

Will and Owen were a little on the crazy side, since they hadn't napped, which usually leads to chaos around bedtime, so they were asleep shortly after 7pm. Abigail was then taken home to be put to bed by visiting grandparents and all of a sudden we were having a lovely adult evening. We had french onion soup, spinach and strawberry salad, a cheese and deli platter and a white chocolate, lemon curd and pomegranate pavlova (thank you, Santa, for my new Lucy Waverman cookbook!) and even managed to have a champagne toast, albeit at about 8:30pm! Peter insisted he was about to turn into a pumpkin shortly thereafter, so I think everyone went home by 9:30pm at the latest and Mark and I were in bed by 10:30pm! And the dishes were done and everything. Sheesh, is this what being an adult is all about?

And today, the first day of the new year, was spent being very productive. I'm now 32 weeks and going through what is commonly described as "the nesting phase" in most parenting books (despite never showing any inclination with my first pregnancy). I cleaned out and organised my disaster of a closet this morning as well as the disaster of a hall closet and somehow convinced my husband he wanted to join me in my efforts. Bless him, Mark has been a superstar today and we've started to transform the upstairs of our house into a three-child family home. I've been itching to move the boys from their room into our third bedroom for ages now, which we've been using as a den/tv room since we bought the house. Their room is going to be the baby's room and since I have bags and bags of clothes for this little girlie sitting in our dining room and no where to put them until her room is ready, as well as grand ideas for decorating the boys new room, I'm quite excited to get things moving, so to speak. Thankfully, Owen and Will are very excited about the prospect of moving - possibly because they think they're going to sleep on the sofa bed in the den AND they get to keep the tv. Um...fat chance, fellas. Tomorrow, Jon is going to come over and help Mark move the the two sofas and the tv into the basement where they will join the three bookshelves we moved down earlier today (they were very light and Mark did most of the lifting, I promise. I was just there for balance.). We spent the evening geekily alphabetizing our novels whilst watching Mythbusters. It was very satisfying and I feel like we've started the year well. And of course, once the new rooms are finished, I'll post pictures for your viewing pleasure.

Speaking of pictures, here are a few shots from last night:

Amanda and Peter, looking lovely and happy

Amanda, Me (and the Belly), Annie (and Miles) and Amber (and Baby Burkinshaw) - so nice to spend time with such great friends.

Here's Will at breakfast this morning, rocking his New Year look. Apparently the goggles help with the eating of cereal. And yes, they're upside down
Actually, I should admit that these are...Doggles. My brother bought them for Jack a few years ago and Will just discovered them yesterday. He thinks they're awesome and has been wearing them for most of the day. Apparently, the dog doesn't mind.

I have photos and videos to post from Christmas at the Johnson Cottage, but since my baby belly is telling me its bedtime, they'll have to wait for another day. Bonne Nuit!