Where has the time gone?

I said I would be back with an epic Christmas wrap-up post.

I think I lied.

I mean, it's January 4. I don't have that post ready. I have other stuff piling up. I may not ever go back and completely summarize Christmas and I suppose that's OK. There's a Flickr set posted if you are interested in the images. I mean, they are Christmas images... it's pretty easy to tell what is going on!

After Christmas day proper, we had a second Christmas in Stratford a couple of days later. Then Amy came to visit for a few days. I was in the midst of trying to wrap up my 6th annual take on the December Daily album during my spare time when I got an email saying Shutterfly was having a 60% off photo books sale, so I buckled down to finish the last few pages of my 2012 year-in-review book and get it submitted before the deadline. I've been bad at sharing those things here but I am thankful to have the projects completed (or nearly so) for my own personal use.

Then it was New Year's Eve. Chad and I did a 5K fun run before our whole family headed out to a house party. This is where I admit that Mallory has been a bit of a pill for the last several weeks. At first I was cutting her slack - it was the holidays, we were busy, she was tired, then she was sick. But I think we are running out of excuses for her. Anyway, she was adamant that she wanted to go to this party but then her mood turned foul, and eventually we found her upstairs sleeping in one of the girls' bedrooms. So Liam rang in the new year with a boatload of kids squirting toxic amounts of silly string into the air while Mallory slept it off.

Not really though - she is still in a foul mood. Someone said maybe she is getting her 6 year molars? I really hope that's true and that there is a valid reason for the moodiness. I cannot imagine what she will be like at 15 if she is like this at 5.

Anyway, back to the schedule of events of the past couple of weeks. After the new year, Chad went back to work. I have been home with the kids covering the school break. We just got home from what I guess is now an annual sequence of events: first we went to Listowel to visit GG... (nice face, Mallory!...)

 (...GG just turned 90 - this is me in another 50 and a bit years!...)

 ...and because it's too far to go up and back in a day, we split the trip up with an overnight stop in Stratford.

 And on the way home we went tubing at River Valley. I love that place. So does Liam.

Mallory was not crabby for about ten minutes of the 2-hour lift ticket I purchased. Good times.

 And that catches us up to present day. Lots of blowing snow out there today - I am glad we got the exterior of the house de-Christmasified before the wind picked up.