Date Night Log

I presented Holly with a belated Christmas gift yesterday.  It's a record of all our date nights since November of 2007.  We've had a date night every week since, and I wrote down exactly what we did, what we ate, who we were with, where we went, etc.  I even took the time to mine the list for statistics, like what type of food we ate the most (Chinese Food) or who we double dated with the most (our hip friend Daisy Boyer).  I intend to keep adding to it until we get older, and older, and older, until its a big, fat book our posterity can flip through.

And our date night last night?  Well, it would appear like this...

2nd week of 2014...1/10/14. Chinese Take-Out, 2 episodes of Parenthood on Netflix, Coca-Cola, Putting a new humidifier together for the boys, Heavenly Hash Ice Cream, A Frozen Pizza (for myself who is always hungry), and an episode of Extreme Cheapskates on Netflix.

Lost Earring

This morning Holly was scrambling around looking for her earrings.  She found one on the dresser, and she realized the other must have fallen off when the boys threw a small pillow there this morning. She looked for the earring and couldn't find it.  She sent me up.  I looked for twenty minutes and couldn't find it.  Then, later this afternoon, she told Parker and Carter if they found it she would get them McDonald's for lunch.  Well, they dashed up stairs and found it in THIRTY SECONDS! Bribery works.  Or maybe it was a big scheme set up by them.  Either way, Holly was thrilled to get her earring back.

The little detectives who lost and then found mom's missing earring for McDonald's

High-Fives for 2014

Back to school again today!  The day started warmer in the high thirties and then plummeted throughout the day.  We stayed in our little house (somewhat) all warm and toasty making our New Year's Resolutions for 2014.

We did this activity last year for 2013.  Everyone gets their hand traced and they they write five things they want to accomplish in the upcoming year.  That makes a total of thirty goals for the Steffen family.  One of my goals is to have 300 blog posts for 2014.  Not quite a full year, but more than we've had before.

Also, a BIG storm with VERY COLD temperatures is supposed to come in.  Governor Cuomo declared a state of emergency in our county, so we figured the chances of having a snow day tomorrow were pretty good.  And then, late at night, Holly was woken up with this news.

That makes 3 snow days for the school year so far!  Only two left on reserve, and then we start losing vacation.  As much as we love snow days, we hope it doesn't come to that!

Baby Beckett Always Enjoys a Snow Day!

2 Steffen CTRs

Carter became a CTR today. Parker was really excited and offered up some words of advice as any good big brother would do. "It'll be fun, Carter." and "You will learn how to choose the right, Carter." Parker is officially a CTR6 and Carter is a CTR4. :) I'm excited to see if they start discussing their lessons as we drive home from church. 

To celebrate this big occasion (Carter moving up from SunBeams), we bought them (it was really Mommy's idea) CTR rings. I found these really cool ones. They were really impressed and wanted to pose like this for their photo. 

I really wanted one of the two of them. They insisted it be silly. That's ok though, because it totally captures their personality and love for each other. :) [insert proud mommy moment]

My heart is full.  I love my boys.

Chess and Football

Holly made fun of my on facebook by posting a photo.  She says I am probably the only guy in the world who watches the NFL play offs while studying chess.  She is probably right!

Me trying to study the Schliemann Defense in the Ruy Lopez while a more athletic man on the television screen scrambles for a first down.

Snow Day!

We woke up to a snow day yesterday!  It was partly because of the snow and partly because it was almost zero degrees outside.  I let Holly sleep in while the boys and I celebrated downstairs.  Then, when Anderson went down for a nap, I took a nap in the attic which was awesome.  While I was napping Holly set out to do a project with the boys which appears below.

Holly put the Lego Table the boys got for Christmas together.  They both think it's terrific!  Later , after the boys where in bed, I braved the icy weather and questionable roads to pick up some pizza, wings, and other goodies.  We then watched World's Away, the 2012 Cirque du Soleil film. 

Wow!

It was terrific.  My favorite part was when Holly said, "I always get frustrated by these things because I feel they are trying to tell some deep story and I don't get it."  Then I helpfully said two minutes later, "You know, the way that guy is swinging in the air like that with the ninja theme is a direct reference to John Updike's Rabbit novels."  And Holly says, "Really?"  And I said, "No, I just made that up to sound smart.  I don't know what's going on either."  And then she threw pizza at me.  Or at least, she would have liked to! 

Winner! Winner!

I cannot believe it, but we WON the bumGenius mommy blogger contest!
You can read my entry here.

Below is Baby Beckett with all  his new diapers! :) THANK YOU AGAIN for all your comments! As soon as I get these prepped, expect pictures of him sporting them. ;)

New Year's Day 2014

New Year's Day was spent with some lovely storybook looking snow falling outside our windows. Holly's folks came up to pick up Uncle Jon who was staying with us.  We reheated some of the leftovers from last night, whipped up some more pizza, and kept it real one more time. Afterwards, we relaxed and watched the Capital One Bowl of Wisconsin versus South Carolina.  I also battled John-Mike in chess three more times, conquering all.

Anderson on break from the football game, helping himself to more slices of pizza. 

 

New Year's Eve 2013

We enjoyed a stellar New Year's Eve Party at our home tonight.  Pictures soon to follow!  In short, there was plenty of food, including the following menu items:

Spinach Artichoke Dip

Buffalo Chicken Dip

Nacho Cheese Dip with Sausage

Shrimp and Cocktail Sauce

Sausage and Cheese Rolls

Cocktail Weenies

Cake Pops

Candy Canes

Homemade Pizza

and

and impressive assortment of carbonated beverages including Mountain Dew, Pepsi, Diet Pepsi, Wild Cherry Pepsi, Mug Root Beer, Mountain Dew Code Red, Caffeine Free Pepsi, Caffeine Free Diet Pepsi and Sierra Mist

We basically ate, laughed, and talked.  Then we watched Ryan Seacrest supervise the traditional ball activity in Times Square, followed by two rounds of the Awkward Family Photos Board Game where yours truly won the first game and Daisy winning the second.

Brian and Daisy Reign Supreme

Also, after the ball dropped in Times Square, I surprised Holly with a Pandora charm for her bracelet: a camera one she has particularly wanted.  Happy New Year!

Holly's New Charm 2014