A New Year

I'm baaack! I hope you all enjoyed the holidays. I loved spending time with family. Here's a rundown of some of the happenings. On Christmas Eve, we went to my grandma's house. This has been a tradition my entire life. It's become a more simple affair now that the crowd has grown, but it's still fun. For the past several years, we've done a white elephant game. (If you don't know, a white elephant is a gag gift.) My dad reads a story that has us passing gifts to the right and left and at the end, we open whichever gift is in our possession. Good times. Afterward, we headed to my parents' house. There, we opened gifts from mom and dad, (we usually do a sibling gift exchange, but we decided not to this year.) We also let the niece and nephews open their gifts. As I mentioned before my hiatus, I gave my niece some princess pictures. Here's what they look like:







The Merida one is my favorite. My niece has hair pretty much identical to hers, though not as long. I also made her a hopscotch layout out of fabric and felt so she can unfold it and play in the house. My two older nephews got slingshots with little puff balls to sling (all of which I made myself. No pictures, sorry) and a little game I made called The Ham and Cheese Sandwich Game. It's a variation on a game I saw on Pinterest. The youngest nephew got a stuffed turtle (also made by me, also no picture). This was his first Christmas. :) It's so fun to watch them open gifts. For my parents, I crocheted some ear warmers (my dad got a red one with a big U on the side for the U of U, and mom got a Mickey Mouse silhouette) as well as this lovely picture I made on my iPad:

They gave us some gift cards, candy, and a Minnie Mouse oven mitt. They go to Disneyland pretty much every early December and usually get us something while they're there. From my husband's family, I got pajamas, scarves, and a cool blender. I made more ear warmers for several other boy family members and some candle holders out of wine glasses (thanks again, Pinterest!) for the girls. I was busy, but it was fun.

Now, time to get serious. I will finish Foretold this year. I'm disappointed with myself for not getting it done last year. I've had a goal to write and publish at least one book a year, so I need to get back on track. Also, I'm thinking of scaling down my blog posts to once a week, probably Saturdays, except for special occasions. I'm hoping for good things this year with my writing as well as other projects in the early stages of development. I'll get into those later on. Stick with me, people! I need you along for the ride!