Happy New Year!

Yep. I nearly forgot I even had a blog for a minute there. It has been over TWO WEEKS since my last post and to tell you the truth, it was kinda nice. I promise to get back into the swing of things soon. I'll make it one of my resolutions for 2009..... then I will promptly break it like I have every other resolution I've made for the past 32 years.

Actually, while on my 2 week vacation I have been fully enjoying my break from work and school. I've been spending lots of family time with Ron and the girls, tons of time with friends (love you guys!!!), and way more "stay-in-my-jammies-all-day" time than I care to admit. Both girls have been off of school and home with me the entire break, so I have really gotten to enjoy them from morning till night. Tomorrow it is back to reality and routines......but lets not ruin the moment by talking about that right now. *smile*

So....this post will be about some of the Pre-Christmas activities we did here in PA. I'll have to do a few more posts about Christmas and New Years because there is no way I could cover all of that in one post. And I'm not sure Blogger would appreciate all those photos. And I don't have the patience to wait for all those uploads. Needless to say, this post is sure to be a long one. Hang in there. Pack a snack. Run to the potty for a break if you must.

Let's start with a few pictures of Ron's Christmas party for work. The girls both got caricatures drawn...Jen loved her's; Steph didn't. The party was great for kids... they had a magic show, face painting, food, and each kid got an age appropriate gift. Not some cheesy $2.00 gift. Nope. The girls both got very nice electronic type toys (Steph got a Hannah Montana pinball machine and Jen got a Leap Pad alphabet thingy). The Union rocks.






Next is the yearly tradition of building our gingerbread house. This was Jen's first year helping out and she did a fabulous job. I squirted the icing where they told me to, and they placed the candy how they wanted. Jen was more into lining up all the colors and Steph wanted a more random look, so we have both kinds of creativity all over this thing. LOL









We also took a ride one night out to Hershey, PA (as in Hershey chocolates) to see the Hershey Sweet Lights (which is across from Hershey Park, a Hershey themed amusement park). Did I say Hershey enough for you? The ride is about an hour and 15 minutes from home and Jen made it extra special by getting car sick and vomiting when we were approximately 3 minutes from where we were going. We pulled over and cleaned her up as good as possible, then decided to stick with the plan and go to dinner when she said she was hungry just after vomiting. Kids are so resilient. After dinner we drove through Sweet Lights which was a first for all of us. We didn't know what to expect and were surprised with how nice it was. It took about 35 - 40 minutes to drive through, and they had so many great Christmas themed displays. The kids (and the adults) really had a blast!





Here are just a few shots from the annual "Chrupcala cutting of the perfect Christmas tree - 2008". We hiked out into huge fields of trees and after awhile they all started looking very similar. Steph wanted a tall skinny tree, Daddy wanted a short fat tree, I wanted to get out of the cold and get my hands on some hot cocoa, and Jen was just wandering around being cute and silly as always. After searching for what seemed like forever, we all agreed on a very nice tree, cut it down together, and took it home to decorate.





Of course there are more pictures of the girls decorating the tree....baking cookies.......being cute. But I am in the middle of my last stay-in-my-jammies-all-day-long day and I need to get back to it. I'll post again soon. Maybe.

Happy New Year to you and yours from the Chrupcala family!!!

:)