Is this thing on?

Hello friends - did you forget about me?  I admit this was a bit of a ridiculously long blogging hiatus, but I have good reason.  I was am sick.   I've been sick since a week before Christmas.  I spent most of Christmas week in bed and recovered just in time for C to get sick for Christmas day.  Poor little thing - she's resilient, though, and got better much faster than her mother.  However now I'm sick again.  I can't win!  But enough feeling sorry for myself and more of what else happened besides us all being under the weather....

Our Christmas was great - it was crazy, manic and kind of all-at-the-last-minute, but it was full of fun, love, laughs, and of course plenty of food!  I wanted to share some photos but I have lost my camera - catastrophe!!  I'm sure it's here somewhere but I just cannot find it, and that completely ruins my blogging plans.  I have a few camera-phone pics which aren't the best quality but you'll get the idea.

It was FREEZING over Christmas.  No, literally.  The temperature didn't rise above 0C (or 32F) the entire week of Christmas and one day it was -13C during the day (that's 8F, it just doesn't normally get that cold in Ireland).  With the wind-chill it felt a LOT colder.  My parent's street looked like this (thanks, hubby, for the photos):

That may not look like a lot of snow - it really wasn't - but it was solid ice - the snow on the trees literally froze to them - it stayed like that for over a week, which made for a beautiful sight, but treacherous road conditions when there's not enough salt in IRL to grit the roads, particularly in the 'country' where we were.  It was beautiful, though. 

Inside the house looked something like this:

The tree was beautiful - my dad, sister and brother did a great job decorating it.  It was perfect!  Christmas day started early with opening presents, a quick breakfast and off to Mass.  Then we all made Christmas dinner - with lots of help, I made the turkey (which will never be as good as Sue's but at least it wasn't a Christmas Vacation turkey!), my brother and his girlfriend made the stuffing(s) - yes, two different delicious kinds, my sister made the side dishes and my other brother set the prettiest table ever. My parent's made dessert and did the cleaning after (maybe the best present of all!!).  Then we made mulled wine and eggnog and played Cranium Wow - we love that game!  I think board games are making a come-back.  We don't own any but I plan to change that pronto.

Christmas Eve brought a special present.  Not only did we (finally) get my sister (who was driving over from Dublin), and my brother and his girlfriend back to Ireland from London - their flight was cancelled on the 23rd so they took taxi, train, ferry and car to make it to us by 7PM on Christmas Eve - but we also got this special present, too:  C walked!  She had taken some un-steady steps before, but she walked almost the full way across my parent's hall.  She was so adorable!  Now she's going non-stop.  Look out, world!

Santa was good to me - among other wonderful goodies, I got these:

:love:

You must excuse this scatter-brained post.  I am going in search of my camera and hopefully I'll have more to share next time.  In the meantime, I'll be thinking of my new years resolutions (better late than never) and we'll talk more about that soon...

Have a great Thursday, everyone, and please share your holiday adventures, too!