Christmas with the Taylor Twins!

What an awesome Christmas.  So far this was my favorite yet - and it was my favorite because I was surrounded by friends, family, and happiness. 

We kicked off Christmas with a dinner party on Sunday the 23rd with our friends the Butlers - our house quickly filled up with 9 adults and 5 kids.  We made it a casual dinner with chilli, corn bread, and lots of cookies.

On the 24th both Matt and I had to work but we both made it a short day.  Don and Kathleen (Papa Lito and Grandma Lita) were champs and took the boys to the Seattle Great Wheel and then to the doctor.  The doctor part was random but I was able to get Cole in for a last minute appointment to look at a rash (eczema it turns out) and they brought him in.  After Matt and I got off work, we bee-lined to the market for last minute dinner goods and then home to cook home made enchiladas.  We also broke into some presents early - Matt's mom brought two sweaters Gabe and Matt had when they were kids ... they didn't fit the boys but we tried them out. 

Today was just awesome.  The boys woke at 5:30 (not awesome) and after 2 cups of coffee we were all ready for Christmas.  It took SIX HOURS to open presents - yikes!  But not because there were so many (although there really were a lot - Santa was generous this year) but because the boys insited on playing with every single new toy.  I wound up hiding a few after they opened them so we can bust them out throughout the year to play with.

All in, a great Christmas.

The end of series dates 12/12/12

Unless I have my math wrong, we're not going to have another series of dates where the day, month, and year numbers are the same.  I don't think there's a 13th month ... WILD!  In fact, this is the last major numerical date series in this century.  I love firsts and I love lasts.

Apparently today was supposed to be a great day based on the numbers per Huffington Post.

In the interest of all things 12, here are the 12 things on my bucket list for the next 12 years:

1. Travel with my boys to Thailand
2. Travel with my boys to London
3. Iron Man
4. Great Wall of China marathon OR London marathon - this is a swapper 
5. New York marathon 
6. Fix and sell house
7. Re-read Nietzsche
8. Go to a black tie ball
9. Ski in Whistler 
10. Teach my boys to ride bikes 
11. Camp with my family 
12. Write a book - even if I'm the only person who reads it

And in the spirit of indulgence, here are the 12 things on my xmas list:

1. Trip to Canada to ski
2. DVF swimsuit 
3. A good book
4. Facial
5. Earings
6. Ladjili necklace
7. Home cooked dinner
8. Ability to sleep in for one weekend
9. Family movie night
10. Oiselle rundies or necklace
11. New Newtons
12. Jacket

Resurrecting from the archives on the web, here are more top 12s.

Top 12 places to visit from HuffPo:

1. Monte Carlo, Monaco
2.  Heidelberg, Germany
3. Salzburg, Austria
4. Florence, Italy - been there!
5. Lucerne, Switzerland - been there!
6. Tokyo, Japan- been there!
7. Venice, Italy- been there!
8. Siena, Italy
9. Rome, Italy- been there!
10. Hamburg, Germany
11. Sydney, Australia- been there!
12. Amsterdam, The Netherlands- been there!

 The 12 hardest races in the world from fitbie:

1. Trans Pyr - Spain
2. Ironman Kona - Hawaii
3. Leadville 100 Run - Colorado
4. BC Bike Race - British Columbia, Canada
5. Badwater UltraMarathon - California
6. Rouge Roubaix - Louisiana
7. La Ruta de los Conquistadores - Costa Rica
8. H.U.R.T. 100 - Hawaii
9. Haute Route - Switzerland and France
10. Cent Cols Challenge - Europe
11. SavageMan Triathlon - Maryland
12. Brek Epic - Colorado

Weekend roundup: snow, parties, runs

What a busy weekend!  Friday my team did an offsite to go wrap Christmas presents for 5-hours.  It's amazing how exhausting that is!  I got home late and we enjoyed a mellow night in, which was a good thing because the weekend was one of our busiest ever.

Saturday we rose early and made our way to Crystal Mountain for a ski outing.  We met up with some friends from the boys' preschool and we all took our kids skiing - for our boys it was the first time.  I think we're going to have some ski addicts on our hands - they picked it up amazingly quickly and then were begging to snowboard like "Uncle Gabe" and to ride the chairlift so they could do the "big hill" (aka double black).

After a hot cocoa break and a play in the snow, we made our way back to Seattle.

Quick showers and cleanup and we were out the door again Saturday evening for a holiday party at a friend from work's house.  The party was awesome - tons of kids everywhere and great holiday cheer.

Sunday Matt, the boys, and I all did the Jingle Bell run in downtown Seattle.  I pushed the boys in the stroller and I think this may have been one of their last stroller rides - they're getting giant!  The run was fun, but to be honest a 5K isn't my favorite distance and it was much too crowded to go fast.  The other racers were royals of walking 6-in-a-row.

After the race we made our way to other friends from work for a holiday brunch.  The boys and their "buddy" Sasha were going coocoo jumping on beds, playing dress up, and then just running wild.

After all the hubub from the weekend we were too tired to cook Sunday evening so we made our way to my new favorite sushi place downtown Seattle.  We caught the sushi happy hour so enjoyed some rolls for just $5.

Now we need a weekend to recover from our weekend!

Momming

I'm not an Alpha mom ... I might be close on instances, though, I'll admit.  I do find this poem hilarious Alpha or not:

Goodnight Nanny-Cam from The New Yorker:

In the great green-certified room
There was a smartphone
And a silver spoon
And a picture of—

A high-contrast, brain-stimulating black-and-white moon
And there was a musical concert by Baby Mozart

And high window guards
And French flash cards

And a fireplace safety gate
And toys without phthalate

And a sterilizer and bottle brush and bowl full of organic mush
And a bilingual nanny who was whispering “hush”

Goodnight room
Goodnight recycled baby wipes with no perfume

Goodnight high-contrast black-and-white moon

Goodnight baby monitor
And the nanny-cam

Goodnight French flash cards
Bonne nuit petit canard

Goodnight non-slip socks
And goodnight sustainable-wood blocks

Goodnight friends with unique, unusual names
And goodnight brain-development games

Goodnight digital archive of baby’s first years
And goodnight Doctors Karp, Leach, Ferber, and Sears

Goodnight wipes warmer and yoga mat, HEPA filter and sun hat,
Sunscreen, sunglasses, sleep sack, outlet cap, sleep coach, G &T coach, star charts, consumer reports,=
Vitamin D, anything with Omega-3, French au pair, filtered air and—

Goodnight alpha parents everywhere.
Illustration by Kris Mukai.