This is My Forties

This Christmas was very much like last Christmas, which is a good thing. We let the kids open their presents from the grandparents on Christmas Eve this year so they would get their own special attention. Everything was a big hit! Thank you again!! Later that night we made cookies for Santa. Any baking in this house is a fun time, and we bake every weekend. It can get a little CRAZY! No, not really... but it is fun! :)     Christmas day we had our friend Rudy over and we just hung out and relaxed, watched football, ate. The weather has been decent so the kids played outside with their new toys for a few hours. They got half outside toys, half inside toys (because we're all stinkin' geniuses). It was fun and relaxing, just what we wanted! Josh made his first ducken (duck stuffed with a chicken) and it was delicious. We all got what we wanted.     We've been enjoying our time together while Josh is off work... at home, chilling out and cooking...

Our friends will be moving soon (does this story sound familiar?) so we went to Aranjuez again for a "last hurrah" and some great photo ops.  I won't be sharing their photo shoot until after Christmas so they can surprise people with the cards. First stop was coffee.  Oh sweet nectar of life.  The boys had a plate of chips to keep them busy while we slowly slipped our delicious brew.  They didn't last very long. After that we walked around the city and the parks for a couple hours and the boys went completely nuts.   We'd all been to Aranjuez before , but only had time to see the huge garden.  Well this time we saw the palaces and fountains!  I'm glad they got to see it before they go back to the States. Everyone got ridiculously hungry and, luckily for us, it was a Spanish holiday so the restaurants were still open after 4pm.  As we were eating our early dinner a thick fog rolled in around us.  It was like a snow day or s...