Electronic New Year

Happy New Year! We visited my family for New Year's and we got back on New Year's Day. We took this photo on New Year's Day, at the request of my parents. As usual, there is a back story. My parents had asked for a photo of them with the grandkids back on Thanksgiving, but we never got a chance to get one. We made time this time, but of course Natalie wasn't ready. When she gets in a bad mood, there's no pulling her out of it. Threatening her only makes it worse. This is probably the best photo of the bunch, but Natalie still looks very unhappy. Emily, to her left, was not looking at the camera at all in the other shots. The other kids were all pretty compliant, especially the boys.

We had a pretty relaxed visit. The kids were into their electronics. I thought this picture was great for showing the boys both using their iPhone/iPod Touch, but also relaxing and enjoying the reclining chairs at my sister Cynthia's house.

The younger kids had their electronics as well. Emily got an iPad from Santa, as did her stepsiblings. Eric is sharing with her in this picture. Aly is using my old iPad, although at other times she used her Dad's iPad and then Eric would use my old iPad. Natalie is using her new Kindle Fire HD, which she received from us for Christmas--very cool gadget.

This photo was taken at my Mom and Dad's house where we visited on Sunday, December 30th. They also invited some long-time friends (my mom's sister-in-law's sister and her husband) and we spent all afternoon eating, chatting, and playing with electronics, obviously.

I took this photo one morning. I thought Eric looked so comfortable enjoying a show on my iPad while wrapped up in a blanket. He always got up earlier than everyone else and did a pretty good job staying quiet, especially when he had electronics to help him out. One morning he was particularly excited because Aunt Cynthia found the show "Dinosaur Train" on PBS.

We had a pretty low-key New Year's Eve celebration. It had been raining all day in Houston, so we didn't even bother to buy any fireworks. There was plenty of loud sounds coming from neighbors that night, however. We had plenty of food, watched a couple of movies, watched the ball drop in New York, then watched an episode of Modern Family and celebrated the New Year in our Central Time Zone. That's when most of us went to bed. The boys stayed up some more and played on the PS3. Eric had gone to bed at 9pm, even though we told him he could stay up. He said he was tired. How could we argue with that?

I'll try to share a few more details in the next few days, but in the meantime, you can be sure all of us will be playing on our electronics.