Aaaaand..... exhale

Phew. This girl here is glad the holidays are over. Not because I'm a grinch or anything... I love and all the frenzy it brings. Especially now that Little W is old enough to get the whole Santa thing. It was a blast. But it was tiring as heck. Thank goodness for online shopping (and double thank goodness for free shipping).
My husband, Neil was home with us for two weeks so we tried to fill every day with fun stuff for W. We soaked up all the holiday joy-based goodness in Philly including eating our way through Reading Terminal Market. In fact, we ate our way through everything these past 6 weeks. And it shows. Yikes!

We had to tear him from the train display at Reading Terminal. 

Helping Santa prepare all the Christmas magic was more fun than I ever imagined. By Christmas eve, W was worked into a hot Santa lather and on his very best behavior (by 2.5 year old's standards). And I was glad for this because I was desperate to document picture perfect family memories to slather all over our updated profile.

I failed miserably. Christmas came and went in a blaze of wrapping paper and tight schedules. Narry a memory was documented in focus.

This is seriously the best Christmas morning shot I got. Kid was on full throttle.

New Year's Eve was quiet in our house. We took down all the Christmas decorations, inside and out. Space is a precious thing in our busy little house, so as much as I love my tree and our decorations, it all had.to.go. I needed my space back. After everything was back to normal in our house (except my waistline), we packed all creatures great and small up and headed down to the river for a peaceful stroll. These unseasonably warm afternoons are soooo appreciated (sorry polar bears. I promise to donate to the WWF later this year).

Don't let the serene scene fool you. W was probably screaming about fish poop and trying to jump in the river.

But I did get to sneak of on my own for a minute to do a little nerdy photography.

 I love me some global warming

Later that evening, after W was zonked, Neil and I had a sushi making date followed by gorging ourselves on our creations. Holy soy sauce overload! We watched bad tv and rung in the new year like old farts.But it was a perfect night. I happily said hasta las pasta to the wild and crazy nights out of my youth. Well, I'm still pretty youth-ish. 32 ain't ancient, but after chasing a toddler around all day, we felt pretty antiquated.
At least I made it until midnight.

So that was my holiday in a nutshell. In case you were wondering. And now here we are in twenty-dozen. I'm hoping for big things this year. Maybe this will be the year I make it back down to a size 10 (ha!). And I'm hoping beyond hope that this is the year our baby finds us. I don't think my heart can manage another year of The Wait. It's so painfully obvious that little W feels the same way. He wants a baby as much as we do, I think. We got him a baby doll for Christmas and he's very into making sure it's healthy. Repressed NICU memories, perhaps?

"Lungs sound good, mommy."

So here's to 2012 and here's to friends known and unknown who are navigating The Wait with us. This is going to be our year, I can feel it.