A New Year

One of my new year resolutions is to start blogging on regular basis.  As we all know, most resolutions only last a few weeks, so we shall see how long my thirst for writing will last. 

I hope everyone had a great holiday season.  It went by too fast, but it always does.  I kicked off my holidays by spending Thanksgiving in New York.  My mom and I ditched the guys and took a girls trip to see the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, shop, see a couple shows, eat some great food, and of course, drink lots of good wine. We saw 'A Christmas Story'  and the Rockettes 'A Christmas Spectacular.'  Both shows were amazing and I even sat next to the dad of the kid playing Ralphie in A Christmas Story.  If anyone wants any behind the scenes gossip of a bunch of ten year olds staring on Broadway, just holler at me.  This was my second trip with my mom to NYC and we're already planning to go a third time together in March.

Our first night

At the parade

A Christmas Story

The start of the parade

On Christmas Eve, I went to church with my parents then made our usual trip to my Grandma and Grandpa Smith's house. Can you imagine 60 people crammed into one room opening presents?  Welcome to my family.  It's chaos, but I love it.

About 1/3 of the room opening presents at my grandparents

My brothers and I stayed at my parents house Christmas Eve and Christmas night.  We played a few intense games of UNO, drank wine, and watched our favorite Christmas movies.  Now that I'm writing this, I'm realizing we drink a lot of wine, but in the famous words of Teresa Giudice from the Real Housewives of New Jersey, "We're Italian!"  Christmas Day was filled with eating an amazing Italian brunch my mom prepared, followed by a full day of opening presents.  Christmas is so fun with a toddler in the house.

Lily riding her new bike on Christmas morning

New Years Eve was perfect; dinner and cocktails with friends followed by ringing in the new year in our pj's.  Great ending to a great year. 

NYE