Happy New Year

Most importantly, here are some adorable pictures of our boys. They really do love each other. Grant loves to help with Cole and give Cole hugs. Every time Cole looks at Grant, his face gets a huge smile on it and he just lights up. I love that they love each other so much.

My Christmas present finally arrived. I got a double jogging stroller for Christmas and I had to wait for it to get here. I love it. It's just what I wanted and I love using it. It's a great incentive to get out and get walking to lose that baby weight of mine. Grant loves it too. I call it our stroller and he loves sitting next to Cole.

Our New Years was far from exciting but we had some good family time. Chad had to work New Years Eve but the VA had the Tucson Garden Rail Society doing a presentation so I took Grant and Cole to see the trains. We had lunch with Chad and two other residents. Grant loved the giant trains running on the tracks. It was a huge track with amazing city details all around the track. Grant wanted to watch it forever. He had to be pried away from the tracks.

On New Years Eve, we had both boys in bed by 8:30 PM and then Chad and I put in Sex and the City and enjoyed a movie together. We haven't watched a movie together in ages. It was fun. When the movie was over we watched the ball drop and I was in bed by 12:30. I think we are officially old, married parents. Honestly, I hate New Years Eve. It's just a big drinking holiday and I hate staying up that late because I know I won't get able to sleep in.

On New Years Day, we tried to go explore the 17th Street Market for the first time but it was closed. Instead, we had lunch at our favorite local dive, The Grille. The service was as bad as ever and they even gave me the wrong sandwich. Only at this place is it close to acceptable. I also got to take a 2 hour nap, which was heavenly. I really needed it.

Today, I took down Christmas before we headed out for some family fun. Grant had just as much fun taking the ornaments off the tree as he did putting them on. He tried his best to take the hooks off the ornament balls but every time took off the entire top of the ball. He gave it his best effort though.

Once Christmas was down, we were able to go to 17th Street Market. It is this amazing grocery store in this old warehouse. From the outside you would never guess that this market is there. It's in an awful part of town, very industrial and questionalby safe but inside they have so many amazing things. They had two full aisles of aisan food, delicious looking fish and meat and numerous foreign aisles. Chad found some German potatoe dumplings to cook up for us. They even give kids free apples. How cool is that? After wandering the entire store, we headed to the Tucson Botanical Gardens to see the butterfly exhibit. We have wanted to see this exhibit for a couple of years now and finally made it. This was also on my list of things to do so I was particulary insistent about doing this. They bring in live butterflies from various regions of the world and you go into an 85-90 degree room and can watch them up close and personal. Some were zooming so fast around I almost got hit a couple of times in the face. You won't believe the pictures I took. We also finally were able to see the Botanical Gardens themselves. Chad loves looking at plants and I kind of enjoy it. Grant had a great time in the Children's garden, where he got to dig for earthworms and play in a sandbox. They also had pumpkins and water fountains (Grant's two favorite things in the world).

We're hoping to go fishing tomorrow if the weather stays nice but it's forecasted to get cold and wintery again.

On another note, does anyone else find kitchen items in weird places on a daily basis? I always have to go hunting for my mixing bowls and wooden spoons because Grant thinks they are his own personal drum set. This, however, is the weirdest place I've found something yet and therefore warranted a photograph.