The Chronicles of Sisterhood: chickies, coops and partying it up!`

Happy New Year, all! Hope that it's been great for you thus far, as we are only a couple of days into it... It's been a busy but awesome start for us this year. We always get slammed with everything at once- everything is kind of a blur from Thanksgiving through January 10th. We get 3 days of celebration during the 23rd, 24th and 25th of December between all of our family members, followed by New Years Eve a week later and New Years Day, which also happens to be my mom's birthday. Camille's birthday is right behind her on the 2nd, which we celebrated today, the 3rd. One more week exactly until Jeremy's big 34th on the 10th! Then we get to breath for a little while =)

We started off our New Year spending it up in Redlands to celebrate with my mom for her big day. Upon waking on New Years Day we decided to throw the kids into the car and drive up to Forest Falls to see if there was possibly any snow left from a couple of weeks prior. We didn't want to get our hopes up, though, so we were prepared just to hike the falls if the snow didn't pan out - boy, we had no idea what we were in for! As we approached the valley we were stunned to come from sunny Redlands 15 minutes prior to houses absolutely covered with feet of snow. It always amazes me, just how much snow dumps at that place and how it STICKS for so long. Needless to say, the girls were not disappointed. We made our way into a little parking lot and tromped around for a while and then decided to go for a short hike down to the creek in the snow, and what an adventure that was! The day was beautiful, sunny, snow-filled and topped off with a fun party back at my parents house for my mom's and Camille's birthdays.

Today we had a birthday bonanza for Camille with friends and family here in San Diego. It was a breakfast and it was cold and drizzly but oh so much fun. We have this small house and we somehow had 50ish guests slammed into this tiny space and it all worked out! All I have to say is that I'm glad it didn't rain TOO hard, because I don't think we could have all fit inside at the same time. All of our guests were total troopers and didn't mind too much that they had to wear raincoats and get a little wet. It always makes me a little sad, though, that our house is so small and we can't just have a giant bash and invite everyone we know. I always hate having to whittle down the guest list and with everyone having kids and spouses - wow! You don't even invite that many people and somehow the turnout is just huge! Maybe one of these years we will have a kids-only party and make all of the parents leave - then we could have all of their friends come at the same time! Okay, maybe I would ask a couple of you parents to stay...

One thing that I have been meaning to post about is our chickens! We are now proud parents of four hens (at least I hope they are all hens at this point). Yup, that's right. We have a coop and everything. Super cute, super fun and I can't wait to have my own home-grown EGGS! Thank you, Sarah and BJ for all of your time and energy and brains to help us design and build this coop, may your eggs be abundant! Here are some pictures of the little ladies:

At a couple of weeks old