January highlights {New Year's Eve, lots of basketball, Snowmageddon, Wicked}

 1) New Year's Eve. we rang in the New Year with good friends, good food, and lots of music as has been our tradition for the last few years! I ordered another half-dozen carol books to round out the set from last year so we had plenty to go around. 

Cece's fondue set was a hit although we did have a minor medical event when Greta ate several pieces of pineapple and broke out in hives! thankfully no throat swelling or difficulty breathing. I dosed her with Zyrtec and she was fine, but no more pineapple for her!

love these ladies! (also, the poor angel tree-topper has seen her last Christmas, I think)

our New Year's Eve party is one of my favourite nights of the year with a house full of our favourite people making beautiful music together. plus, there is generally at least one baby (this year we had two!). we opened the bottle of Veuve Clicquot I was gifted for my fortieth birthday to toast at midnight and welcome another year full of adventures. 

singing with his goddaughter (yes, at three months old, she definitely WAS singing along!)

cuddling his godson

babies, bourbon and Christmas carols

O Little Town of Bethlehem (audio only):

at one point we realized it was way too quiet, and discovered the kids like so. 

Happy New Year!

O Come All Ye Faithful (in which all the men blew out their vocal chords!):



and my favourite from the entire evening, Silent Night:

2) Basketball. our January weekends were full of games for both girls. to top it off, we went to two Duquesne women's games! it is really fun to watch the college women play and of course, the girls made out with autographed posters and shirts to bring home. 

Cece (#20) catching a pass

in a few years, she'll be on the court herself!

Greta (#43) keeping the ball in play

you don't realize how tall these college women are until they come off the court!

greeting the Duquesne Lion (a somewhat formidable looking mascot)

I brought Cece and Rosie to a game the next weekend (they were playing their own game during the game Greta came to!) and they had a blast

#30 had a whole cheering section full of little lookalikes sitting next to us in the stands -- guessing siblings, cousins, nieces and/or nephews? it was so cute!

3) Snowmageddon. the last weekend in January, we had an epic snowfall -- not quite record-breaking, but with accumulation of over 12 inches, it was definitely an anomaly for Pittsburgh. the snow started in the middle of the night on Saturday and by the time we woke up on Sunday morning, there were 4-5 inches on the ground. Nick ventured out to play for 9 AM mass and told me we should stay home -- the roads weren't clear and the van is not great in the snow. we hunkered down for the day and I decided this would be a perfect opportunity to start potty training Victoria. cue my phone timer set for every 30 minutes to have her sit on the potty, and beach towels laid out over the couch and her chair so she could sit bare bummed. she caught on pretty quickly and was very motivated by her designated prize of 1 M'n'M for every successful pee on the potty and 2 M'n'Ms for every poop. 

I was using the pink trike as a measuring stick for snowfall

I worked Monday and we had pre-emptively converted all of our morning visits to telehealth. most of my colleagues opted to work from home, but with all four kids home (school was obviously canceled) and without a dedicated office space in our house, I knew it would be tricky to pull off. so Nick drove me to the office in his Explorer so I could work in peace and quiet. 

nothing compared to what the East coast got but it was immediately followed by subzero temperatures so everything turned to a glaze of ice!

view from my office window: I have never seen the parking lot this empty. (not sure who that car belonged to -- I was the only one in our section of the office for at least three hours that morning!)

Pittsburgh is renowned for its parking chair tradition, where people put folding chairs, stools, and apparently Jesus Himself in the street to lay claim to parking spots that they have shoveled out. 

4) Wicked. one of Greta's Christmas gifts was a ticket to come along with me to see the touring production of Wicked in January. I had never seen the full musical; we had both seen the first movie when it came out a few years ago, but never got around to seeing the second. the musical was phenomenal and once again, I was impressed by the special effects and visual illusions that created magic in a live stage performance. 

Greta originally dressed in pink shorts in honor of Glinda and was none too pleased with me when I held my ground that she needed to change into long pants in the single digit weather. but she thoroughly enjoyed the show and it was a fun night out with my oldest girl!

there were stagehands perched at the top of the wings on both sides, operating the controls for the dragon, whose head turned, eyes flashed red, and nostrils blew out smoke

Your turn: What's your favourite Christmas carol? Did you get record-breaking snow this year? If you're a Wicked fan -- team Elphaba or team Glinda? (I have to say I love them both!)