Happy New Year

A late Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!  This year we were able to go out to Colorado and visit my brother and his family, and see Douglas' sister and husband for Christmas.  It was so relaxing and nice to get away from everything!  No driving from place to place on Christmas day; the whole trip was great.  We didn't get to actually see anything until we'd been there for more than a day though.  We arrived after dark and the whole next day there was a ton of fog.  But after that we were able to get oriented and see how beautiful it all is.  Plus the fog left a ton of frost that was great for pictures.
Then after arriving home safe, we got to see my other brother before he went back home to Alabama.  It was really nice to see both brothers since they've lived out of town for years.  And of course we had our annual sledding day with my family, accompanied with the usual awesome crashes!

Douglas finished his fall semester before all the Christmas fun, and got 2 A's and a B+.  He has now started spring semester and is taking 2 classes and a  lab.  Plus he's taking an M-CAT prep through a private company.  He'll take the M-CAT at the end of his prep course in June or July and apply to a bunch of med-schools.  He has also started doing his 'research volunteer' work, plus still works a few days a week.  So we all miss him very much already, even though it all just started.  So with scheduling I'm basically a single mom for 4 days of the week.  But at least it's only one semester, and I know that as soon as I finally get used to the schedule we get to change it all again!  And assuming the boys don't get sick of me, we'll all make it through and presumably be sane.
The boys are still doing great!  Xander is such a shy little guy, even towards Japheth sometimes.  But he's cuter than ever, and has been learning to recognize some of the letters.  Of course it's still hit and miss as to whether he'll say the right name to the right letter, but he really loves doing it and always gets 'O' right.  Japheth loves going to pre-school more every day.  He has been able to learn and understand about different days of the week.  He learns about weather, animals, healthy food and exercise and everything else.  It's been so great for him to go and have a place to exercise his mind, make friends, and practice social skills.