It hasn't been my intention to be so scarce over the last few days. I guess I've just been enjoying our time off. Don't you love when you're off long enough that you have trouble keeping track of what day it is. Of course, the holidays certainly help with that loss of time since the days aren't following their usual patterns anyway.

We had a wonderful Christmas. I was worried about the kids being a bit disappointed since we scaled back quite a bit this year, but they really surprised me. I told Brian that maybe they aren't as spoiled as we think they are. Both the girls told me that this was the "best Christmas ever"...and that was even before we got to the in-laws house, were the kids were spoiled terribly.

For Josh, it was a Star Wars Christmas. Nearly everything he got was related to Star Wars...and that was just fine with him! For Megan, it was High School Musical -- both DVDs, both CDs, a backpack...and, yesterday, a HSM "ready-bed." Have you seen those? They're little sleeping bags attached to an air mattress. As much as our kids like to sleep in the living room, we knew Megan would really enjoy that. And, since the other two kids are visiting the grandparents, Megan got to be a little spoiled yesterday. We decided that she really "needed" the ready-bed since we'd already told her she could sleep in our room last night.

Brianna's Christmas was a little more diverse. The highlights for her were several Webkinz and a docking station for her iPod.

I was really spoiled by my husband this year. He got me a new TV for the kitchen. We got the old one several years ago, so it was a really bulky analog TV that wouldn't pick up any of the digital channels -- which is really bad since the cable company changed the Game Show Network to digital a few weeks ago! Ack! So, now I have this really nice, flat-screen, DVD combo where my big, bulky old TV used to sit. It looks really nice and frees up a lot of counter space. Brian also got me some refill pages for my planner and a label-maker. I am so loving the label-maker. Yes, I know I'm a freak, but I'm going around making neat little labels for everything. :-D

The kids have been taking turns visiting the grandparents. Currently the only kid at home is Megan. I was afraid she'd be bored, but she seems to be enjoying being the only child. She's been holed up in my room all day watching Noggin and playing her Gameboy. Yes, it's been a very productive day. ;-)

On the grocery-shopping front, I've managed to get spend $125 or less on our weekly grocery trip for the last two weeks. I'm already starting to think about next week's menu. I've also gotten into doing a lot of freezing. When I make a meal, I'll make two -- one to eat and one to freeze. I'm also freezing left-overs in single servings. We never eat left-overs before they go bad, but we've really been enjoying pulling single servings out of the freezer for lunches. I'm seriously thinking of making a couple of casseroles next week for the sole purpose of freezing in single servings.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and I wish you all a Happy New Year. We don't have any big plans for this evening, other than going out to dinner. We hadn't planned to do that, but since it's just the three of us, we thought we'd treat ourselves.