The Brandt's Lately

Happy New Year! 

It's 2014! Criminy!

Andrew, Jane, and I have had a fun holiday, full of relaxing, travelling, family and friends, good food (turducken... yup, you read that right), temple work, and a new niece!

We started the holidays off with a fake Christmas tree that we inherited from one of Andrew's grandparents, which saved us some money.  We have pretty simple decorations, just some glass ball ornaments, some random ones that I've gotten over the years, and lights.  I didn't realize what an issue this would be with the cats... We decorated the tree exactly the same last year and Piper didn't really bother it.  But the only difference is that last year we had a real tree.  She tried to climb in it of course and knocked down a couple ornaments, but she never broke anything or knocked the tree down.  Yeah.  KNOCKED IT DOWN.  I guess the other difference is that there are two cats in the house this year.  That boy cat is a TURD.  The fake tree has pretty pliable branches, so I guess that made it easy to get up there and smoosh them down to make a flat place to hang out, where as a real tree doesn't bend much.  And is also prickly, depending on the type you get (Blue Spruce all the way!).  

^Good lookin' tree right? It's ok, you can tell me it's ugly.  Along with that beautiful tree skirt...

So we found a few ornaments on the floor every morning, and the tree was all disheveled every morning too.  It was so fun fixing it every day! (Not.) What made me mad was when there were broken ball ornaments on the floor.  Glass was EVERYWHERE.  How the heck do they do it? These cats.  Needless to say, we took the tree down as soon as possible.  

We took a trip up to DC with some of Andrew's family to go to the temple to do some work for deceased family members.  It was really awesome to be in the temple with so much family.  Because we were there for quite a while, we were able to see the Festival of Lights!

^I didn't get any pictures of the trees covered in lights in front of the Visitor's Center, but I did get this picture...

It was beautiful!  We were also lucky enough to see my best friend that's serving her mission in the area.  Man, I miss that girl.

^Jane and I with Hermana Adlridge! 

For dinner, just about the whole Brandt family went to Outback Steakhouse to celebrate some birthdays.  My father-in-law's birthday was the day before, one of my sister-in-law's birthday was the next day, and then mine was a week later.  So we had a ton of fun in a huge room filled with family and some GOOD food.

^Trying to get a good picture with Grandma Brandt was pretty tough.

^Jane, why are you getting so big?

^Dad and Jane with party hats on.  Too funny!

Christmas Day was really fun with Jane, even though she didn't quite know what to do with the presents.  She still lunged at them to attack the paper and ribbons.  She had a good time, I think :)

We had Christmas dinner with some good friends of ours and they brought the main dish, TURDUCKEN.  I have never heard of this creation until recently.  It is a turkey stuffed with duck and chicken.  And some other meats I think.  I still can't say I know exactly what it is, but I do know it is delicious!

Andrew took off a few days of work around New Years, so we had a nice long weekend to celebrate.  The plan was to spend it in Richmond with a couple of Andrew's brothers that live up there, but plans were changed when our little niece decided she wanted to come about a week early!  She just wanted to see us so bad that she wanted to be born while we were there ;)  It made for an exciting New Years, and we are so happy that new baby Ella is here and that Jane has another cousin to play with. 

So, 2013 went out with a bang :)