It's a new dawn, it's a new day

It's a new year!!

I stayed in last night, no New Year's celebration for me. I put the kids to bed, poured myself a glass of wine and lounged on the couch watching some of my favorite shows that I had on Tivo. I ended up curled up in bed, asleep by about 10pm. In my opinion, a perfect way to end 2008.

Brian, on the other hand, could not resist the invitation to a party at the "Cow Barn." He left last night around 9pm with his friend Dave in tow to ring in the new year. I am pretty sure he had a rousing time as he crawled into bed at 3:30 am. Yuck. Even the thought of staying out that late drinking makes me feel sick - I can't figure out how he does it. I guess it helps that he does not have to drag his butt out of bed at 6am to kids yelling for toonies and breakfast. (It is now 10:30am and he is still in bed - nice.)

Over the past five years, I have learned it is just too darn hard to drag my tired, hungover butt out of bed after an evening of being overserved. So Brian tends to go to these types of festivities solo, or if I do go with him, I tend to find myself in a cab on my way home around 11pm. Brian is always left behind at the party without a thought of being tired or ready for bed in his mind.

So, that sums up New Year's Eve festivities and how they tend to work around our household.

Onto my resolutions....

1.) Less junk food. I think I need to stop buying so much junk food, and start buying more fruit, veggies and nutritious snacks. The other day Brian and Anthony talked me into buying a huge, I mean huge jug of Cheese balls at Sam's Club. Needless to say, the kids went nuts over them. (mostly Anthony - of course.) Lucas did enjoy them when we first got them home, but unfortunately we found that he had some sort of allergic reaction to them. About an hour after eating a bowl full he broke out in a terrible rash - no more cheese balls for Lucas. The funny thing is he was not as devastated as Brian was. Brian could not believe Lucas was allergic to his own all time favorite snack ever.

Anthony really enjoyed carrying the huge tub of them around and stopping occasionally to dig down in there for a taste. He was very happy to have control over the whole tub of them. I soon figured out I had to take them away as I knew if I didn't he would have a cheese ball overdose and I would be stuck changing some not so pleasent diapers for the next two days.


So, this whole cheese ball thing got me thinking that I needed to start cutting back on the junk food, and I will. I think.

Resolution #2. Less video games/T.V. We watch a lot of T.V. in this house - it is pretty much on from sun up to sun down. I guess I have never had much of an issue with it as the kids are not glued to it. They will watch for a bit, then go play in the playroom and do other things. But Daddy bought the kids PSP's for Christmas and now we have added video games into the mix. So now Lucas (my video game lover) sits on his couch, with the cartoons on, and PSP in hand playing away. Both at once.... This seems to bring on a bit of the "Mommy guilt".

This morning I tried to get his attention to ask him something and he was in a PSP induced coma. Alright, exagerating a bit, but he was really into his game.

So these are my top two resolutions for the year: Less junk food, and less T.V./video games. Will it actually happen??

I always have such good intentions New Year's day, as does everyone. But how many of us actually follow through? I guess I am not going to worry too much about it... why sweat the small stuff - so the Shelton family enjoys junk food, T.V. and video games - but who doesn't? I figure life is too short, so the heck with it!