Hello 2012!

What an ending we had to the year 2011!


Christmas Eve we spent with Alex's dad and sister, who came over to our house for dinner.  We had a ton of food.  The menu included: clams, mussels, cold cuts, cheese, beef wellington, squid, struffoli and sfogliatelle.  The boys missed our feast, but did come home later just in time for Santa and they got pretty much everything they asked for.  Their list was pretty simple...legos, play-doh, video games, and board games.  Bryden asked for quite a few board games, which I am excited about.  He wants us to start having a "family game night" and I am going to embrace this idea because usually the kids are whining to play their nintendo DS or the Xbox.  So hooray for family game night!  Christmas afternoon we spent at my parents eating prime rib, baked potatoes, green been casserole, rolls, corn, and pie.  We opened presents and then of course had our stockings.  Aeson had not gotten too overly excited about his gifts that day until that point.  He was simply overjoyed that he got a banana and an apple in his stocking.  We spent the day after Christmas with my extended family at a local restaurant and then off to my grandmother's house for gifts.  Aeson, again, was so excited to have bananas in his stocking.  Next year, I am thinking a fruit basket for Christmas!!

Here is the entire McIlroy fam for Christmas!

The most exciting (and stressful) thing that happened over the past week and a half is that we have puppies!!  It is a fairly long story, but we took on a pregnant golden retriever (one that we knew) and decided to take care of her throughout her pregnancy/puppies because her owners did not expect it and didn't exactly have time for puppies.  It has been quite the event and was way more work than expected!  First of all, Bella (mama dog) decided to have these pups the morning after she was brought to us.  I had an xray done so I knew she had 10 puppies in her belly.  The first one she delivered I actually found dead in our closet and I had to run and grab her to put her in the bathroom to deliver the others.  She had no idea what was going on and neither did I.  I had to call Alex and have him come home because the whole ordeal was becoming a bit overwhelming.  Long story short, Bella delivered 4 more puppies before she quit contracting and we had to rush her to the animal ER where she ended up having a c-section to deliver the final 5.  At this point, we had 9 pups (7 black and 2 golden...the dad is most likely a black lab mix), but one of the golden ones did not make it and passed away the day after Christmas.  We are left with 8 pups and Bella is not the ideal mom.  She lets them eat, but we have to monitor their feedings to make sure everyone gets food and stimulate them to go to the bathroom.  We also can't leave Bella in the room with them when they aren't eating because she will squish the little guys. We have to get up every 2-3 hours at night to make sure everyone eats and goes potty.  Needless to say, this experience became way more work than we ever imagined, but we love those pups!  Bella will also stay here permanently, which works out wonderfully because she is an amazing dog.  We will also wind up keeping one of the babies, but I am sure we will have a hard time deciding who will stay.

So...if anyone wants a puppy let us know!!  They could make a great Valentine's Day present!!

 So anyway, we are pretty tied down to our house because we can't leave the puppies for long, but we did manage to get out on New Years Eve to go eat dinner with Alex's grandparents, dad and sister.  We didn't stay as long as we would have liked, but we always have a great time when we are with them.  We made it home pretty early and let the kids stay up until "midnight" (east coast time) and then I am pretty sure we were all fast asleep before midnight our time.  It was a nice way to ring in 2012 and I can't wait to see what this year has in store for us!