Happy New Year! And my favorite project of 2010 . . .

I hope that each and every one of you had a safe and happy New Year's Eve!  We have a tradition at our house on New Year's Eve . . . my kids call it "Mermaid" Dinner.  If you ever saw the movie "Mermaids" starring Cher you will understand this reference.  For those who don't recall or never saw the movie, Cher's character couldn't cook to save her life and only prepared appetizers instead of meals.  My older daughter loved that movie!  So one New Year's Eve, a zillion years ago, I asked my kiddos what they wanted to eat and Emily chimed in with "A Mermaid dinner, Mom!"  And so began our tradition.  Every year we fix a variety of appetizers, play board games and watch the big ball drop in Times Square.  Demi thinks that this is the best thing ever!  Last night we munched on her favorites -- pigs in the blanket, brie and crackers, chips and dip -- and played Monopoly Jr.  I was the only one this year who made it all the way to seeing the ball drop!  Demi and Dee only made it to about 10:30 p.m.

Over at Cooking with Cricut, Melin asked each of the "Chefs" to tell her our favorite project of 2010 and our favorite cartridge.  I told her, the project I'm currently working on is my favorite, but if I had to pick one from the last year it would have to be . . . . the Winnie the Pooh baby shower we gave our daughter, Emily. 

Here is the original post if you'd like to see the many different things created using one of my favorite cartridges -- Pooh & Friends.

Please take the time to click over to Cooking With Cricut and check out my fellow "Chefs" favorite projects.  These are a very talented group of ladies and I am honored to work on the CWC Design Team alongside them.  Bookmark the Cooking With Cricut blog and check back often -- we've got some GREAT challenges coming up that you won't want to miss!

This has been a year of ups and downs for me personally.  And I, for one, am hoping that 2011 shapes up to be a much better year not only for my family, but for yours too.  We're going to start the new year off right -- we've got two babies scheduled to be born this month -- a nephew and a great-niece.  My baby brother, Andy and his wife, Brooke are adding a little boy to their all-girl line up sometime in the next two weeks and Dee's nephew, Josh and his girlfriend, Crystal are expecting a little girl toward the end of the month.

My Grandmother Hudson had a saying that always resonates with me during tough times, "First things first; think, think, think; and keep on keeping on."  Take care of the important things first; think before you act or speak; and sometimes, when you can't put one foot in front of the other, you just have to keep on going, because it will get better.