My dad told me the day I was born, a winter storm dumped so much snow on them that they had to spend the night at his aunt's house. I apparently slept in a dresser drawer to keep me from rolling about!

Well, true to form, we received several inches of the white stuff on my birthday. We did get to go into the Golden Glow for breakfast, and then bounced around town doing errands for a couple of hours before coming home to watch some movies.

Then, we drove up to Duluth on Saturday to see about getting our new camera cleaned (which we did!). We ate lunch at the Olive Garden (5 cheese ziti!), and then headed home after a brief stop at Best Buy and Hancock Fabrics. It wasn't everything we wanted to do, but we had to get back to par-tay!

And, par-tay, we did! First we went to the Stanyk's (our farming friends) house for a brief visit. We had a good time seeing everybody in our regular circle of friends, but never really settled in. After shoving mounds of yummies into our mouths, we gave our regrets, and headed to Joy and Pete's house.

Joy and Pete (Finn's parents) have a child-proof home, so it was a totally different exerience for us there. We let Alden wander and play with the other kids. He stayed up until 10! We watched this interesting documentary about a rap clown in L.A. who invented a new dance style called krunking. Very intense, especially since we didn't have the sound on, but instead listened to an indie folk-rock band!

I had a great time for both my birthday and New Year's, but AJ and I both decided we need to start Alden on a regular schedule so he's more even-keeled. That said, I am about to go reassemble his bedroom. We had moved his crib into our room, and side-carred it to our bed. Now he will go to sleep in his room for the first part of the night, and then we'll bring him in to sleep with us when he wakes up in the middle of the night.

Hopefully it will mean better rest for all of us.

Well, here's wishing you all the best in the new year. I'm off to make some changes in mine!