Marriage and Motherhood: Welcome to 2014!

Since Monday and Tuesday was a blur before the new year, so let's just start with cake. Cake is always a great way to start.

We were kindly invited to a New Year's Eve party at a neighborhood friend's house, so the girls and I baked a cake to bring over for the celebration. The food was delicious and the company was grand! :) The girls had a blast meeting new friends and ringing in the new year (at 6ish).

The girls got to fire off their first Roman candles (under close supervision and panicked-mommy eyes).

Even Ri got a turn...and she was a little scared, but not too much.

Jeff had to help her point it in the right direction...she was so excited that she kept trying to turn around. Yikes!

After all the festivities, the girls were exhausted, so the two little ones passed out before 10...

...and the oldest and Daddy fell asleep before 11...until the neighborhood decided to turn on the sky outside with fireworks starting around 11:45pm. The sparkles and bangs started going off all around the house. Every street around us had a group of folks outside shooting off fireworks of all types. Loud and very bright...it was like daylight outside. Luckily, the two older kids stayed asleep and the baby only woke up for about an hour. Very exciting! Next year, we know we need to get the girls to take a nap on New Year's eve so they can join us for the late fireworks!

When I was growing up, my mom always made sure we had the traditional rice cake soup on New Year's Day (Hi, Umma!), so I was determined to make it for my family, too. In Korea, it was easy to come by all the ingredients, and I tracked down almost all the ingredients here in Germany, too...all except the rice cake. UH. Need rice cake for rice cake soup, right? Luckily, I got a rice cake maker for Christmas! YAY! (Thanks, Umma.) The device isn't really for making rice cakes for soup, so I had to make some tweaks, but look! It turned out!

Sliced. It wasn't perfect...still needs some tweaking, but I was running out of time. I tried about five batches before I got this far...you can still see some rice grains that didn't get completely beaten, but it was still delicious! And chewy!

YUM! The broth turned out really spectacularly this time around, too...and Ri especially loved the "diamond eggs." So, we rang in the new year properly with rice cake soup...and then I made black-eyed peas the next day...since I forgot to soak the beans the night before. Eh. :)

On with the rest of the happenings around the house. Here, the girls are trying to teach the baby how to say blessing before the meal...it was quite an amusing ordeal.

Here's another photo of the baby trying to get into the cabinet...

...and getting caught.

Post-bath crazy hair. Sorry for the blur.

Someone found my glasses...whenever she does, she always puts them on like this...upside down. 8)

We were having a silly dress-up morning, and Halmuni had sent some headbands for the girls. They tried them on, and they were so adorable, I asked them to sit down so I could get a picture. I could not, for the life of me, get a photo of them all looking forward...but thought this was cute anyway.

I'm not sure why Rea was so fascinated with Ri, but she just couldn't keep her eyes off of her.

One of my goals for 2014 is to get this house organized, a little bit at a time. I decided in the first week, I'd do the pantry. It had gotten out of control over the holidays, so it seemed like a good place to start. Tay was a HUGE help. She helped empty out the pantry entirely as I sorted and threw out any expired items.

I tried occupying the little one as much as I could without wearing her on my back...

A pan of Cheerios entertained her for a bit...until she started throwing them all over the floor...and I started stepping on them.

So, I relocated her to the living room where Ri was watching television.

Well, the Cheerios didn't fare so well there either, but at least I wasn't stepping on them.

Ri decided she would share some of her noodles with Rea on the floor...(yes, sometimes, it's just easier to feed children like animals than trying to feed them at the table like civilized people...forgive me).

These two have been interacting SO much lately...it's hilarious.

Oh, and we're back to organizing the pantry.

So, here's the result of all our hard work: Still looks so cluttered, but now I know exactly how much of everything I have and exactly where everything is!

Back to the sisterly silliness. These two...

...they can entertain each other for many many minutes (I can't say "hours" because there is always a risk of injury to one or the other every few minutes).

Hahaha...look at that face.

This is her face when she's eating something she shouldn't be...like a rock, or a bead, or a hair tie...ugh.

Chattin' up the dog.

Playing "drums" first thing in the morning...on a towel...so mommy doesn't go crazy.

Playground naps are fun.

Playing with the neighborhood girls at the neighborhood playground. Did I mention I love this place?

Exploring the neighborhood.

Sweeping out the garage together after a muddy walk.

Last, but not least, we hosted a brunch this Sunday! We had Jeff's colleagues from long ago over and we put out a pretty decent spread. I'm not angry here, I promise...Jeff just caught me as I looked up at him. I was making sausage gravy. I discovered a very easy biscuit and gravy recipe I will share soon.