One of my very bestest friends, Jen, snagged Bears tickets for the afternoon game on New Year's Eve. For free. And guess who she and her boyfriend invited to join them?

That's right.

And Ali and I planned weeks and weeks ago to finally - finally! - spend New Year's Eve together since we hadn't since college and that was far, far too long to go without ringing in the new year together.

My plans for NYE were shaping up to be the best - and most cost-efficient! - ever.

But then! THEN! Then the NFL decides to royally screw with everyone's plans for NYE and have the game at night instead of the afternoon because they are big punky ass jerks and want to keep me from seeing the Bears play this season. I mean, I had my NYE plans with Ali first and it's only right.

Those tickets won't go to waste.

Still, I'm so irritated. Hell - for Christmas this year I was given the ultimate in sports merchandise marketing to women in the form of this Chicago Bears knit skull cap.

Christmas was excellent as always, and this year was made even better with the additions of my nephews, Chase and Aidan. We Shea's are an easily entertained lot. If it wasn't all of us gathered around a pack of puppies, cooing over how cute they are, we were acting similarly over the boys, catering to their every whim. My nephews, I don't mind saying, are two of the cutest, most entertaining, most easy going babies you're ever going to meet. We're all pretty baby crazy around here.

The little guy in JP's hat is Aidan and he enjoys fruit puffs and looking cute. The baby in the second picture, held by his proud Aunt Erin who was too lazy Christmas morning to do anything with her hair than put it back in what JP called, "Erin's Christmas headband," is Baby Chase, a nickname his Aunt Kate has bestowed onto him and what we assume we'll be calling him until he's at least 15.

Cory, Baby Chase's dad, has said he will play defense for the Bears. We have no doubt. The kid is only about a pound or two smaller than his cousin who was born several months ahead of him. Like his cousin, Baby Chase enjoys looking cute but also he enjoys sleeping and being a big chubby ball o' love.

From here on out, the holidays will be all about these kids and that's just fine with me. It's strange to see my younger sisters as moms, fixing bottles and wearing burp rags like scarves, but it seems equally as natural - they're good moms and they have a sense of humor about being moms that I suppose I never expected them to have. I'm really proud of them.

I can't wait for next year when they're both bound to be running around the house after the dogs, leaving all of us with nothing to stare at but at their collective dust.

Posted by Erin at 07:52 AM | filed under: Odds and ends

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