Happy Holidays

So yeah I got a little behind…but now I am back trying to catch up on life!  Story of our life over here! The holidays are always so busy and we don't get a break till after Miss H's birthday in Jan!  Oh gosh and now we are adding Tiger in Feb!  Looks like we will be busy for a while :-)

Hope everyone had a wonderful end to their 2014 we sure did.  As always we took off to good old A-town for our Christmas break!  We love going there and being surrounded by family and friends.  Plus my mom and dad have been working really hard on the remodel of my grandparents house.  They stopped sending my sister and I pictures about 4 months ago so we were dying to see the progress!  They are almost done!!!  It looks amazing and I love that soon we will be staying in my grandparents house when we visit from now on.  I mean my grandpa built that house and we have such memories there!!  Of course my sister and I are thrilled to share and begin memories for our kiddos there!!

The day we arrived it was snowing a bit! Miss H was excited about that.  The past 3 Christmas' have been white ones…this year it was not but we did get a little before and a little after.  Enough to say it did it but not enough to play so all the kiddos were a bit sad!  Our typical Christmas trip went as planned for the most part!  We arrived the day before Christmas eve and just hung out.

Nothing says welcome to Atown like a huge DUST storm

Christmas Eve we were up early for our annual Santa picture!  Yes, every year for my ENTIRE life I have been taking this Santa pictures.  My mom forced my sister and I to do it…even through our teen age and college years when we  protested!!  My grandma always loved this pictures so it was on tradition that never stopped! Now that we have kiddos we continue it on, even thought my sweet niece is at the family Santa pic isn't cool phase!  Don't worry I showed her all the pics I took when I thought it wasn't cool to prove it wasn't a choice lol.  But it was funny to see my sister and I at 15 and 20 on Santa's lap :-)

We followed Santa up with traditional Christmas cookie making!!!  This year it was extra fun because all the babies (minus baby M who is 4 months) were actually big enough to cut and decorate on their own.  Dad was the roller (normally my job, but he enjoyed doing it for the kids) and I supervised cutting out..you know making sure your cutter was on the dough and the edge so we could get the most out of it!  The kiddos were our cutters!!  I can honestly say I think this is the first year I have not been stuck decorating majority of the cookies on my own!  My sister used to always sneak out on that part somehow and leave me to do it…not bitter here at all :-)  The cookies turned out great and we had the perfect ones to leave for Santa of course!!

We ended our evening with a yummy Turkey dinner feast!  This is our little Thanksgiving fun since we all do Thanksgiving else where.  After dinner the kiddos of course had to get ready for bed and Santa.  Cookies were picked, carrots were thrown out for the reindeer, and then sung in the bed they all went!  Miss H was so cute this year asking questions about Santa.  She was very concerned about how he would come and go and put everything.  She is finally getting to the fun Santa age I think next year will be a blast.  Who knows we may even get to see an elf on the shelf since she understands it more!!

 Cookies for Santa and the Night Before Christmas being read! 

Sweet baby M watching over the gifts as the bigs throw carrots out!

Mom and Miss H dropping carrots….

Summer Road trip part 2

We arrived in good old A town around 10 pm, normally that is no issue but since she slept the WHOLE way it was a bit of an issue!! Even though the crazy awful pouring rain I hit in Groom, Tx! She was up and ready to party once we arrived.  Thankfully Papa and BB made us some dinner.  Miss H played for about an hour and was ready for bed again! Whew this mommy thought she would be up all night :-)

BB showing H how to cut! She loves to cut her food

Friday was our "off" day of driving!  We spent the day hanging out with BB and Papa.  We finally got to see all their house demo in person, normally we just get iPhone pics.  We love it all!  My sweet parents are remodeling my grand parents house.  One day (this has been going on for 2 years) they will live in it, can't wait.  I love my grand parents house especially since they built it!!  I can't wait for all the renovations to be finished it will look amazing!  Oh and did I mention we loved on the turtles!! Mom has turtles, she has for gosh 8 years or more now…we love them! She has 4 boys and 1 girl and almost every year they have a baby.  We found a baby while we were there.  The sad news is the babies don't know to eat the food we give them so not many have made it, or they have escaped in some way.

We took a little break from remodeling and took Miss H to the Discovery Center.  She love it and enjoyed just checking out all the exhibits.  She was a little sad that they didn't have babies like our museum does, but got over it!

Helping clean up outside after the rain

Saturday we began our 2nd leg of the car riding…off to Colorado!  My dad's parents were moving to a new retirement home and his sister, my aunt asked for some help.  We left around 7 am and rolled into CO around 3.  Just in time to start unboxing and setting up George and Mary Alice's new home.  Miss H was happy to be out of the car playing too.  This is her only set of living great grand parents so I enjoy letting her make some memories every time we can.

reading magazines to pass the time driving

That night we all crashed at my Aunt Alice's house!!  Charlean and Matthew were also staying there so it was pretty fun.  We got to chat and enjoy some family time with the family we don't see as often.  Sunday was spent doing some touching up and cleaning up for George and Mary Alice.  We got things pretty squared away..enough that they can manage to find every thing.  Miss H played babies with her great grand parents that was pretty sweet to watch.

Great grandpa George trying to figure out Baby Claire

Loving life

Papa is the best baby doll carrier ever!

Monday we took off pretty early again to head home, well Amarillo that is!  Miss H and I spent the rest of the week in Amarillo.  My best friend from 5th grade lives there so I try to sneak in as much friend time as possible.  Plus our kiddos love each other.  We also got to have a mommy dinner and movie date!! Whoo whoo!!  We also spent a lot of time helping with the house.  They got plumbing, skylights, and more while we were there.

Back on the road to Amarillo

She drew an airplane…pretty good if you ask me

backstage at Chick-fila

moms night out

so excited because Papa brought her donuts from the best place ever

enjoying the big fan at lowes

first time in high heels

splash pad with our favorite boys

Headed home to see daddy!!

Welcome to the CRAZY TRAIN!!

The day after I hosted Amy's shower Abby and crew showed up!  My sister and I had this great idea of taking all the kiddos to my parents in A-town!!  Begin laughing now….4 kids 6 hour drive and 1 kid that doesn't feel good! PARTY TIME

We officially named Abby's car the CRAZY TRAIN as you can imagine it was.  Poor E and B had to climb in and out from the very back door because the babies (H and G) took up the middle row!  Every where we went we would unload like a clown car and just laugh about it.  The drive to A-town was good until the last 1.5 hours when my child (the one not feeling good) declared "Out mommy out".  Yes she managed to yell and fussy that for the last 1.5 hours.  I felt so bad for everyone having to listen to her.  I tried all the tricks that normally work, but nothing would do except to get out.  That clearly was out of the question.

Once we arrived A-town everyone was happy to be out!!! Mostly to be away from screaming Miss H, ha.  We all settled in and were happy to be there.  The kiddos played and then off to be for our fun week in A-town.  Monday Miss H was still running a fever so I took her to the clinic…after 4 days of fever I knew something was wrong.  Even though the weekend nurse told me she didn't have a true fever and was probably fine.  Ha well no more than had they looked at her and we were out with meds to help her 1st case of strep throat! Poor sweet baby..and she lost about 3 lbs since her 2 year check.  Back to BB and Papa's for some r&r for my baby girl.  The bigs went to play mini golf with BB.  Abby's kiddos love mini golf and what better way to kick off spring break.

Tuesday we hit up the local donut shop DONUT STOP…our favorite ever!  The kids love to look at them while they make the donuts.  They also love to watch the fountain of icing that they run threw.  We then ran around A-town with mom and dad checking out all the stuff they are doing to the new house.  Mom and Dad have been remodeling my grandparents house for a while now and are finally picking out fun stuff.  After naps we hit up the park!  Oh the joys to just run free and be young!

Wednesday we met up with my bestie Amber at the Discovery center.  We had a blast.  I have to hand it to A-town the Discovery center is way better now than it was when we were kiddos.  We played there for about 2.5 hours.  Baby G couldn't get enough of the conveyor belt.  He loved to roll things on and off of it.  Miss H loved just running around after Edward (Amber's oldest boy).  After our fun we checked off another must do.  We at lunch at Kabuki…it sure was yummy!  Then home for naps because man these babies played hard.

Thursday we had to pack up and head back to our house.  We hit up Rosa's then packed up the kiddos and took off.  Both babies slept for the first 2 hours…may have slept longer but we had to do a bathroom break…remember the clown car :-)   We made it back in time for dinner and bed.  Poor Little Bear wasn't feeling amazing by the time we got home. Abby and the kiddos stayed with us then took off early Friday!

I have to say even with all the craziness of 4 kiddos, sickness, and long drives we had a blast.  I am glad my sister loves to take last minute trips like us.  Also that she let us stowaway with them!  Nothing is more fun than memories like this!! Oh and I am thankful none of the others got strep from Miss H!