Christmas and Back home again....

I put the pictures out of order so start from the bottom and work your way up...or just read out of order :)
Lastly, early Sunday morning we headed out. It was bitter-sweet. I didn't want to leave my family, I had so much fun with them for the past two months, I'm so glad I decided to stay that long! My kids had a blast. I'm glad that my hubby let me stay away that long. We spent another 24 hours in the car. The kids did awesome, they must be used to it by now!! No major meltdowns....
It was exciting to come home to a new house. A little weird at times to be in a totally different area of town. The kids (luckily) have adjusted really well. They both went to bed the first night with no major trouble! Now I just have A LOT of un-packing and arranging to do. It's not my most favorite thing but it has to get done!!

My parents gave us all gift cards and free baby-sitting on Saturday night. They were either brave or insane for taking that many kids on, I'm sure they had fun! It was so much fun to get together with all of my siblings and their other halves to enjoy some good food! I'm so glad I have these memories! Thanks Mom and Dad!

Since we had everyone together we thought it would be a good time to get some family pictures. They turned out pretty good for as many wiggly kids that we had.

Here is all of the grand kids in their matching pj's that my mom made! They were so cute running around (although the hats didn't stay on long.) My mom is a trooper for putting all of them together!

More pictures from Christmas day.

We had a great Christmas this year. Santa brought lots of fun little surprises....he must have known we had to fit everything home in our car. It was so much fun to be at my parents and to have our whole family together for the short period of time it was. It was a full house but it was a fun house!

Gingerbread houses

We made gingerbread houses the other night. My mom and I made real gingerbread and cut out all the pieces to assemble the house. I am definitely making this a tradition of my own...it's so fun and pretty simple! My kids had more fun eating the candy. Carly just kept throwing handfuls of candy onto the house. Sam kept licking pieces of candy and then sticking them onto the house. He had to test them to make sure they were okay I guess.

Chad got creative and decided to decorate his son. Sam was so funny and didn't quite know what to do. He left it on his nose for while.

Temple Square

We went to Temple Square last night to looks at the lights. I left Sam with my sister and My mom, Carly and I went downtown. Carly was excited to see all the lights but was more excited about all the ponds and fountains they had there.

Mixed Feelings....

Good-Bye "Blue House" (as Carly calls it, I don't even have a picture of the front of our house)

*

Hello New rental house (which we haven't even seen yet)

I'm pretty excited but sad at the same time. It will be hard to go home to Texas but not really go home to the house we are used to. I feel guilty that my kids won't get to say good-bye to their bedrooms (I know, they won't really care!) I'm worried at how they'll adjust to going home, but not really to a routine or house that they are familiar with. Plus, I'm not really fond of change....don't get me wrong, I am SO SO SO excited to be moving on with our plan...on to the next step which will hopefully get us closer to our final goal (our final goal for a place to settle)

So....here is our game plan

*rent this house for 18 months- 2 years and hopefully saved up enough money for a down payment for a house on Land (I'm only talking like 5 acres here)
In the meantime, this house will be great, it might get a little cramped, were downsizing a little over 1000 square feet (I think) but it's on 1/2 acre. It'll be fun, not to mention it's close to family which is a plus!

Videos for daddy!

Santa

I took the kiddos to see Santa the other night. Carly was so excited all day, she told me she was going to ask Santa for "toys and a Santa bag." Well, we got in line, it came to her turn and she backed out. She did not want to go near the guy. Sam didn't really know what was going on so I sat him on his lap for a picture before he even knew what happened. It was pretty funny!

This is as close as we could get her to Santa and still get a smile on her face!

Holiday happenings....

Decorating Grandma's Christmas tree! They got kind of crazy with the ornaments so we quit early, but they had fun!

The other night we went to the Dicken's Festival. It was pretty fun, I had never been before. The kids enjoyed it for the most part. There were a tons of things to see and eat.

Having fun with the race car track. The cat was enjoying it too!

Sound asleep....don't let this sweet face fool you :)

Sambo Rambo Man