SD-TN-WI-SD

Two thousand six hundred and fifty-nine miles for our round trip adventure. We started driving Thursday evening and got back home the following Friday, there was lots of fun, a few stressful moments in the vehicle and a couple sick passengers, but we made it there and back safe and sound and are glad to have been able to take such a trip to visit family. Here are the first few selections of photos from Tennessee. The whole family together with our red and green selections. Next is a lovely shot of Papa playing bowling on the xbox, kids opening their gifts, then a group playing a dancing game that we got for a Christmas gift (which is a lot more fun to watch the people doing the dancing and not seeing what they are following along to).

Trip

We are getting ready for our Christmas vacation. Leaving after work driving, stopping for rest, then driving some more. 15 1/2 hours over the next couple days then will have fun playing and hanging out with family for a few days, then another short 11 hour drive to play in the snow with our favorite aunt & uncle living in WI, not that there is much competition among those living in WI, and after a little bit over a week we will be back at home again. Ms Ruby gets to stay with our favorite aunt & uncle living in SF, whom we are very grateful for taking on such a demanding little pooch. It should be a great time, plenty of family bonding time in the vehicle, hopefully not too many fits of fighting our car seats. We are grateful that God allows us the possibilities to travel His countryside and take the time away from the normal routines to appreciate family and reflect on the true meaning of Christmas. We will likely have multiple media entries to follow!

First Christmas

Since we are travelling for Christmas we did our family Christmas at home a little early since mom works the weekend and we have lots of packing to do the couple free evenings we have left before we go. So we had the kids open their presents. A lot of what they got was geared towards being good travelers, so a DVD player for the vehicle, movies, and some coloring books. A few other fun noisy toys had to be thrown in the mix as well. We sure had fun seeing their expressions as they opened the gifts & had fun playing together with everything, come on over and play with us! 

Snuggle

Both kids ended up in my bed today and they got quite cuddly with another after I got up for the day. Maybe we should have them sleep together on a regular basis because I had to wake them up, both sleeping hard an hour later than they normally get up..... Silly kids

Christmas Program

After much effort I finally got Chelsea's Christmas program to load. She is sandwiched in the middle behind several heads. She did a great job learning her songs and doing the actions in spite of being at practice only a few times due to missing when all the episodes were going on & for dad's hunting trips which took the family up to Huron. Her good friend Ezra, in front of her, put extra emphasis on his singing since it is his mom that is leading them...quite funny.

We had our Christmas pictures taken for the year, which also served for 18 month pictures a few weeks late but with everything else that we have been dealing with for the past few weeks we haven't had time to get anything else done. Our picture taker for the past several years had decided to leave the professional photography arena so we were forced to go into a regular store again. Our preference will definitely be to find someone else who can take pictures outside of the little store places because the inconvenience of waiting for appointments that are never on time is hard to keep our kids happy. We did end up getting a few good shots through all the turmoil. We are rushing to get pictures sent out to friends and family along with getting a Christmas card done as well. Hopefully there will be time to get everything done.

Lately

So we are adjusting to Chelsea being on medication for the seizures that she had been having. The side effect is irritability. What a great side effect to provide for a toddler. There have been extra fits that she stays more determined on. It is hard to find ways to distract her from her demands, but we are surviving. Micah is starting to try to say more words, that is exciting because he likes to be demanding too but we can never figure out what he wants so hopefully we will soon better know. Not much else going on, daily ramblings of life and keeping up with kids, going to work and school. This morning I had a special moment where Chelsea wanted to help out with her brother...change his diaper and clothes and feed him his morning bottle.... she is quite a helper if she wants to be.