Happy New Years!

It is hard to believe that it is New Years Eve already. So much has happened in the past year and I am ready for a new year. We had a nice Christmas. We spent Christmas Eve with Eric's family, the guys made dinner (yummy) the kids played and it was nice. There was an undertone of sadness, especially when we opened up the ornaments that Judy had bought for everyone before she passed away. I am glad that we kept with the tradidition of spending Christmas Eve together though.

Eric had to work until 11am on Christmas Day so it was just me and the girls until he got home. They played with their gifts from Santa (which took "Santa" 2 hours to put together) and opened stockings while we waited for Daddy. After nap time (for everyone) we went over to my parent's house for more gifts and dinner.  The girls passed out presents (with help from Grandma and Aunt Kendra) and we all had a nice day.

The decorations are now all put away (early for me, I know) and I am ready for a fresh new year to begin. Starting with a get together at Mom and Dad's tonight. Billy is bringing over the Karaoke setup (he does professional Karaoke at a couple of bars in town) and there will be a ton of food. I am sure that there will be pictures taken as well. Have a safe and happy New Years!

Day 3

We are on Day 3 of no power. We are blessed that both my parents and Eric's Dad do have power so we have had someplace warm to sleep. Amanda and Billy, my grandparents, and Sarah and Monty all lost power as well. I know that grandma and grandpa's came back on Tuesday night, and Sarah and Monty had power yesterday. I am not sure about Amanda and Billy, but they have a generator so they are set. So please pray to the Westar powers that be that we get power today. I am extremely grateful that we have family willing to share their homes with us, but I really need to sleep in my own bed tonight!

So that is the update from Kansas. We are all safe and warm, but ready to go home.

Breakfast with Santa

We had breakfast with Santa yesterday at church, and the girls did pretty good. Megan had no problem sitting on Santa's lap. She asked for a Barbie house and a Barbie car, and told Santa that Lauren wanted a chair of her own. A couple of years ago Santa brought Megan her own chair (PBKids Anywhere Chair) and she is tired of sharing it with Lauren. All on her own, Megan decided that Lauren needed to ask Santa to bring her her own chair. As you can see in the picture, Lauren was not thrilled to sit on Santa's lap. There are a couple more pictures of the girls with Santa in the December photo album. Yes, I actually updated pictures!

Not a happy Thanksgiving

I am sorry that I have not posted in here this month. The first week of the month I was out of town on business. Shortly after I returned Eric's Mom had a heart attack and went into the hospital. After a week in and out of ICU she passed away on Friday, November 23. We buried her this past Wednesday and are trying to get some sense of normalcy back. I did not realize just how hard it was to say goodbye to a loved one, but we are all doing ok. The kids are young enough not to understand, however this is both a good thing and a bad thing. I am glad that they are not experiencing the pain and sadness that the adults are, but because they are so young they will not remember how much their grandmother loved them. Of course we will tell them about her, and we have pictures of her as well. I just wish that I had sat down with her and asked her questions so that I could tell her story (or at least a small part of it) in our family scrapbooks. Sarah, Eric and Dwayne may be able to fill in some of the gaps, but it will not be the same. This does encourage me to sit down with my Grandparents and parents to get their story down. You just never know when you will lose someone that you love.

Ok, hopefully my next post will have happy stuff in it. I have some pictures from my weekend visiting Mary, and some cute pictures of the girls that I need to get off of my camera.