Whew!

Where does the time go? Apparently, it's been a whole month since I posted last. Hopefully, I will be able to get back into the swing of blogging. December is fun, but hard to keep up.

We had a great Christmas break full of family, fun, and happiness. Sean's brother flew into Austin before Christmas and stayed for 2 weeks, one week at our house and one week at Grandma Mindy's. The kids love hanging around Uncle Jason. On the Saturday after Christmas, my sister, brother-in-law and 3 nephews made the trek to Austin from Atlanta. According to Joe's new GPS, it took 13 hours 45 minutes of actual driving time, much of that was from the stop lights in the town just north of us. They decided to reroute on the way home to avoid all those lights that are nap killers for sleeping kids.

On Christmas morning, the kids did great waiting to rush down for their stockings. We told them they could get up at 7:00 and they patiently stayed in their room, although I'm sure it wasn't one second past 7:00 when they came barreling out. Benjamin missed the early festivities since he was still sleeping. After a yummy break for monkey bread, we started into the pile of presents. We like to go around the room to open presents so that everyone can see the presents. The kids did an amazing job taking turns. After Benjamin opened some of his gifts, he would play with them for a little while and then wait for the next one. The gift highlights...new MP3 players for the kids from Santa, a fish for Emma (more on that later...), an MP3 player for Sean, an awesome purse and some very nice clothes for me and an XBOX from Uncle Jason.
For Christmas, we had a wonderful ham dinner complete with pink stuff, brown stuff (sweet potato casserole), apple pie and chocolate pie. We had to convince Alex that it was OK to skip the pumpkin pie for one holiday. Benjamin enjoyed his brown stuff again after chanting about it all afternoon.

After my sister got here, the kids played their hearts out. Our sandbox is completely devoid of weeds now after much use. They built the "giant wall of China" and tried to dig a hole to China while using numerous spoons from the kitchen. We didn't have nearly enough shovels apparently. We went to 3 parks including the big park near downtown for a New Year's Day picnic. We all rode the train and got a treat from the snack bar...Skittles all around, except a root beer float for Alex and Cheetos for Benjamin. Emma was entranced by Andrew and loved to spend time with him. She is convinced that she taught Andrew how to crawl while he was here.
My sister suggested having a New Years at Noon party for the kids which is where the kids ring in the new year at noon rather than staying up till midnight. Jennie took Alex and Emma to the party store and gave them $5 each to get supplies. She said it was very interesting to watch what they were interested in and Emma had to ask the cashier about prices several times. They wanted to make sure they used every penny. They chose party plates, balloons, and New Year's necklaces. To kick off the party, they did a balloon drop from the top of our steps. Then they had some snacks and did party poppers. When Benjamin headed up to nap that day, he said, "That a great party, Mommy!" High praise from a 3 year old.As I mentioned earlier, Emma got a fish for Christmas. We gave her the supplies and then let her pick out a betta. She was thrilled and so excited to have her very first pet. She named it Flo because she liked to watch it flow through the water. Unfortunately, she has already learned the sad side of having a pet...Flo only lived about 10 days with us. We had our first pet burial in the front yard last night. Emma was very concerned about making sure she chose the right spot so Flo wouldn't get walked on or mowed over. Alex and Emma were so sweet. After we buried Flo, Emma marked the spot by spelling Flo with rocks from her rock collection. Alex made a little sign with paper and a popsicle stick to commemorate the site as well.

Now we're heading back into the grind. The kids started school on Tuesday and were happy to see their friends. Alex's best friend broke his arm over break, so Alex was anxious to check on his buddy. Sean will start teaching classes again after the MLK holiday. Boy, those long holidays were nice when we were in college!

Happy January, everyone!