You know those times when you go so long without blogging and have so much to cover, that it overwhelms you so you don't ever blog, and then it keeps getting worse because the more time that passes, the more you are neglecting to blog about, but you can't possibly blog about current events until you catch up on major things from the past, and then you end up with run on sentences the size of a children's book?
That's about where I'm at right now.
So for the sake of my sanity, I'm going to quickly do a written update of Christmas, and I'll do the whole picture thing when I make our family blog book. That's the only way I see us moving on :).
Backing up...
My brother Tim got his mission call shortly after we got to Lufkin, TX. He'll be serving in the France, Lyon mission and reports to the MTC on April 3rd. I am SOO excited for him! It is really neat because he was born there back when our family lived in France. But we moved back to the states when he was like 6 or 7 months old, so he obviously doesn't remember anything. But it's so neat to add another sibling to the french speaking family members. :) You can bet us older girls are planning a trip with my parents to go pick him up April 2015! I am dying to get back to France! I told Kenny I am going regardless, but I would love if he would accompany me so I can share that part of my childhood with him :).
Christmas week
Wed. Dec. 19th: The family party began to arrive! The Webbs and Jerri (Jeff and Kerri) arrived late that night.
Thurs. Dec. 20th: Steph had this awesome idea to have our family record ourselves singing some of our favorite family songs. Singing is something we ALWAYS do whenever we get together, and have for as long as I can remember. It was a Christmas gift to my parents, but it really ended up being a gift for all of us. I love that CD so much and the memories associated with those songs. That morning Steph and Laura went to the recording studio and Steph did all the piano playing for our songs. The whole afternoon was spent at the studio doing some of the singing, including Steph, Laura, Kerri, and myself. That evening the Bakers arrived, and later that night the Juergens too! Now the only person missing was my husband. :(
Friday Dec. 21st: More recording!! A huge thanks to the husbands who watched all the children while the wives sang. That really took up the majority of the day. We played games and stayed up talking that night. Kenny got on a plane after work and flew through the night.
Saturday Dec. 22nd: Left early in the am to drive down to the Houston temple. That's where we finally met up with Kenny!! Oh boy we were so happy to be reunited as a family! I was worried Kelsey would not want to go to him, since 2 weeks is a long time in baby time. But she dove for him and laid her head on his shoulder. My heart swelled. We didn't have much time though, we quickly left our kids with the single kids (and Tim's girlfriend, Lauren) and went to the temple as my brother Tim received his endowments. It was super cool to have ALL of the married kids and their spouses in the temple with my parents. I love moments like that. After the session we all met at Pei Wei for a delicious lunch, then rushed over to get family pictures taken! Some of them even turned out surprisingly! :) There are 10 grandkids ages 5 and under, so it was funny. Afterwards we drove back to my parents' house in Lufkin and ordered pizza. Poor Kenny was exhausted from not sleeping on his flight, so I drove back, not trusting his mental awareness :). So he did get a little nap on the way home. I was just so glad to be with him. Let me add, we were all wearing matching outfits all day long! My mom gave all of us girls a matching dress as a Christmas gift, and we sure got a lot of looks throughout the day. Some lady at Pei Wei asked if we were a choir. haha. Whoever has that many little kids in a choir is absolutely nuts. However, she's not too far off because we sang a lot that weekend!
Sunday Dec. 23rd: Church went well, and our family sang during sacrament meeting. After church we had lunch and naps for the little ones, then went to the nursing home which my dad is the administrator of and sang for all the residents. After that we went out and saw the awesome house my parents are buying.
Monday Dec. 24th: Went on a morning run with Kim, Caleb, and Andrew. The boys went and played basketball, and all the kids loved playing outside. It was really warm, sunny, and beautiful day! We had a big, lovely Christmas Eve dinner. The traditional ham, au gratin potatoes, rolls, salad, asparagus, and pretzel salad for dessert. The kids put on a great nativity show and we all had a lot of laughs watching them. My mom MADE all of us (25) matching pajama pants!! Cami won the contest of designing our family t-shirts this year and they are super cute! We opened the back door and the kids could hear santa's sleigh bells, so they knew it was time to hurry and go to sleep! We didn't have a single protest!! :) The adults stayed up and watched the movie, The Nativity Story, and really liked that. It was fun to play Santa and then go to bed :).
This year was a little interesting as Tyler was told by a friend the truth about Santa. So that was really sad for me to have him find out so very young. But he handled it really well and did a great job of not ruining it for any other child. I was proud of him for playing along so well, to the point where I wondered if he had forgotten, but he hadn't.
Tuesday, Dec. 25th: CHRISTMAS finally arrived! we spent literally hours opening presents and the feeling in the air was so awesome. I just love Christmas morning :). So many happy children. We enjoyed a rainstorm-turned-hailstorm outside and gray skies as we stayed cozy inside exchanging gifts. It was a wonderful day. All up until 2:30 p.m., when Kenny drove off, back to Houston to catch his flight home. How awful is that to leave on Christmas day?!! I was so sad. But it was about $500 cheaper to fly out that night, instead of the next day. It just was bad timing that he just started his new job so he has no time-off built up.
That night I finished reading Les Miserables, a few hours before we went and saw it opening day in the theatres!! My parents were kind enough to stay at the house and watch over the sleeping children (or most of them sleeping haha) so we could enjoy the show. It was so great and I wished Kenny could be there with us.
Wednesday Dec. 26th: That morning we all went to the TX Forestry Museum and had fun learning about the logging industry in east Texas :). Then home for lunch and naps. In the afternoon we found a bowling alley and had a great time bowling. It was funny because the prices were outrageous for such a low-class facility, so we paid for 1 hour instead of per game. It was quite a mad rush trying to make sure nobody wasted time in between turns!!
Thursday Dec. 27th: More people started getting sick. Andrew took his kids and my older kids to the zoo and they had such a good time. But when they got back, Brynlee said she was so tired and fell asleep on the couch. She woke up with a fever and was really sick for the next week. Tyler got it the next day, and then a few days later Madison got it, and then Kelsey. Almost every single person left sick, or got sick shortly after. Isn't that the story of most people's family gatherings?! It wasn't a stomach bug, but just a bad fever, aches, chills, and nasty colds. I took 2 garlic pills every morning and every night and was miraculously spared from getting sick. But the party started leaving, with the Juergens and Jerri leaving that day.
Friday Dec. 28th: Bakers, Webbs, and Laura left too. Back to just us, my parents, Tim, and Sarah. We kept things low key for a while, as we were all quarantined with this nasty sickness.
This is long enough for now. I'll try to finish later.
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