Home for Christmas

We headed home for the holidays on Tuesday night, December 20th. The kids technically didn't get out until Thursday afternoon (the 23rd!), but Jeff was able to get time off work so we went! We drove till about 2am and stopped for the night. Most times, we'll just drive straight though, but we found a nice hotel for $40 with a big breakfast and decided it was worth it. Especially to break up a 24-hour road trip. We ended up hitting some really bad weather on Wednesday-it was bad most the day, but then it got really severe about 6pm. There were semi's and cars off the road, and the visibility was horrible. We had a good 100+ miles of 5ft visibility. We were literally going from fence post to fence post because that's all we could see from the snow blowing and swirling around. Our max speed was about 15 mph, and there were sections that they closed the road right after we went through. It was a very tense couple of hours. We were grateful when it finally lightened up. We had planned to be home that night, but the weather had added about 6 hours to our trip, so we stopped at Grandma and Grandpa Tanner's. It was so fun to see Grandma and Grandpa and Sher and the kids. We had a great night of sleep and enjoyed time together the next day. We made a big yummy breakfast while the kids played together and even made gingerbread houses. We loved every minute.

Emily and Grandpa

We finally made it to Mom & Dad's on Thursday evening. Houston and Becca were there, and Kristie and Tom made it a little later on that night. Lacey and Travis arrived late the next night. It was so fun to have the whole family back together. It doesn't seem to happen nearly enough so we try to enjoy every minute we have.

Games are definitely a favorite around here. The boys love playing UNO or any game at all with Grandma. The adults loved playing games together too. Most nights we ended up doing some type of game or another.

We love sitting around together talking or just hanging out. One night we pulled up some movies on YouTube, squished everyone in on the couch, and laughed till we cried. (If you haven't seen the BadLipReading movies for the Republican candidates- you ought to look them up) I can't remember the last time I laughed so hard.

Emily and Lilah were so happy to be reunited again. These two hit it right off and had so much fun playing with dolls, animals, the little kitchen, and everything else. They started off rocking their babies in the cradle.
It didn't take them long to realize it was also fun to rock themselves. First it was Lilah in the cradle and Emily was rocking her, then Emily decided she wanted to rock too and hoped in. They rocked pretty well for a while before they got a little crazy and rocked themselves out of the cradle. They're funny girls.

Mom and Dad ended up getting a kitten before Christmas. Someone was trying to give it away, and Mom and Dad have been looking to get an outdoor cat for functionality purposes. It ended up being a fun pet for the grandkids and Grandma was nice enough to let them bring it inside to play with for a while. Matthew loved it and was so sweet.

Emily and Aunt Becca. ALL the kids love Aunt Becca, she's so fun with them!

One night, Cole thought it would be fun to put on one of Mom's wigs. It turned into a game with all the guys trying them on. Good thing mom is such a good sport. And we decided that all the men in the family better stay that way, because they make some pretty nasty looking girls!