Trip Home and New Years Eve

We said goodbye to everyone in Utah and started for Tennessee at 3am

We had a connection in Chicago where we spent time in 2 seperate USOs and the children’s museum they have right in the airport. Katie had a great time and Brady took a much needed nap.          

On the drive from Louisville, KY to Harrogate, TN we stopped at a little diner in Pineville, KY I have wanted to go to since we moved here. The name is ENGLES which really interested me given the Engle side of my family. The onion rings were great just incase you every have a chance to stop in.   

Brady seemed pretty happy to be home.

We ended up having friends over last minute on New Years Eve. The girls sat in Katie’s room and watched a movie on Rick’s laptop while all the adults hung out. Katie went to bed at 10:30 but Brady stayed up until 11:45. He went to sleep just in time for me to pour some sparkling cider and get my New Years kiss from my hubby. 

 

Me, Amber (Red), and Audrey (black) took a quick picture together before the year ended. Amber actually went into labor the next morning and had the New Years baby for Bell County, KY. One consolation to leaving my family is getting to see my wonderful friends.

Brady’s Blessing

 

The day after Christmas Rick was able to bless Brady. It was great to have family and friends there to celebrate our little boy. He blessed him to be strong in the church, serve a mission, and that he has lots of friends and family that love him. It was wonderful.

My mom made Brady’s blessing blanket and outfit. He was the most stylish kid around. He wore a tux complete with bow tie. Thanks mom for making my son the cutest boy in town.

    

I was also able to spend some time with friends from high school at Brady’s breakfast after the blessing. We all had kids within 3 weeks of each other.

         

We were also able to get 4 generation pictures with both sides of my family.

 

A great day if you ask me.

Christmas

 

We did the annual reading of a book Christmas Eve and had the kids open PJ’s to wear. This year they both had owls on them because they are my little night owls. 

Ok so I was the only person excited for Christmas morning this year. Brady woke me up around 8 am because he was hungry. I fed him and he fell right back to sleep but by the time he finished I was awake for the day. I actually woke Katie up so we could go look at our stocking and open presents. Katie played Santa and handed out all of our gifts this year and Brady slept through the whole thing.

Katie finally got into opening gifts this year. She had fun pulling the paper off and attacking the presents. She was so cute in her Santa hat too!

My dad got a dinosaur this year that Katie was fine with as long as it was turned off. Once it was turned on she would go running. We laughed so hard watching her react.

The kids got Big Sister and Little Brother shirts which I was so excited about.

To me the best part of Christmas was spending so much time with our family. It was nice to have Rick home from school where he could play with us without needing to leave early to study and can’t wait for future dates when school is over. My best present was spending time with my sister. I love her so much and never get to see her so I cherished every minute I could. I miss her so much. I also love my parents and their generosity not only to me and my little family but they have opened their home every year to Rick’s family as well. This gives us the opportunity to spend as much time with people as possible. It wasn’t the gifts that made Christmas so fun it was the people we got to spend it with. The only thing that would have made it better was if I could have spent some time with my brother and if Rick’s parents could have come as well.  I feel truly blessed by my heavenly father this year with a vacation where there was little down time, lots of family, and loads of fun!