Holiday Happenings Part II: A Very Merry Christmas & a Happy New Year

(Building on my previous post: here's the "rest of the story"...some additional Wells Holiday Season tidbits):

A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS & A HAPPY NEW YEAR !!!

Beyond blessed. That would honestly be a sufficient description, but because word limitation has never been my strength, I will elaborate. For the last 8 years, we have spent the 10 days around Christmas on the road trying to squeeze in visits with everyone we know and love in Kentucky. Visits were way too short, the drive was way too long...nearly 30 hours on the road, TONS of packing, and never getting to see everyone. 

This year, we began the season of celebration by HOSTING a family gathering a week before the big day at our own house.  We slept in our own beds Christmas Eve, and for the first time EVER, our children woke up to Santa's gifts Christmas morning in their OWN living room (Santa had always visited our house a few days early and then brought stockings to whichever grandma's house we were staying Christmas morning...a great tradition if you HAVE to travel!)

Christmas Eve was my favorite day of 2011!! We made cookies for Santa, ate a relaxing dinner out (yes, even with 4 kids, that is possible...as long as your definition of "relaxing" is tweaked ;), attended a Christmas Eve worship service, and came home to read the Christmas story one last time and sing Christmas carols around our own fireplace...PERFECT! Christmas day was filled with laid back fun as we played with the kids' new toys and then made the short 1 hour drive to my mom's for dinner with extended family.The morning after Christmas, we drove into Owensboro for brunch and gifts with Bobby's mom's family, and then on to his grandad's for more visiting and presents with his dad's family. A few days after Christmas, I took the kids to Lexington for a gathering with my dad's side of the family. So in just 8 total hours of driving, we made 5 family celebrations. We had TOTALLY forgotten just how wonderful and relaxing the Christmas season really could be! As I said...beyond blessed!!!

And how do you send out a wild ride of a year and ring in the new? You gather college buddies, their significant others, and their children to cheer on a UK victory against U of L (an ENORMOUS basketball rivalry for those of you non-Kentuckians)...and did I mention the FOOD?!?!? WOW! The party started at noon with 18 of us (9 of those being children and 7 of them being under 4 years old)...and it carried on until 1 AM! We tipped off with chili, soup, and dip...moved on to Tom's smoked ribs, finished off with Kruger & Tiffany's beef tenderloin, king crab legs, & bacon wrapped scallops, and munched on Evie & Jason's and Kaz & Laura's yummies in between! I guess you could call it a New Year's Progressive Dinner Day...and I think it should be an annual tradition! :)

I've included a few Crazy Crew type pictures of the season...obviously I didn't do so hot at catching all the necessary shots, so I'll try better next year. I've also added a few humorous details:

The Gingerbread Man: a family member (Jana) made these adorable ornaments for each child out of dough (baked & painted), so we hung them on the kids' little tree. We came home one day to find dog puke with little flecks of gold in it. I searched all around for something PJ could have eaten...and then found Evie's "dis-membered" Ginger Bread Man still hanging from the tree. Hilarious.

The (fall of) The Gingerbread House: The kids had a BLAST decorating Gingerbread houses this year...but FYI: if you have multiple children working on the same house  (meaning little hands are constantly touching, moving, shaking the house) and you want to avoid a lot of extra work on your part, go to Costco and get the "pre-assembled" houses. All you have to do is spread the icing and decorate with the candy (or de-decorate, which happened a lot with our sweet-tooth little ones :). We were supposed to use the frosting as glue to hold up the pictured gingerbread house, and you see how successful this momma was in orchestrating that! Anna's take on our Gingerbread "neighborhood": Oh, sorry Gingerbread people, looks like you aren't getting new neighbors after all. These peoples' house collapsed on them and they died (and she proceeded to eat the "people" that go with the collapsed house). As I told the family member (Linda) who gave us this house...any time you combine messy with sugar, you've hit the jackpot...whether the house stands or not!

The face that can ALMOST make you forget the 20 minute
screaming fits...except when you are trying to marathon
Christmas shop with 4 kids in tow...





LOVE the Louisville Zoo & the mild
weather that has allowed
visits in Dec & Jan!

 

Run, Run fast as you can! Can't catch me
I'm the Gingerbread Man! (unless you're PJ)



SO happy to have the faces & love of 75+
Christmas cards surrounding us from friends
both far and near!




You can tell by every pic of child #3 that she
is both a huge source of joy...and that she
will completely be the death of me (of course,
I said the same of her awesome big sis when
she was this age, too)!

And the walls came a tumblin' down!



Kids #1 & #2: "Waitin' on our promised cookie!"
Kid #3: "Wonder what she'll do if I SQUEEEEZE her like this?!?!"



We hope your Christmas Season was blessed with love, laughter, joy, & peace...or at least some great Kodak-moment worthy memories :). May your New Year be filled with the renewal and fresh blessings that come from the HOPE of our Saviour!











Holiday Happenings: Part I

WOW! Happy New Year 2012 already! We've been in KY almost 3 months and in our house just over 2 months. It seems like our lives are the quietest they've ever been (I'm not working, Bobby is home a LOT more, we aren't involved in a lot of activities yet...we aren't even pregnant or dealing with a new baby! ;) However, when I reflect on the recent weeks, I realize we've actually packed a LOT of celebrating into a pretty short amount of time! We've enjoyed Halloween, Mollie's 1st Birthday, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's, and UK games (the big ones count as Holidays in the Bluegrass state, ya know ;). And we've also done a ton of entertaining! On 4 different occasions, we've had large gatherings...meaning 15 or more people. And at least 4 other times we've had various friends over for dinner...if you know us, this is pretty amazing. It's unbelievable how much easier it is to be social when you actually have some room in your house...and when your husband gets home by 7:00 most nights and isn't totally exhausted on the weekends from non-stop work & stressful commutes!

Sooo....here's Part I of a recap in pics & stories of our lives lately (Christmas & New Years will come later):

Halloween: We moved into our house exactly one week before Halloween, and the kids were excited to see that our new neighborhood REALLY does Halloween...like TOTALLY does Halloween (you'll see in a minute why that also thrills me)! Three doors down from us is the "Spooky House" that could make Party City's decorations look chincey. The weekend before Halloween, they even charge admission (canned goods) and set up haunted houses in their driveway and garage and have a coffin "thrill ride" where people can climb in, shut the top, and get the bajeebies scared outta them while people watch their reaction on a big screen...creative, and yes...maybe a little disturbing?!?!

Anyway...you know it's impossible for us to enjoy a calm family event. Halloween afternoon I was in front of our house trying to get pics of our Crazy Crew before Bobby got home from work. Please don't EVER try to tell me that God doesn't have a sense of humor...because the ONLY time I've ever seen a deer in our neighborhood (that wasn't a lit up decoration) was that exact moment...the moment a deer ran randomly down our driveway...just when one of the kids had left the back door open...so that our dog (PJ) could go racing after it. SERIOUSLY?!?! So I grab the baby, command the other 3 kids to stay in the driveway (they're all now screaming and crying...even though they usually barely notice the dog exists), and I take off through the back yard to the main street yelling PJ's name. Remember, we'd only lived in our house a week, so no one knew us or our dog...he didn't know his way home yet...oh, yeah...so did I mention that I was wearing a CLOWN costume?! That's right-walking up to introduce myself to neighbors for the very first time dressed as a clown and explaining that we'd lost our dog...who ran after a phantom deer. As I mentioned earlier, the neighborhood REALLY loves Halloween, so my only saving grace was that I wasn't the ONLY adult dressed up (just the only one dressed as a clown).

Fortunately, Bobby arrived home soon and was able to find PJ a couple streets away (where a 3 yr old yelled at him for not having a tag on the dog's collar), and we were able to head on over to our friend Tom's house for an awesome party & Trick or Treating with some college buddies and their kids. All the kids had a blast, but watching Evie (our 2 year old princess) was PRICELESS...I've never seen a kid so excited, running non-stop until her little legs finally gave out. Here are a few pics...obviously they are limited, thanks to our 4 legged furry friend drama (I actually had a mom ask me at the bus stop if I was the clown who had lost her dog...what's that they say about first impressions?)



Our sweet little black kitty




Pretty Pirate...too bad her parrot & dagger
both broke before the night began!

A Princess and her pony

Yes...he's as fast & hyper as Dash!

Awesome Halloween Party!

Thanksgiving and then some: This was the FIRST time we celebrated Thanksgiving with family since 2002! (Thanksgiving traffic around DC is HORRENDOUS, and we always made the long trip a few weeks later for Christmas, so we usually hung out with friends in VA or took the kids to the zoo.) This year we went to my mom's house Thanksgiving afternoon and enjoyed a wonderful feast with Mom & Danny and his kids and grand kids. The next day, we drove to Owensboro for 2 days of food and fun with both sides of Bobby's family. As my sister-in-law mentioned, between Mollie's birthday, Thanksgiving, Christmas, & a few things in between, the cousins may grow up knowing each other after all!

Another great perk of living near family: getting to see the big events! We had 5 kids under the age of 5 in our wedding (considering our lives now, does that shock anyone?) The adorable twin 3 year old boy ring bearers from our wedding (Thomas & Scott) are now 16 year old star athletes and play Varsity Football. In early December, we got to watch them play the 6A State Championship game at our old alma mater, Western Kentucky University. They were playing the #1 ranked HS team in the NATION (Trinity), so the final score wasn't so great; however, 20 family members rocked that stadium when Scott scored TWO touchdowns (a 95 yd kickoff return and a great catch late in the game). Yes, we're looking forward to some future college action!

GO BIG BLUE...and Red!!!: Oh, the fun of living in the Big Blue Basketball Nation again! Some of our college buddies who live in the area have come over to help us cheer on UK to victories against UNC and U of L. Guess we're slackers for not having a party for that IU game...

Those aren't the only basketball games we've enjoyed! Bobby's best friend ("Big Joey") has been very generous, giving us tickets to two games at U of L's YUM Center. Bobby took Anna & our "little" Joey to their first college game to see Arkansas State play the Cardinals...these weren't just any seats...they were directly behind ASU's bench practically on the floor (Big Joey played college ball at Samford when ASU's Coach was there)! Evie, Mollie, and I actually watched them on TV and DVR'd it so they could see themselves every trip down the floor. Our drama mama, Anna, was completely thrilled to be a "TV Star."

Just before Christmas, Bobby and I were able to escape for a date night to watch our WKU Hilltoppers take on U of L (again, courtesy of Big Joey's tickets and my mom living just an hour away for free grandma care!) We thought we'd see a complete blowout, but WKU gave the Cards a heck of a fight and didn't go down until the last few minutes...Go Big Red (WKU, that is!)

Keeping with the WKU sport spirit, I almost forgot another exciting Fall outing...we were able to take the kids to their first college Cross Country meet in mid November! The NCAA Southeast Regional Championship Meet was held here in Louisville, and it REALLY got my heart pounding to be around the racing scene again! The kids had a blast racing down the straight-a-way and across the finish line after the meet...over and over and over again (SO happy they waited until AFTER the races to try out the course), and Bobby and I enjoyed a nice visit with our college Cross Country Coach and seeing former teammates.

And now I realize The Crazy Crew's interruptions have caused this update to take almost as long to write as the Holiday season itself, so I'll save Christmas and New Year's for a Part II post! God bless your New Year with love & laughter!!