Wrapping it up

Wednesday was my birthday and Rae had ballet class in Columbia. Roy had to give finals all day, so he was stuck at work while we went and had fun. First we went to Bass Pro to see Santa.


The photographer kept insisting he "smile bigger" so his face ended up like this.



Rae had ballet and then we went to Chevy's for my birthday lunch. Yum! I can't remember what we did after that - probably some shopping or something.
The rest of the week we did a lot of this:








On Saturday we drove to Kansas City to take the Mapels back to the airport. We stopped at Union Station where I knew they were doing train rides with Santa, but I didn't realize it would be SUPER crowded. So we just looked at the model train exhibit and rode a mini-train instead. Then we tried going to a mall to look around but forgot that it was the last Saturday before Christmas - so that was way too crowded too. We wrapped up the trip by eating out one more time and then dropped the Mapels off at the airport. It was a fun visit - thanks for coming you guys!

And more

On Tuesday the 14th Roy went to work for the morning and the rest of us just hung out. We picked him up from work and went to a little museum on campus. Everyone got up close and personal with the dead animals.





Then we went home and had a nice turkey dinner with all the fixin's.






Then we opened presents.

More of Mapel visit

Saturday after getting the tree we headed home and got cleaned up for our branch Christmas party. We had a tasty dinner and the primary kids put on a cute presentation. It was nice that we got to visit with everyone because that night it snowed church was canceled the next day. We got up and had a nice breakfast, played in the snow, and decorated the tree. Since the tree was decorated the kids thought it was time to open presents, so we let them open their stockings and one present, but wanted to save the rest for later in the week. Again, the pictures speak for themselves.

Christmas tree hunting

I WILL get this blog updated - slowly but surely! As I mentioned before, my inlaws flew on Friday, December 10th. On the day they flew in it was sunny and 60 degrees! But the next day it was windy and there was snow in the forecast for that evening, so I knew we better get out first thing and go chop down a tree. I didn't think we'd be outside for too long, so no one was dressed as well as they should have been. I scrounged up a few hats, gloves and a blanket from the car, but everyone was still shivering because of the strong wind.



Wagon ride out to the field - brrr!



It took me forever to decide on a tree. I wanted one that was fat and it couldn't be too tall because our ceilings are only 8ft. We finally chose one, cut it down and then went to wait for the wagon and we walked up just as the wagon was leaving! So we had to wait for it to come back around - ugh! Roy ended up walking back to the van with Isaac and Blaise because they were so miserable. Rae stayed happy by running around and when she got tired she'd wrap herself up in the blanket and take a break. It was a fun experience and I definitely want to do it again - but next time we'll pick a warmer day! I think the rest of the pictures speak for themselves.

Putting it off.....

Sometimes I avoid blogging when I have something I feel like I HAVE to write about, instead of something I truly WANT to write about. I need to write about the visit from my in-laws but I was putting it off till I got some pictures from my MIL. I also need to write about Christmas. Bleh. But I'll get those done this week and then I can be back to just writing about what is on my mind. Also, every time I sit down at the computer Isaac is right there on my lap. So stinkin' annoying. All of the kids are pretty stinkin' annoying lately, so that's another reason I've been slackin'. But I'm gonna get those posts done this week - I promise!