What a week!

The last week has gone by so fast. It has been full of friends, family, travel, and lots of food. The holidays went so fast. It is hard to believe that we will be back to the normal schedule on Monday already.

Christmas Eve we went with my parents to a Christmas Eve service. This has been a family tradition for a long time, but had been pushed aside since we moved here. Our church does not do a Christmas Eve service, so we went to a church in a nearby town. We had never been there, but a friend said it was the church she grew up in.

It is a smaller church, and the sanctuary was sparsely filled. We arrived late. Hoping to slip in unnoticed, we quietly slid into the back pew. Do you believe that we could quietly slide in with our four kids? Not a chance. Not only do the children lack any stealth skills, the pew was the squeakiest pew on God's green earth. We all sat down, "Creeee-aaaa-eee-kkkkk," and heads turned to see what the ruckus was all about. Of course there is also no sitting still with young children. The service was punctuated with many a "creak" and "shhhh" from the back row. And let's not forget the several, "I need to pee," declarations. So much for going unnoticed.

The service was fine. It was a candlelight service with lots of Christmas carols. There were other children there too, and no one seemed annoyed by our noisy intrusion. I am glad we went.

Christmas day we stayed home. It is so nice to have a day with no where to run to and no pressing projects. We enjoyed the morning opening presents and playing with the new things. Then we fixed our Christmas dinner and relaxed some more. Later in the afternoon, Tim helped Papaw with some project (the fence?) and we started packing our things to go to Ohio.

Friday morning we headed to Tim's parents for the weekend. Tim's brother Mitch was there with his son most of the weekend. We got to meet the newest nephew, Parker, and see some other family. We played a lot of games, ate a lot of food and had a great time. There is never enough time to do all we want while we are there.

Monday we left the kids with Grandma and Grandpa and headed to Akron to do some things to the house we still own there. We worked all day and still didn't get everything done. I am beginning to hate that house, but that is a subject for another post.

A plan was hatched for us to take two of Jake's kids back to WV with us that night, and for Jake and Delilah to pick up our kids from Jeff and Gail on Wednesday on their way here. As Jake and I were working out the details, I get a call from Gail. Vivian was not happy. She had been asking for me the whole day, and saying she wanted to go home. We decided that she should go home with us that night instead of waiting until Wednesday.

By the time all the arrangements were made, and we had all the kids that were going with us, it made for a late start home. It was almost midnight when we finally got home.

Vivian woke up Tuesday morning, and the first thing she did was ask for Lydia. When I told her Lydia was at Grandma's she cried to go to Grandma's house! She and I had a lot of errands to run that day and every so often she would whine for Grandma or Lydia. UGH!

Jake and Delilah arrived with the remaining children Wednesday afternoon. Vivian was very happy to see her sister. We opened presents, ate seafood stew and cheesecake and had fun hanging out. We laid out sleeping bags for the kids that were staying up for the New Year. (Nolan and older.) Kellen, Miles and Ashley played Monopoly and Tim and I watched Cars and fell asleep with Lydia and Nolan in the living room. The older kids finished their game in time to watch the ball drop. Tim and I woke up for the event, then we all promptly crashed.

Yesterday we left Mamaw and Papaw with all the kids and went with Jake and Delilah to see Valkyrie. It was good, definitely worth a rental, but maybe not worth the outrageous prices that the movie theaters are charging now. We went to a matinee, so I didn't feel too bad about the money spent. When we got back we ate the traditional pork and sauerkraut dinner, and it wasn't long until we all crashed.

Tim is back to work today. Tonight we are having a ham dinner with everyone including my Great Aunt Hazel and Terry who came down yesterday afternoon. Tomorrow the guys are going to get hay and working on the pig barn that needs to be completed before the sows farrow at the end of the month. We are expecting lambs any day now. My thoughts have turned to chicks and seeds, and I need to do a little research and order chicks for the spring. I have plans to turn the bathtub in our room to a place to start my seeds. It is back to the normal schedule with band, and co-op next week. Always something to do around here.

Hope you had a great Christmas and happy New Year to everyone.