Christmas in Driggs!

So I started working on this post last Sunday hoping to get all caught up on the blog before the baby was scheduled to arrive on Tuesday the 29th but I started not feeling well so I stopped halfway through. That night my water broke before I could finish it so here it is now a week later. Crazy to think when I started this Ryan was in my tummy and now he is sleeping next to me! We love him so much but here is the blog from Christmas. We had too much fun not to document!

We were so excited for Christmas this year because all of the cousins would be together! When one sister lives in Singapore (but just moved to South Africa) and the other one lives in Chicago (but just moved to Florida) it is rare when we all get together. Here are all the cousins after church. It was hard to get a good picture of all of them but this is the best I could do: This is Abigale's cousin Ben and she loves him and misses him a lot. They are only two months apart and have soo much fun together. They are so sweet!This is Lydia trying to get a picture with the two cousins closest to her in age but they weren't really interestedBen's birthday was at the beginning of December but since my sister was in the middle of packing to move to Africa and Ben wanted to wait and have cake with Abigale, we celebrated with a fun Batman cake. Unfortunately, my sister Caitlin had to leave us the day before Chirstmas Eve to spend time with her in-laws but before she left we had a fun cousin Christmas party! The kids decorated cookies, played fun Christmas games, and had a gift exchange. It was a great way to start Christmas! After Caitlin left, we all headed up to my sister's house in Driggs on Chirstmas Eve to have a winter wonderland Christmas. This is the traditional Christmas Eve dinner (shrimp, salad, raspberry jello salad, potatoes, and rolls) After dinner we did our first annual cousin nativity. It was so cute. Abigale was Mary and took the part very seriously. She wore her costume and took care of baby Jesus all night. Of course Ben was Joseph and they made quite the pair. My niece Claire did a great job of writing and narrating the play and being an angel! Christmas morning! The kids were so excited to come downstairs: Abigale was at such a fun age. She did not care what she got she was just so excited about everything! Lydia the monkey, showing off her monkey, Boots:Opening Presents Daddy picked out something extra special for Abigale that we knew she would love. We were so excited to see her open it: She loved it!

She got all of the princess dolls! She still loves them, in fact, as I write this she is playing on the floor behind me with them!Lydia got a little computer and a pillow pet from her uncle Jeff. She loves that pillow pet and still sleeps with it every night!

After we opened presents and had breakfast we headed outside to enjoy the beautiful snow and get some sledding in

My nieces got some fun spa items for Christmas so they had a fun bubble bath in the big tub

They even got lotion on their feet

This is normally how we would find Abigale and Ben 90% of the day.

In Jackson they have a really cool Elk Refuge where you can take a sleigh ride out into the middle of all the Elk while a guide tells you everything you ever wanted to know about them. It was freezing but the girls loved it. Everytime Lydia sees a horse she still talks about riding them out to see the elk. It was a really cool experience even though it was sooo cold!

We said goodbye to our family in Driggs on New Years Eve and headed to our new house. Isn't it pretty. We love it and are so blessed to have found it!

Life in the Hotel

There are a lot of things about the hotel that I will always remember- the same breakfast every morning, watching Abigale learn to swim with her floaties in the pool, the smell in the room that lasted for days when I attempted to cook something in the very small kitchen, all of the eating out we did so that I wouldnt have to cook, spending hours on the internet looking for a house in Utah, trying to remind myself that it is Christmas time by having the girls color Christmas pictures and putting them around the room, etc. I did an awful job of capturing these moments with pictures but here are some that we took when our friends spent the day with us. Best Buds!

This was right after swimming so everyone was still wet and cold

Love her!

Hanging out in our small room

Watching funny you tube clips

Wanted to include this because this is one of the only pics I have of me pregnant. The black does a good job of hiding the belly but its there. I think I was 6 months pregnant.

Abigale had a little Christmas Dance recital at a nursing home and well it didnt go quite as planned or as I had hoped. For days leading up to it she would cry everytime we would mention it and say that she didnt want to go. As a parent, I didnt know what to do- Should I just make her do it and tell her to get over it or let her stay home? Well, we decided to take her and see if she would get over her fear. I am not sure if it was the best choice because she started bawling when we got there. I tried sitting with her before the performance and I even was able to sit right next to where she would be dancing but she just sat on my lap and refused to dance. It was so sad because she looked so cute and her teacher told me she knew the dance better then anyone but I guess she just wasnt ready for it. I got her to do that dance that night for me and it is about the cutest thing ever. She really loves to dance so hopefully next time she will be ready to perform!

Isn't she so cute!This was on her last day of dance class. She loved her teacher Miss Kim! We were finally able to move back into our house in the middle of December but it wasnt really our house since everything was just in boxes. We were all just sleeping on the mattresses on the floor but we tried to make the best of it- we watched a movie on the computer and had a pizza party!

I still miss our old house!

Thanksgiving and what we came home to find~

For some reason all my pictures have a weird glare but I wanted to share the few that I took at Thanksgiving. The girls were so spoiled. Here they are getting pedicures and manicures by Grandma and Aunt Laurie. Lydia was in HEAVEN!

Abigale and Uncle Aaron

Daddy and Lydia

There was a lot of snow but not the good kind for building a snowman so the girls and Daddy did the best they could but they did find a can of silly string so that made the snowman awesome!

We took the girls to a fun Aquarium in Sandy and they loved it.

Ignore the glare on the glass but this was a huge octopus

Cute Girls

This is what we came home to after a great Thanksgiving break. You can tell by the footprints that the floor is soaking wet. Yes, we did put up all our Christmas before we left only to put it all away the next day :( Garage floor

Obviously the heat had gone out and it was soo cold in the house especially with the water everywhere.

Our poor house. The legs on the tables were ruined and had to be replaced. The water came in through the wall behind that couch and filled the room and then traveled a few feet into the other rooms. We know that it could have been a lot worse. Usually when we go out of town things are so frantic that the house gets left in a mess but this time the girls were playing at a friends house until we left so I was able to deep clean the whole house which meant there was hardly anything on the floor. Such a blessing!

It's about time . . .

Just when I was getting the hang of blogging and staying on top of things, life took a big turn for us! This is kind of a long story but I want to get it down for our records so I apologize now but I will start at the beginning with pictures to soon follow! It all started Thanksgiving week while we were spending time with Jonathan's family for the holiday. Jonathan decided to interview for a new job which was exciting but a little scary because the job was in Utah. The interview went well but we decided to just wait and see what was going to play out. On the way home from Utah we hit a major snow storm and the road closed so we had to turn around and go the long way with a stop overnight in Pocatello. My parents were still out of town so getting into the house with the alarm system going off was quite the adventure in itself but we made it and I was grateful for an extra day of vacation. The next morning we started off to Boise and about 20 minutes into the drive we got a call from Jonathan's work saying that our neighbor had called looking for us because we had water pouring out of our garage! Not news you want to hear when you are 3 hours away from home! We started calling friends to go over and turn off the water and check out our house and sure enough the entire front room and parts of the rest of the house were flooded! We then called the insurance company and got some things worked out and spent the rest of the drive trying to figure out what could have happened and what might have gotten ruined. When we finally got to the house, it was crazy to see our house in its condition but nice that we had some time to prepare ourselves. The insurance agent met us at the house and gave us some money to stay at a hotel and told us we would probably be out of our house for a month! It was a little overwhelming and sad to think that we would not be in our house for the whole month of December! We packed some more clothes and made the best out of the situation by finding the best hotel we could that would feel a little like a home. After switching hotels a few times we found a place with a little kitchen, two bedrooms, free breakfast, and a swimming pool. It was definitely hard to be out of our house and away from our things but living in a hotel had its perks as well! As for our house, they said that the water heater broke and sprayed water throughout our garage for the 4 days we were gone and eventually it soaked through the walls and got into the house. Nothing of real value was ruined but a lot of little things (thank goodness for insurance)! The biggest deal was that all of the carpet had to be replaced which we were excited about because we had been wanting to replace the carpet since we moved in!

Now back to the job- while all of this was going on with the house and we were living in a hotel, Jonathan was told that he got the job in Utah and that they needed him to start January 1st. After a lot of thought and prayer we decided it was best for our family so while the workers had to pack most of our things to lay the new carpet and fix the walls, we just decided to pack the whole house up. We loved our house and it was sad knowing we would not live there again but we were excited for the new opportunity. In the middle of December, we left the girls with my parents and drove to Utah for a few days to try and find a house to rent. It was pretty stressful and some of the places we saw were really bad but we were definitely blessed when we found our house and knew the minute we saw it, it was perfect. We signed the papers drove back to Idaho and that weekend said goodbye to our friends (sad, sad day) and packed up the house. Jonathan drove the truck straight to Utah and unpacked in the new house and I rode with my parents to Pocatello to spend time with family before Chirstmas. We eventually all met up in Driggs and had an amazing winter wonderland Christmas! On New Years Eve we drove back to our new house in Utah and spent the holiday unpacking. It has been an adjustment for everyone but so far we are really enjoying this new adventure. I should of known it was coming because we have moved in the middle of every pregnancy so I guess I am used to it. Speaking of pregnancy- I am officially full term at 37 1/2 weeks! Crazy! I go to the doctor tomorrow and hopefully some progress is going on so that we can schedule an induction and finally know when we will meet this little guy (who is still yet to be named- HELP!) Well that is actually the quick version of our crazy month of December but I promise pictures are coming soon!