I had to go to Atlanta this week for work. I have to be honest, it was nice to travel without kids and stay in a hotel room alone. I even had time for an hour long run and a 30+ minute shower. But it wasn't all fun...the time change was brutal and the meeting I was there for was really long and mostly boring. It went until 9:45 pm the first night! The hardest part is always missing my boys. They were so sweet when they picked me up from the airport. Big smiles and big hugs.
After celebrating Christmas with my mom in Leavenworth, we packed everyone up and drove to Quincy to spend time with Mike's family. Both of mike's sisters and there families were also there. 5 cousins this year :-) They have so much fun together. It snowed all day while we opened presents and played inside, so the next morning (boxing day),we bundled all the kids up and went sledding around the neighborhood. Oliver had so much fun pulling all the little kids around. Little Lily even got in on the fun!
We spent the two days before Christmas is Leavenworth with my mom and Lulu. There was over a foot of fresh snow and everything was decorated for the holidays. We went for a horse drawn sleigh ride on Christmas eve. It was a glorious sunny day and it couldn't have been more picturesque. Oliver loved it. He sat completely still on my lap (keeping me warm) and took it all in. Liam would have loved it if he hadn't slept through the whole thing! Fortunately there were two dogs running around after he woke up, so he was pretty happy. We had so much fun sledding, wandering around the shops, eating sausage and drinking beer, and watching Christmas movies. My mom even brought a little tree to decorate so Santa would still find us. She also made a full Christmas dinner before we left and we microwaved it for Xmas dinner. It was delicious! We all had a really wonderful time.
As usual, we had to figure out how to have a party for Oliver amid all the hustle and bustle of Christmas. This year, we were going to be spending 2 days in Leavenworth before going to the McDonell's in Quincy for Christmas day. That meant that we would be on the road on his actual birthday, so we planned a last minute party for the day before. Fortunately most of the people we invited could come and we ended up having a great little party for him. He has two best friends at daycare: Steve and Davey. He was SO excited to invite them to his house (we don't know their parents so we had avoided having them over before). Davey was moving that day, but Steve came, along with two of his PEPS friends (Jackson and Katie) and the Klinges. Oliver was grinning ear to ear the whole time and showed Steve every single toy he owns and every square inch of our house. They are really two peas in a pod. He is always telling us things Steve says that are hilarious and it turns out, Steve has also been telling his parents crazy stuff Oliver says. Things get lost in translation some times, especially when it came to Steve's views on the presidential election. They are fire fighter fanatics and both have firefighter rain boots. They play elaborate make believe fireman themed games all day at school and they are both into Arthur. It is so fun seeing Oliver develop such a close friendship. Oliver picked out this zebra hat in Leavenworth because Davey has a raccoon one just like it.
I got a tablet for Xmas and it had an app preloaded that pulled all my blog photos. It really brought back a lot of memories to see all those old photos. I haven't had time to do any posts since Liam was born, but I think this year I will make an effort to get back to it. So I will start with current stuff and fill in old posts when I have time (from what I can remember anyway). It makes me so sad that my boys are getting older and I really want to have some way to remember the fun and sweet details of their childhoods.....
