New Year-New Adventures

Our last (and possibly first) picture in front of our TN home!

(P.S. It's for sale if you think it's cute.)

A lot has happened since my last post.  To be honest, I haven't posted since November because all the plans we made kept changing.  So, a quick re-cap:

• Kendall stayed at BCA until the end of the Fall term.
• Lily stayed at Jones until Christmas.
• We have not sold our house, but we've decided to move me and the girls out to Vegas regardless. (Can you say "hello, pb & j"? And we are more than OK with that.)
• I got to visit Chris in Vegas for a quick, weekend trip.
• Chris got to come home for Christmas and New Year's!
• We're leaving next Monday.

We had a wonderful Christmas with Chris being home.  He flew home on Kendall's 5th birthday and we picked him up at the airport.  Kendall was sooo excited to see her daddy.  Lily was too, it just took her a few minutes to warm-up.  And of course, I was thrilled. 

We had a fun family birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese for Kendall's actual birthday.  (We had her friend-party back in October.) Our family party was great and it was nice being able to spend time focused completely on our family.

Both sets of grandparents were able to be here for Christmas and that was such a blessing.  The girls were so excited to open their presents & see what Santa brought.  We decided that Santa, us & grandparents would only purchase 3 gifts per child to represent the 3 gifts that the wise men brought to Jesus.  This also helps them not expect so many presents.  Even with our "3 gift" rule, it's amazing how much stuff that really is.  We turned gift opening into an all-day affair.  Santa first, play, then gifts from us, eat, then gifts from grandparents, play, eat, nap, then gifts from other friends and family.  It really did work out great and let the girls were able to appreciate what they were opening at that moment.  I think we'll use that system again.

The rest of the week was spent hanging out as a family & preparing our house to move.  For me, that meant going through each room & getting rid of the stuff that didn't need to go to Vegas with us.  Wow, that was quite a bit of stuff we were able to donate. 

I drove Chris to Knoxville today to fly back to Vegas.  He'll be home for about 48 hours and then leave for a 4 daysconference.  Then he'll have another 48 hours before we get there.  I hope he enjoys his last few days of "freedom" (haha). 

And while I don't make New Year's resolutions - I do want to make an effort to keep this blog updated regularly (at least once a week) since we will finally be starting this grand adventure we've talked about for soooo long.  I've also got some personal goals in regards to finally beginning my career as a stay-at-home-mom.  That's for another post. 

I pray you all had a wonderful holiday with those you love.