Cousin Time in Legoland

 We started the vacation out at Legoland with cousins.  They mixed and matched groups all day. 

 The best part of Legoland is definitely everything being made out of Legos.  The kiddos were in awe of all the life-sized Legos. 

Little Lady was so excited to see all of her favorite Friend Legos.  The girls wanted pictures with each of them!

 The adults split up and took different groups of kiddos to different areas of the park.  Little Guy got to go with Aunt Angie and Aunt Stina to the Duplo Town with Alice and Joshie while the older kids rode some roller coasters.

Having so many adults was helpful.  At one point they had Joel and I run to the Ninjago ride to get in line while the kids rode with Roberto and Angie on the Safari Ride.  The line was so short we got to ride it once on our own.  It was like a mini-20 minute date.  You got to enjoy what you can get!

Meanwhile, the yellow shirts were quite handy, because the kids were easy to spot all day long. 

It rained off and on all afternoon, but that didn't stop the kiddos from having fun.

In fact, all of them chose to get sopping wet before leaving.  The 3 littles played in the splash pad in their clothing and then went home at about 4:30pm.  I was impressed they lasted that long since they all missed their nap and played the whole time.

The big kids went on the boat ride multiple times before finally giving in and going home at about 6:30pm.  BB shot water at them the first time and then joined them on the boat the second time.

 They ended the night by visiting with Emmet and singing, "Everything is Awesome!"

Little Man was more than ready to go home and we had to drag BB and Little Lady out of the park.

Heading South

The day after Christmas we packed up the car and started our road trip to Florida.  We enjoyed unseasonably warm temperatures.  Our first stop was the St. Basilica is St. Louis.  It was absolutely beautiful!  It reminds me of the cathedrals in Spain.

 I loved the nativity and the Christmas decorations inside of the Basilica.  Our final stop of the evening was in Nashville.  We drove around the State Capital and then enjoyed dinner in German-town.  Monell's is a family-style restaurant where you sit around large tables with other people and you pass around the food as you would with your family.  Their motto is "Enter as strangers.  Leave as friends."  We sat with a family from Albany, Georgia who was visiting family in Nashville for the holidays.  It was a lot of fun and it was also good Southern comfort food.

I don't have any pictures of day 2 in the car, because it was long and rather painful.  We hit really ugly traffic in Atlanta that added 3 hours to our travel time.  We canceled our sightseeing plans in favor of just trying to get out of the city.  We experienced heavy traffic all through Florida as well, so we were thrilled when we finally arrived late that night.  

Baby Girl Finish

The baby is due in a week, so I was grateful I squeaked in this finish before the new year.  My friend is having her fourth girl!  That's a lot of girl power in that house!  This is a quilt made completely out of my quilting stash and scraps.  Wahoo!

Growing Up

BB was excited to lose another tooth.  He, however, lost it, but he wrote a very nice note to the Tooth Fairy.  I'm not sure why he thought he was getting a toy since the Tooth Fairy has never been quite that generous, but I suppose it never hurts to ask.

He's also decided he now wants spiky hair.  He calls it his Mohawk.  He's been growing the top out for a couple of months.  Several nights in a row, he's come downstairs to show off his hair when he was supposed to be sleeping.  He goes into the bathroom and gels his hair.  I keep telling him that's what you do in the morning to get ready for the day and not at night, but it hasn't quite registered with him yet.

 Little Guy also has own special style.  He doesn't like to wear matching shoes.  I later realized that he has also been mismatching his socks.  The interesting thing is that they're not interchangeable.  He's been matching specific socks with individual shoes.  

School Catch Up

Before the break the 5th graders made graham cracker gingerbread houses with the kindergartners.  Little Man said he enjoyed himself.  He was kind, and shared his creation with his siblings.

Little Lady's class has been reading Out of My Mind.  I really loved that book, so I was excited for Little Lady to read it in school.  It's pretty deep, so I was impressed that a 3rd grade class would be reading it. 

A Christmas Miracle

In the Summer of 2011 I started one of my first quilt-a-longs.  It was Christmas blocks.  It was my very first time trying paper piecing and applique and several other techniques.  It took 2 years to put the blocks all together and then another couple of years before I finally put on the border.  I had a completed quilt top by the time we moved from Ohio, but it sat untouched for another year.  I finally layered it and started working on the quilting, but it was slow going, because I was trying to do intricate quilting in each of the blocks.  I lost steam and didn't touch it again for another 2 years.  I'm always so busy during the holiday season and it felt weird working on a Christmas quilt in January, so kept sitting there.

Every year my husband always jokes about how wonderful it is to have a Christmas quilt...he'd look around and start laughing, because we both knew there was no Christmas quilt downstairs.  It was in my Work-In-Progress bin.  This December I pulled it out and took a good look at it.  I decided that I was just going to bind it and finish it, because it was never going to get finished if I quilted every single block with something intricate.  The entire thing was already outlined, so I didn't need to do anymore quilting for it to be OK. 

I ran into a snag when I didn't have enough fabric to bind it, but I ordered some more fabric and got to work.  I finished it on Christmas Eve!!  It's a Christmas miracle! 

 Since it's my husband who thought I would never actually finish it, it felt appropriate that he would be the first to use it while we watched the newest Grinch movie.

It got lots of use right away, and it makes it all worth it...almost.  I'm just grateful it's FINALLY done!  Eight and a half years later we have a Christmas quilt!