Weekend Wrap Up: A January Christmas

How is Monday already here? This weekend flew by! 

Friday morning started off with a 1/2 sick day for Addy Pearl and myself. She ran a fever last week, and DJ was able to work half days, so he and I took turns staying home with her for a bit. DJ had a meeting, so I took the morning shift, and then I went to work in the afternoon. 

She thought my hair dryer was too loud! We enjoyed some cuddles and house cleaning on Friday morning before I headed in to work. 

Sometimes, you just need a braid. 

#amIright?

I picked up the big girls from school and we headed home to start packing. We had a quick dinner, and then the little girls got a bath. 

She loves bath time!

While the little girls were bathing, DJ and Gretchen headed to her first basketball practice. She's been to several of TU's basketball camps and wanted to play basketball this year. Since it's only a few weeks, we decided that it would be a fun something that she and DJ could do together. 

After bath time, the girls and I waited on DJ and Gretchen to get back, and passed the time by watching Disney channel and cuddling with baby dolls. 

And around 9:00 Friday night, we loaded in the car to head to Arkansas. 

We weren't planning on going this weekend, we had planned to go New Year's weekend, but my entire family got sick, and we had to postpone our Christmas. Recruiting starts back soon, so it was now or never. 

The girls played and chatted for about 30 minutes and then they all passed out and slept the entire way to my parents house. 

We arrived around 1 am, and all went to bed!

Saturday morning once the girls woke up, we opened presents from my parents. 

The girls got barbies, movies, My Little Pony's..... they were super happy!

In October, Gretchen read Anne of Green Gables (the children's version). She's since read the longer chapter book, and while she was at my mom's over her Fall break, she watched the first Anne of Green Gables movie. My mom bought her the entire boxed set of Anne of Green Gables on DVD for Christmas. Gretchen was crazy excited, but I may be even more excited! It was my favorite when I was growing up, and I have fond memories of wasting an entire Saturday watching the movies with my grandmother. I've been asking for these on DVD for years, and it took Gretchen falling in love with the series for us to get them! I have a feeling they'll be on replay for the next several weeks! 

Megan received Ariel. 

And, Gretchen received her new comforter for her bedroom since we're re-decorating her room in Paris theme, per her request!

Adalyn received a step stool and doll bed that my step-father made! He has made all of the girls a step stool for their bedrooms, and he's refurbished my old baby doll beds for Gretchen and Megan, but he made Adalyn one since all of the girls have one. 

After we opened presents with just my parents, my niece came up so the girls could exchange gifts. 

And then paw-paw surprised the girls with a special gift. 

Kaleidoscopes! 

DJ was showing Addy how to use hers. 

We had breakfast and then we decided we needed to get dressed! 

Addy Pearl applied her oils before getting dressed! She loves being able to roll on her immune booster by herself! 

My mom took Megan to the store, and once they came back we had a late lunch. After lunch, Adalyn and I settled in for a nap (so needed!) while every one else watched Mary Poppins. 

We headed to dinner, and on our way, DJ and I stopped to buy our lotto tickets! (Which, in case you were wondering- we didn't win...... we didn't even have one correct number.)

My big girl and I at dinner. I cannot believe she is about to turn 8!

#someoneholdme

As soon as Gretchen and I took a picture, Adalyn hopped out of her Gee's lap and came in mine to take a picture too. Except, she didn't want to take a cute picture, she wanted to show everyone the food in her mouth! 

And make silly faces, while Gretchen photo bombed!

We headed back to my sister in law's house and the girls played dress up. 

And had a dance party!

These girls might as well be sisters!

Adalyn played with babies while the big girls dressed up. She is such a little mommy. 

She also loved on Minnie Mouse!

Sunday morning, we got dressed and headed to Gee's house for breakfast. She made everyone french egg bread and had a little helper. 

We left around mid-morning on Sunday (it was a super short trip) so we could get back home with plenty of time to prep for Monday. 

The girls were all smiles, but they also picked on each other, pulled hair, giggled, and pestered along the way! They're usually not this close together in my car, but we had to bring our fur baby along too, so we took DJ's truck which allowed for lots of touching and me saying "keep your hands to yourself."

And then two of the three fell asleep. 

#andImayhavenappedtoo

We stopped at Chilis for lunch. This was the first time that DJ and I let all of the girls sit together!

#whatwerewethinking

We finally made it home and got the truck unloaded. The presents (and clothes) put away, and I fixed lunches and DJ gave the little girls their bath. 

I went on a 2 mile run in 25 degrees weather, so I'm either nuts or I just needed a break!

But seriously, the weekend flew by! I knew that it would with our quick trip out of town! 

We're looking forward to some lazy evenings and Anne of Green Gables watching and counting down to our three day weekend coming up!

Our Last Week of Break

Well, we're back to school, back to our routine, and I'm totally missing our last week of Christmas break. It was pretty much perfection.

We arrived home on the 27th from Shreveport, and celebrated Christmas with DJ's dad and stepmom. The following day, we had snow on the ground and DJ and I decided that together we would head to the grocery store and to Lowe's. As part of our Christmas present to each other, we knew that we finally needed to purchase hardware for all of our drawers and cabinets. They've taken a beating since we've moved in 6 months ago!

So, off we went.... we joked that it was a mini date since we had grandparents to watch the girls and we were out by ourselves! Lowe's took a lot longer than expected. I thought I knew what I wanted, but then the decision was harder once we arrived.

We split up our lists at the grocery store, picked up our dog from the boarder, and finally  made it home for lunch. 

DJ and his dad spent the rest of the afternoon putting the hardware in our kitchen.

And, I totally love it!

We made a pot of chili that night and settled in to watch football. 

Tuesday was spent cleaning bedrooms, putting Christmas toys away, and doing laundry. Oh my the laundry! Y'all, I'm still trying to catch up with the laundry! 

Addy was oblivious to the snow outside and insisted on wearing shorts. She played "mommy" while I cleaned up bedrooms upstairs. 

This girl loves her babies!

And I had to document how clean the girls' bedrooms were! I mean, they're never this clean!

The pink room is Gretchen's. Pink is her favorite color. You can see her little room tour here. We're in the processing of updating her bedding- she's had this set since she was 2. So, I'll do a new room tour when we're all done!

The purple room is Megan's.  I went back to pull a past post because I thought that I had completed our home tour from moving in this summer, but I guess I did not! I'll have to add Megan's bedroom tour (and Adalyn's) into my blogging list in the next few weeks!

We literally had no schedule over the break. We stayed up late, we slept late, we had pajama days. We watched football, watched movies. And, Megan crashed in the afternoons every once in a while. 

And, then one night after dinner, Megan and Addy were playing chase. They ran from the kitchen, in to the living room, in to my bedroom, and BAM. We heard a fall and screams. Addy apparently tripped and fell in to our bed. I snapped this quick picture and tested it to my mom and sister in law to see if they thought we needed to take her to get stitches. It was also almost 8 in the evening so we weren't sure if an urgent care would be opened or if we would need to go to the ER. They definitely agreed that we needed to take her in and thankfully we found an urgent care that was still open. And since I have bad luck and no patience for waiting rooms, DJ took her in. Thankfully, she did not need stitches and didn't need for it to be glued. But we have had to keep a steri-strip on her cut. 

She got lots of extra cuddles the next day!

Thursday afternoon, DJ stayed with the girls and I was able to run some errands for myself. I'm telling you, it was pure bliss!

We lived it up New Years Eve by watching football and giving the girls a bath. 

We all watched the Rose Parade on Friday morning. 

On Sunday morning, we headed to church. It was the first day that we had really taken the time to get dressed! I attempted a picture of just the girls, but Adalyn wouldn't let DJ put her down. 

And, so the girls and I snapped a pic too. 

And, a silly face picture! Megan was pouting because she missed our first silly picture!

Sunday afternoon I went on a walk and Gretchen rode her bike with me. We stopped by the park so she could play and I could run and DJ stayed behind while Adalyn napped. 

We finished out our weekend by getting ready for school to start again on Monday- Boo!!!

Christmas Part 2

As you know, we spent our Christmas day in Shreveport for our Independence Bowl trip. It was a pretty unconventional Christmas, but we made the best of it and had a blast! 

We let the girls know that Santa had not only brought presents to our hotel room, but that he had left presents at our house too. Because Santa knew that we couldn't get all of our presents home on an airplane! The girls opened three presents on Christmas day. When we arrived home Sunday afternoon, we not only found Pops and Grandma Dee at our house, but we found tons of presents under our Christmas tree! 

I'm pretty sure the girls insisted on opening presents before we even thought about bringing in our suitcases. 

Meggie received a remote control Sofia the First carriage from Santa. 

Adalyn received a Melissa & Doug farm bead set. 

Gretchen received Grace's puppy from the American Girl doll store. 

These girls had the present opening down!

Addy's very own laptop. 

All of the girls received headphones. DJ and I were going to give these to the girls before we left for our trip and then we forgot!

Addy Pearl loves Minnie Mouse!

A new Matilda Jane outfit. 

Rain boots!

The girls received the Girl Scout baking oven from Pops and Grandma Dee. 

Pops opening his present. 

Grandma Dee opening her present. 

After present opening we sat down for dinner and enjoyed hanging out with family!