Back to blogging!

Sorry I have been a quiet blogger for the past couple weeks! I intended to post more while we were on vacation, but I just didn't get to it. Anyway, we had a wonderful time with Jim's family. It was really fun to see all the cousins interacting with each other . . . and this time next year, we will have 7 little ones running (or crawling) around! I'll try to share a few pictures soon.

We took our time coming home, making the trip in 2 days instead of driving straight through. We were able to get a pretty good deal online at a Red Roof Inn in Utica NY, which is a little over halfway through our trip. We got there around 9:45 pm on Saturday and got a pretty good sleep, heading out again by 10 am, after a quick stop at McDonald's for breakfast. We made better time than we expected, arriving in NH by 3 pm or so. We stopped to do a little last-minute Christmas shopping and get some groceries, then drove another hour and got home before 5 pm. The kids did great on the trip, thanks to some good naps, and especially the help of our portable DVD player and a couple new-to-us seasons of the Andy Griffith show. :)

We came home to about 1 1/2+ feet of new snow--the snowiest December in recent history. It was a VERY white Christmas!

We got together with my parents on Christmas Eve, and then again with them and my brother's family on Friday night. In between, we had our own little family Christmas here at home, on Christmas day. We got so many nice gifts from our families . . . too many to list them all, but a few favorites were a new cookbook--King Arthur Flour's Whole Grain Baking, which I've already used once to make cinnamon rolls!--a few DVDs, new handmade dishcloths, sweaters, mixing bowl, handmade calendar, and an adorable Eloise Wilkin baby book for the new baby. I've also had fun spending some of my Christmas money on various things, including a new maternity sweater that I got at Old Navy today for 50% off--yippee! :) Jim and I are also talking about using some gift money to get an ice cream maker attachment for our Kitchen Aid.

So . . . last week was spent unpacking, celebrating, and trying to get ourselves back to a semi-normal routine! The kids seem happy to be back in their own beds; at least they're sleeping all night, most every night. :) Today we had a potluck dinner at church, then an afternoon service with a concert by Christy Galkin. (This was our church's Resolution Sunday, and Will Galkin was our special speaker for the day.) We stopped at the mall on the way home so I could shop at Old Navy, and the kids got a pretty good nap all the way home. It was nice to have the evening to relax. I made deep dish pizza and we munched on some of our Christmas candy and oranges. Now we plan to head for bed soon! It's been a busy week. I hope to catch up on the housework, laundry, and all that good stuff over the week ahead. It will feel good to get off to a fresh start in the new year!

Hopefully I'll be back to blogging regularly in the weeks ahead--thanks for all your comments, and sorry I haven't had time to reply to them--that's another thing I'll try to work on in 2008. :)