Ohio Fun!

After Jarrod and I got a few hours of sleep, we were up and ready to go.  We spent some time hanging out at Mimi and Beepa's house, and then everyone got ready for a trip to the aquarium.  It was fun and the kids loved it.  We finished the day with pizza (from LaRosa's of course!) and gifts for the kids.  We always celebrate Christmas early while we're there, and it makes it fun because the kids have stuff to play with during our trip.

Can you tell in this picture how excited he was to get all the Star Wars DVDs???  And Riley's favorite gift?  New boots!  She immediately had to put them on and dance all around in them.  Somehow, the new boots taught her how to skip!  {Which I wish I had a video of to share...it was really like she was walking with a limp, but she thought she was skipping.}

Around midnight, my mom came in to wake me up and let me know that Gavin, who was sleeping in their room, was up calling for me with a fever.  And so began the remainder of our week dealing with up and down fevers and coughs, until he got meds for bronchitis on Wednesday.  Poor guy!  We missed out on a lot of what we had planned to do, but at least he was around all the family!

The next day, my college BFFs made the trek from Columbus and Cleveland to visit with us.  I was so thankful that they even wanted to attempt the trip.  It's a long way to ask people to come for such a short visit, so I didn't bring it up to them...they asked me if they could come!  Great friends. :)  I haven't seen them since 2011 and was thrilled at the thought of meeting Lilah and Claire finally.  It was actually the very first thing I thought about after I consoled Gavin the night before.  I bet the girls won't be able to come now.  But they did still come, and poor Gavin just had to stay up in my parents' room watching Star Wars and napping.  We all went to Skyline for a quick lunch and then hung out at my parents' house, catching up and letting the kids play.  Giovanni was a trooper; he was looking forward to playing with Gavin, but instead had to sit around with with 3 toddler girls!

Great send off!

We've been missing the Lee family since they've been in St. Louis with Maggie.  They've been a little homesick as well so they decided to head home for a little pre-Thanksgiving dinner with friends, but we were headed to Ohio.  So, instead we had a quick Zaxby's take-out dinner here before we got on the road to Ohio and let the kids play and we caught up with Amy and Pete and snapped a few iphone pics.

 

 Then, we decided to be crazy people and got on the road to drive through the night to Ohio!   The kids were really excited, especially when I busted out the glow sticks!

We made GREAT time and it wasn't too bad driving through the night, but Jarrod did do the majority of the driving.  The kids were troopers and enjoyed their 5am snacks from the cool bins I made from them.  We watched a couple movies and the slept for the rest of the trip! 

We pulled into Mimi and Beepa's house at 6:30am!  I'm sure they loved that wake up call. :)  They played with the kids and Jarrod and I went straight to bed.  More to come...

Wordless Wednesday

Room Makeover

Back in October, I wrote about wanting to redo Gavin's room.  Well, things all fell into place and we pulled off the surprise!  Jarrod took a Friday off and we did it.  :)

Gavin's room BEFORE

And AFTER!

{This is my favorite area!  The whole reason I started this room makeover...his brand new Lego work area!}

Close up of his new quilt...Darth Vader, of course!

He loves it so much!  AND, it was perfect timing since he got a lot of new Lego toys for Christmas while we were in Ohio and spends 95% of his time playing with them now (not always in his room...but we're working on it!) 

Wake Up Call

We're back from our Ohio trip and though it didn't go as planned, it was wonderful.  Unfortunately, Gavin got sick the same night we arrived and put a stop to many of the plans we had made, but we still enjoyed lots of quality time with the family.  The week ended with an earlier-than-planned departure because Riley was then sick.  I'm telling you...I'm over this.  Three unexplained fevers for Gavin, the flu for Jarrod, a bronchitis diagnosis for Gavin, a couple bad colds for me, croup for Riley, and now an ear infection for Riley.  All in two months.  D.O.N.E.

I'm working on getting my pictures from the trip uploaded and will be blogging about everything soon.  While we were there, we did our annual Christmas exchange (or exchanges as it ends up being since we're never all ready at the same time...)  One thing I got was a gift card for making another blog book.  I was so excited...I love my other two and really do want to keep them going.  With the Black Friday deals, there was also a special going this weekend, so I spent this morning working on a book before it ended and it was a major wake up call.  I knew I'd been lacking in the blogging department.  I just didn't realize how bad!  Thanks to Rosi's gift card, I finally am caught up through 2010.  But, I had to split 2010 into two books because there were over 300 posts that year.  This year, I only have about 90.  :(  It really makes me sad now.  I know I've said it before, but I MUST get better about it.  I love looking back at my books and in making the one this morning I realized how much I loved doing certain things with Gavin when he was Riley's age that I want to start up again (like Tot School).  I'm looking forward to getting into a new routine after the holidays that will include more photography, more blogging, and more Tot School! ;)

Now...I have to get some things done.  We've been home for four days and I still can't seem to get caught up.  My house is a disaster, I haven't finished unpacking everything, and my to-do list just keeps getting longer and longer.  Such is the life of a mom, right?