I'll be home for Christmas!

We have been in our house for about three months now. Long enough that we have most of the pictures hung up, the bedrooms have curtains and tiebacks, we've ripped down the wallpaper in the master bathroom and have the necessary tools to patch/prime/paint (just need to find the time!). We celebrated our first Thanksgiving and finally feel settled. Decorating for Christmas was a blast. Having a mantle to decorate is new and really helps pull it all together.

Overall, it's gone well but we were REALLY looking forward to going ''home'' for Christmas to Kansas. We had planned on being in Kansas from the 21st-31st but the weather had other ideas. Luckily we left Texas a day early because the weather turned ugly quick!

We had a lot of fun in Kansas. A LOT of fun. And it snowed EIGHT inches the day after we arrived so we had a white Christmas. Snow, baking, family...it was great and much needed after not being with extended family for a holiday in three years.

 

We were very fortunate to be able to visit Grandma Great (my dad's grandma), whom we hadn't seen in over two years. She had a few falls and was hospitalized a few times while we were in Italy and I honestly didn't know if we would get to see her again. Don't quote me, but I'm pretty sure she's 94 years old. Other than her vision, she does really well...still lives on her own in an apartment for seniors. Our trip to Kansas in October was so quick, we didn't have time to drive to the town she lives in (almost 2 hours from where we were in Oct) so I was really thankful we had plenty of time to see her. 

She still tells it like it is ;)

So we saw Grandma Great on Christmas Eve as well as Papa Bob (my dad's dad) who we saw again on Christmas Day.

Christmas eve we went back to my parents house to settle in and wait for Santa. The kids were so freaking pumped up on Christmas Eve that they were up until almost 11pm!

 

For real. It was a long night but made for a fun morning!

The kids all got exactly what they asked Santa for, everything they asked Nana and Papa for, plus lots of extras. Spoiled? Probably but they are good kids :) After opening up presents and getting ready for the day we packed up our stuff from Nana and Papa's house and headed down to Grandma Phyllis' house to see everyone, open more presents and for Christmas dinner.

 

 I got to snuggle and spoil my nephew again, so that was fantastic!

 

We also got to update our four generation pictures...

And the Dads/Papas took the kids outside to enjoy that White Christmas before it melted. They made both a snowman as well as a snow pyramid. It wasn't very cold out with the sun and no wind, which made it a lot more fun (according to them).

 

 All in all, a perfect Christmas!

But as a family we learned an important lesson...home is Texas now. It's kinda sad to say but makes me happy that we're all happy here. By day seven in Kansas the kids wanted to go ''home''.  Asking to just go home. They had a blast but they missed their beds, their house, their rooms and they wanted to play with their toys. We headed home 2 days earlier than planned and it worked out great. We slept in. We spent Christmas money at Build A Bear. We enjoyed our new waffle iron and air popcorn popper with late breakfasts and afternoons spent cuddled up watching movies.