Christmas, New Years and Beyond.... Part 4

"I pray that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith". Ephesians 3:16-17

December 27th - 31st

Wednesday

I had to share these pictures of the kids from the day after we got home from College Station.  It might be the only time they do this.  Bill had gone to work and the kids were so excited to play all their new Wii games and play with all their new toys.  It was a lounge around the house day for the kids.  I spent the day and the next day packing all the Christmas decorations away and cleaning. We had a great Christmas, but it was time to get the house back to normal.

Look how cute they are, all snuggled up on the chair.

Can't leave our little peanut out.

Before I packed away the Christmas Wreath Allison and I made, I took a few pictures of it. I talked about our wreath in a previous blog post and wanted to share the finished product.   I loved the color blue in it.  It wasn't your "traditional" Christmas wreath, but it sure gave you a happy feeling when you looked at it.  The colors looked really nice with our new decor. 

December 30th - Friday

Everything was clean and packed away from Christmas, finally, a perfect day for company, especially, since most of the time it looks like WWIII just took place.  Meaning Allison, Alex and Avery, they can destroy a house faster than I can pick it up.  Anyway, Brian, Betsy, Kinsley, Martha and Jeff stopped by to pick up a bunch of baby equipment, they had been in town for the Alamo Bowl. Let me give a relationship rundown before I move on:  Brian is Bill's first cousin on his dad's side and they are 12 years apart, Bill being older, he married Betsy and they had Kinsley on October 10th, 2011.  Martha and Jeff are Betsy's parents.  Martha has also been my photography "mentor" since we bought our new camera.  She also inspired me to start a photo blog, so I can keep a record of  all my "good" shots I take, plus it helps me keep a record of how I shot that picture. Love Love, Love my new blog.  I hope everyone checks it out.  The numbers underneath the pictures are more for me, but the pictures are for everyone to enjoy.  A Photographic Promenade Click on the link and it will take you right to my other blog.  Moving on along, Martha and Jeff could only stay for a short while, which she spent most of her time showing me how to use and why I need an external flash, which I still need to buy.  After they loaded baby paraphernalia and headed back home, we spent a couple of hours with Brian, Betsy and Kinsley. I got to hold Kinsley the entire time she was here.  Loved holding her, she is precious and absolutely beautiful.  Allison wanted to hold her so bad, but she had a bad stuffy nose and she was so scared Kinsley would get sick.  She was so sad because she loves babies and looks at all the pictures of Kinsley with me.  I hope Kinsley hasn't grown too much by the time we head to see them in a couple of weeks.

Here's a link to Martha's photog: Shoot du Jour - she is very talented and has already taught me so much.  I hope everyone enjoys looking at all her beautiful pictures.

Allison, Avery and me, holding Kinsley.

December 31st - Saturday...
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It was another beautiful day.  If you remember from an earlier post, we brought back a trailer load of firewood home from the ranch.  Within the small pieces there were logs that had to be split.  Bill couldn't find a splitter to rent, so he did it himself.  I sat and watched him while he worked.....  Bill also changed out both lights in the kitchen.  He switched out the pendent light over the sink and replaced the ceiling fan above the kitchen table with a new chandelier.  It is definitely more our style.

What a beautiful pile of firewood.

Our new lighting

New light over the sink.    I didn't have a picture of the old pendant hanging over the sink.

New light over the kitchen table.

Old ceiling fan over the kitchen table.

New Years....and beyond......

We didn't have a very "exciting" New Years, but it was nice to be at home with everyone.  We enjoyed the weather and didn't do much of anything, except normal life stuff.  All 3 kids were sick on New Years Day and of course it was my turn.  We took several trips to the doctor the first week of January.  Everyone had come down with a respiratory virus, Allison and Avery had a viral throat infection on top of the respiratory virus, which was very painful for Allison, we are looking forward to the warmer weather and being in the pool, so we don't keep spreading germs from being inside so much.  I don't have any pictures to post for New Years but maybe next year! Here are the pictures I do have, Bill took pictures of us laying around feeling sick.  I thought they showed the other side of life.  The side where it's real and we do have sick kids and I do get sick with them.  I haven't yet taken a picture of all the laundry we constantly have, but it's there.  Life isn't all happy go lucky around here, it has it's up and downs, but in the blogging world, we tend to focus more on the ups.  I read a lot of blogs and not many people post pictures of the mountain of dishes sitting in the sink or the 12 loads of laundry that have to be washed and the 15 that need to be folded before the 12 are washed, so to show we are real, here are some hilarious pictures of the kids and I, definitely not one of our best days to be photographed, but they make me laugh.

Life is Bliss.........................