Unexpected Road Trip

The Michaels Family just returned from a mega-long car trip. Last Tuesday, January 3, Chris lost his grandfather. On Thursday, Chris, myself, Sara Kate, Jenny, Jason, Hannah, Hayden, and Sharon began a 20 hour journey to Pennsylvania (Bob was already up there). Chris and I drove my car with Sara Kate and Hannah (a 20 month old and a 3 and a half year old, mind you!), and Sharon's car carried Jenny, Jason, Hayden, and Sharon. The girls did wonderfully on the trip, thanks in part to a DVD player borrowed from Jason's sister. I think it was a big help for Sara Kate to have her cousin in the car. It took us 2 days to get there, we were there for a full day on Saturday, and it took us 2 days to get back. Here are some images from all the states Sara Kate visited on her first MEGA LONG road trip!

Sara Kate got alot of bonding time with her cousins and her aunt and uncle, too. We are very blessed to have these kids in our lives and their parents in our lives!

We also made a little detour on the way back to visit one of the Great Lakes, Lake Erie!! It was soooo cold!! But it was very neat to see such a landmark.

Needless to say, it's GOOD to be home!!!

Christmas 2011 - Part 2

On Friday, we celebrated Christmas with Chris' family. The whole crew was there, including the family from Texas, his grandfather, Jenny, Jason, and the kids, us, and of course, his parents. We had a lovely afternoon/evening with everyone. Sara Kate was a completely different child than she was for our Christmas with my family, and she loved every minute of opening her presents and playing with her new toys. She was well and she loves being at her Meme and Poppa's house. We hung out for a bit and then it was time to open presents. With Chris' family, we all buy for the kids, and we do a gift exchange with the adults. All names going into a hat and each person draws a name, and then whoever you draw is who you buy a gift for. It works out good and is fun. We open presents one at a time, starting with the youngest and working up to the oldest. That way we can see what everyone got, which is fun.

Jenny and I had each other in the gift exchange, and Chris and Jason had each other, but all 4 of us had a gift from Santa and we all got these tumbler glasses! Chris and I are looking forward to using ours!

We had a little play time before a nice dinner of ham, green bean bundles, mashed potatoes, and gooey butter cake.

The kids had bathtime before the Texas family had to head out.

The caption for this picture is...
'I'm a giant man baby, don't mess with me!' :-)

Christmas Part 2 was great, and over all, our Christmas' were just wonderful. I just wish Sara Kate would have been well when we celebrated with my family. Oh well. The big gifts for Sara Kate this year were Little People! She got the Little People Nativity, the Little People Noah's Ark, and a Little People doll house and car. For me, gift cards were the big thing, and for Chris sweaters, grill stuff, and money were popular.

I've spent the last day of my Christmas break cleaning up the house, putting everything away, and having fun playing with Sara Kate. I'll end with one last picture of Sara Kate 'decorating' while Chris and I were un-decorating the tree. So cute.

December Look Back in Pictures

* Warning, picture overload below! :-)

I really dropped the ball on blogging in December, and I'm not entirely sure what kept us so busy all month. We didn't have any parties or dinners to go to, but Chris was pretty busy with school the beginning of the month and I was swamped all month at work which just made for a tired mama at the end of the day. I guess just having a busy 20 month old made time fly by! Chris even commented today that this Christmas season went by too fast, but it seems that they always do. We have lots of cute pictures to share from the month that never got posted since I didn't do much blogging during the month so I thought I'd just do 'a look back' on our December 2011! Enjoy!
Enthralled by the tree...

Silly girl...

Learning to 'smile' on cue!

Attempting family pictures in front of the tree one night and then silliness ensued...

Sweet moments...

What exactly is on my head?

Busted climbing into the coffee table toy box!The infamous Santa visit (I just had to include this one again)...

'Santa' dress photo shoot for Gran (dress was from my mom)...
And from that photo shoot, my FAVORITE picture from the month...

Lights of the Ozarks in downtown Fayetteville...

We hope your Christmas was merry, your New Year's was happy, and we look forward to sharing many more stories and pictures with you in 2012!