in between

Well.  Christmas was Tuesday and I can't believe that December is now basically over.  Where has the year gone!? 

West Virginia/our area was apparently supposed to get some incredible winter storm last Thursday/Friday..or something.  I don't remember.  Regardless, we got a lot of high winds, a little rain, and a loss of power.  Which was annoying.  Fortunately, the power came back on right as we were getting ready to leave.  Lily and I did a happy dance, and Jesse didn't really notice a change until I pointed it out to him.  Lily and I did make some shadow puppets on the wall while we were getting packed up, so that was pretty priceless and made it (almost) worthwhile.

We had a great time in Findlay with my family (minus Joel and Kimmy, we missed you) over the past weekend.  Jesse, the girls and I left last Friday to get to my parents house.  We (thankfully) pulled over at a truck stop near Zanesville and Jesse overheard some truckers discussing how I70 was closed, which was our route home since the snow was piling up on back roads we normally take.  Since the road was closed, due to an accident, and we didn't feel like sitting in backed up traffic for 5 hours, we crashed at Jesse's parent's overnight and left for Findlay early Saturday morning.  

We had a great time in Findlay, seeing some friends and visiting my grandparents.  Emma decided that she needed to come down with a nasty cold Saturday night, which led to a midnight WalMart run with my mom for some supplies to try and help her breathe.  Poor baby is finally sounding a bit better.  Having a sick kiddo made me a bit more stressed than normal, so I promised my mom that one day, I would be able to come to Findlay for the weekend and not be stressed out the whole time.  We will see, it might be a few years before that happens..[to clarify, stressed from traveling with the girls.  Not stressed from being in Findlay]

working on decorating a gingerbread man

we even got Richard to participate

all the gingerbread people we decorated

Anyway, I had a great vision (of course) of how excited Lily would be on Christmas Eve morning (when my family opened our presents), and was able to talk the whole family into being in a good mood and letting me wake them all up early so we could bring her down stairs to see presents under the tree.  Let me tell you what.  Not so much.  She walked down the stairs, looked around and said "cuckoo done sleeping?" and then got further sidetracked by my mom who was having a little pre-breakfast snack and Lily wanted to join in on that, too.  Regardless, once we got her attention, she was very excited for all the unwrapping going on.  

new zubaz pants!

go ahead, be jealous of Lily's awesome nap mat!  Jesse and I want them in adult size..

Lily is buried in that pile of blankets

We all headed to my grandparents apartment on Christmas Day for a delicious dinner before the girls, Jesse and I had to head home so Jesse could go to work yesterday.  He also decided to come down with some sort of sickness, not too sure what it is yet, but hopefully he gets over it right now.  The girls and I had to drive him to work this morning because when I peeled myself out of bed to let the dog out, our front door was covered in ice and upon further investigation, so was the road.  We got probably about 3 miles from home before we met someone that told us to turn around and go the other way into town because people weren't making it up the next hill.  I forgot on the way home (naturally) and stopped at in the flat spot between two hills because a mini van was stopped sideways on the hill in front of me.  I stopped and got out at the bottom of their hill and hiked up the road to make sure they were all ok (which they were), and then literally slid the entire way back down to my car where I was able to turn around and go the clear route.  

And my family and people who have visited should understand this: no cars have been making that hill, but when I was there, guess who I heard coming?  Yep.  That Blue Van.  They must have gunned it the entire way up the hill, and when they crested the hill and were coming down the other side (where the van was stopped on the hill and my girls were waiting in my car at the bottom of the hill that I was ice skating towards), I could see that they had their brakes on because their tires weren't moving and they just kept skidding right past.  I prayed them the whole way past my car that they wouldn't slip into my car with my girls in it.

Anyway, not a lot to report here.  I feel that I have been behind on posting updates, though mostly it's just the pictures you all are concerned with, I'm sure.  I will post what (pathetic) update of the daily pictures HERE so check 'er out.