The Big Move (part 1)

After the holidays my focus switched to moving. All of our things from Boston were stored at the Kuevens' office building along with boxes and furniture that were stored from Tupelo. Cheri helped me go through and repack some of our things at the office. We had fun looking through boxes that were packed from before we moved to Boston along with some wedding gifts that we didn't have room for in Tupelo. I kept thinking I only had "one more box" to pack, which turned into multiple trips back to the office to get everything there.
The days leading up to the closing were very stressful. The date changed a few times, appliances were late being installed, trying to coordinate movers in Meridian, different ones in Katy, renting the U-haul... Whew!

Chance, Toby, and I said our goodbyes in Meridian and spent Wednesday night (Jan 9) with LA and Chris in Hattiesburg. I loved seeing their house and hanging out with them for the night. We hit the road around 9 the next day excited to get to Texas and see John. I cannot say enough how easy our drive was, which was a major prayer answered! We had a few hours of rain and some traffic once we got to Houston but other than that we had a smooth trip. Chance and Toby were both wonderful passengers! Thursday night was spent in a hotel in Katy and Friday was the big day... The house would be ours!!

John worked until noon, we did our final walkthrough at the house, then met to close a few hours later. Again, Chance was great during the whole process. He sat during the closing and watched Mickey on my phone... Sweet boy! Of course closing took forever.... It was after 7:00 once we finally got our keys and made it home. We celebrated with McDonald's and some champagne, very classy I know! Ha. We set up Chance in his pack-n-play, blew up our air mattress, and enjoyed our first night in our new house!

Christmas Continued

The Christmas festivities continued the next day with our second annual gift card swap. Everyone spent the day at Marge and Big D's house and we had a blast. We ate, played, opened gifts, and ate some more. It was a fun-filled family day!

Our final holiday celebration was New Year's Eve. While Chance stayed with Pops and CC, John and I rang in the new year at Rae and Bob's. We grilled out, watched football, shot fireworks (everyone but me!), and enjoyed a little champagne at midnight. It was a great night!

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve is one of my favorite nights of the whole year.  I am so thankful that mine and John's family both go to First Presbyterian so we can all go to church together.  I love the candlelight service and getting to see all of my church family I grew up with.  After the service we all attend our annual Christmas Eve party.  This tradition was started way before I was born and used to be at Mommo's house.  It now is carried on at my parents' and we have such a great time!  Lots of food, drinks, and fellowship with our dearest friends and family.  As the evening comes to a close, we all gather around the piano and sing carols.  The twelve days of Christmas is always a favorite...we make EVERYONE get involved!  The last song is always "We Three Kings" and again the verses are divided up for everyone to sing. Such a great night and so many wonderful memories over the years.  It's neat because the party has evolved over the years as all of our families change.... boyfriends, fiancés, husbands, new babies, etc.  This year we also got to Skype with John Blubaugh while we was overseas. It was a wonderful night!!

Merry Christmas

Chance woke up bright and early on Christmas morning. John got up to make sure all the Kuevens were up and to pass out the cameras/iPhones to capture us coming downstairs to see if Santa came. Chance squealed when we came downstairs and he saw the toys sitting out and then he ran right to them.
We had fun watching him play with his new toys, look through his stocking, and run around. Then we opened our gifts to each other and the ones from Pops and CC to all of us. It was a fun relaxing morning.
Cheri and Jennifer made us a delicious breakfast from some new Pinterest recipes, complete with mimosas. Everything was delicious!!
The weather was supposed to get bad later that day so Jennifer and Cale got ready and went to Purvis to spend time with Cale's family and we went to have Christmas with my family.

We met my family at Mommo's for Christmas lunch. Rae and Robert were having Christmas with the Westbrooks and LA and Chris had to stay in Hattiesburg due to bad weather and LA's work. We missed them but still had a good time. We stuffed ourselves with a fabulous lunch then spread out in the den to open presents. Once again, we pass out all the presents then open one at a time from youngest to oldest. It was fun seeing everyone's gifts and we played with them along the way. That night we all went to Billie and Coon's for supper and our annual pj party. It's a nice way to relax, spend time together, and play with Christmas toys.

We are so blessed and thankful we got to spend the day with our families celebrating Christ's birth.

Christmas with the Whites

For the first year ever, we did Christmas with our families early.  Due to jobs and additional families to coordinate with, we decided Christmas would be most enjoyable with my side of the family on the Saturday before.  We were all a little skeptical at first, but it ended up being wonderful because we had the whole day and never felt rushed or like we were trying to move on to the next place.  Everyone got to Mom and Dad's a little before lunch.  We all drew names and exchanged those presents while Chance was napping.  


Once we ate and Chance woke up, we opened more presents.  It was so much fun!  As usual, we went around the room youngest to oldest and watched each other open.  There were fun surprises for everyone!  The other great thing about having the whole day was, we had plenty of time to play with our new things!


That night we had a delicious meal of Mom's lasagna....a family favorite!  What a great day!

Christmas with the Kuevens

We had Christmas with the Kuevens on Sunday.  Aunt Jo and Uncle Dan, Mrs. Linda, Lisa, and Jenna, and Uncle Dan's son Austin and his little boy Liam all came over. We also exchange names on their side so we had fun giving each other our gifts.  I think this is the first time in years that I didn't have Uncle Dan or him have me!
Later we all had dinner.  Cheri made roast and vegetables and we were all stuffed!! 
After dinner we enjoyed sitting around and visiting with each other.  Chance and Liam played with their new toys while adults all sat around and talked.  It was another great day with our family!