Christmas Vacation

Today is our first day back to reality with June back in school and Dan back to work after an 11 day break. It's been so fun having him home and really having the kids home with no schedule and we do as we please. It's been great but couldn't last forever. I think today we are all having a bit of a hangover from all the fun. 

The week after Christmas was so much fun. We really did whatever we wanted! We watched movies, played hard outside in the beautiful weather, did crafts, activities, binge watched Netflix and loved playing Nintendo. It was such a good week. 

Monday was the day after Christmas and it started off a visit from my Aunt and Uncle Cheney. They live in Houston and we don't see them nearly enough! They are always checking in with us though to make sure we are doing ok. It's nice having family somewhat close incase we were ever in an emergency! 

My little happy Kater in one of her new Christmas outfits. 

Later that day we went and rode the carousel and get lunch. 

That night everyone got busy building their legos. June is at that age where she wants to do it all on her own and she totally did! She is getting so good at building legos. Dan got his own Legos too this Christmas. They were concentrating so hard. It was pretty cute that they were working so hard on their Lego's together. 

Tuesday we all went to a movie together. We even took Kate. She actually did really well! We packed toys and snacks and we were able to watch the entire movie. It worked out great!

Grandma and Grandpa Lancaster sent Ranger a bowtie collar. It made him so fancy and classy! We loved it. 

Wednesday we played with more Christmas toys and then headed to the park. Owen fell asleep on the way to the park and he seriously was out like a log. He seriously would not wake up! No matter how hard we tried. He slept and drooled on Dan's shoulder for a solid hour and a half. 

Thursday we went to the Perot Museum. The kids had fun running and playing all over the place. It was pretty crowded but we had a fun time. 

Owen did the dinosaur puzzles over 20 times. 

We of course raced the dinosaur

And June raced the cheetah. She was so funny about it. She kept telling us how nervous she was to race the cheetah because he was so fast. She did it though, in her witch costume and all!

Kate was loving life and loving roaming around! She was all over the place. 

June of course instantly made best friends at the museum. That girl doesn't have a shy bone in her body. 

Owen loves to stack and then make them all crash down

These two played hard together this week! They fought of course but they also played really well. They even let each other play with their Christmas toys. That is a win!

Friday Dan took the kids to the movie and I deep cleaned the house. Got everything back in order and organized it. It was desperately needed and felt good before we rang in the new year. 

One night Owen was snuggling with me on the couch. He leans over and smells me. Then he crawls over to Dan's lap. I asked him what happened to my snuggle buddy and Owen goes "Mommy, you smell really bad. You need a shower!" He was dead serious too. I also had literally just gotten out of the shower. 

Saturday was New Years Eve. We started our morning with the making of our Unicorn Cheesecake while Kate took a morning nap. 

Once Kate woke up we packed our lunch and spent the entire afternoon at the park. It was so much fun. The kids were loving it, Kate was happy and we enjoyed the warm weather. 

Kate's two little teeth have come quite handy for her to chomp an apple. She went to town on that thing. 

We spent all afternoon at the park and then came home for a little down time before we started our New Years Eve celebration. 

Kate loves this window. She looks out it all the time and plus it's in the playroom with all the kids so she feels very content and happy there. 

It was then time to party. This was our 2nd annual trip to Chuck E Cheese for New Years Eve. The kids love it and really we do too. The kids have so much fun and we love watching them play. Plus we play a few games too. Ha!

Kate just chomping some pizza

Our first jackpot of the night was Owen. He spun the ball to win. He was so excited! 

Then Dan won the ultimate jackpot on the Crown game. We were all pretty excited about it! We really always win the jackpots at these kind of games. But really. Always. 

We then cashed our tickets in for cheap little prizes and we were all set to head home and get our celebration on!

We let our kids stay up as late as they want or can (until midnight) and we play. Kate made it until about 9pm. Mostly because we didn't get home from Chuck E Cheese until that late. 

We ate our unicorn cheesecake and watched "Finding Dory". Owen made it through about half the movie, around 10:30pm and then he just went to bed all by himself. He was ready!

We finished the movie and we played until 11:45 rolled around and then we turned on the TV to watch the ball drop. June was so wired! She loved being up so late. She told us that after midnight she still wasn't tired. We convinced her to come snuggle in bed with Dan and I. She was out in like 10 seconds. Hahaha

The next morning we didn't have church until one. It's our new church time and we aren't too thrilled about it. It always feels like such a long morning and maybe it  was just because we were all pretty tired from the night before, but the day seemed to drag on and on. We are pretty pumped that we only have this church time for the next five or six months until our house is built and then we go back to early morning church. 

We did take advantage of our morning and drove out to our house. We do a weekly Sunday drive so it's looking like it will start happening in the morning. 

A new update! Our house is covered and pipes are covered as well. If we don't get drenched with rain this week than we should be seeing foundation. Or so we think. Haha 

Owen started his official debut in Primary as a Sunbeam. All morning he was dreading it. He just kept saying he wanted to be in nursery with his friends. Well thankfully his two little besties are in his Sunbeam class so that helped convince him that it was ok to go. And having his mom in there helped too. 

Kate was being a total doll on Sunday so I had to get a quick picture of her. Plus her little pony tails are to die for. And they are now string enough to hold a bow! It's perfection! 

Owen did great in Primary. We invited all the new Sunbeams to come to primary a few weeks ago to singing time, just so they could see what it would be like. Owen liked it so when it was singing time he got all excited again. I think he will be just fine in Sunbeams. Plus I put him with two really good teachers. Hey, you gotta have some perks of being the Primary President!

Monday rolled around again and I was dreading it. I didn't want it to be our last day of Christmas break. We have had such a great week all together and surprisingly we weren't sick of each other. Actually I'm not all that surprised. Our family is weirdly attached to each other. Dan and I always joke about how maybe we shouldn't spend so much time together. Hahaha but we never do. We would much rather be with each other than with anyone else. 

Owen really suffers from severe growing pains. We think that has to do with his sleep. We aren't sure if it's night terrors or growing pains but I'm getting more confident that it's growing pains in his legs.

On Monday he couldn't even stand or walk his legs were aching so bad. I held him and rubbed his legs until he fell asleep in my arms. THIS NEVER HAPPENS ANYMORE!! It was such a great afternoon snuggled up with him. 

Once everyone woke up from their naps and feeling a lot better, we went and got half price drinks at Sonic (Our new favorite thing to do) and headed to the park. We tried mixing our parks up but the kids favorite park is Harvest run so back to Harvest run it was!

No matter where we go outside or what we are doing, Dan can find something to show the kids. This time it was fossils and the kiddos were so intrigued with it all. They seriously hunted for fossils for an hour. 

I love Dan's job. I love his passion for it. I love that to him it's not just work and that he uses it to teach our children about the world and how it once was. It's pretty cool. 

We literally stayed at the park until the Sun went down. Even then we all had a hard time leaving but it was getting late and we needed to get home. We really didn't want this Christmas break to end. It was so needed for our little family to just be home and be together. It's been a crazy last few months and we needed a detox. 

Once we got home, we had dinner, baths and to bed early. Dan and I finished up a few things around the house and called it a night ourselves.  

We were right, it would rough waking up to alarms this morning. 

We are looking forward to a long weekend in the next couple of weeks!!