Back At It After The Holidays

I cannot believe we are 17 days into the new year already. I also cannot believe that I am finally able to sit down and write after all the holiday festivities. Once 2019 rolled around, we got busy with doctor appointments, school activities, and getting back into our routine. In the last few weeks writing took a back burner to all of the things we had going on. Now, I am back at writing after the holidays. I hope all of my readers had a wonderful holiday season and that your new year is starting off on the right foot. When I last wrote, I summed up what 2018 was like for my family and I. Also, when I last wrote, we were in full swing for getting ready for the holidays.

We traveled to be with my husband's family for Christmas. Right after Christmas we traveled for my brother in law's wedding. In this post I will recap our Christmas break. I did not get as many pictures of Christmas and the wedding as I wanted to, but it is okay because we made a lot of memories! The memories we made will always stay with me. Just watching and soaking everything in made me realize, even more so than before, just how blessed I am to have a wonderful family.

Christmas
Let me talk about Christmas first! We left our house on December 23rd to head to my mother in law's house. We wanted to make sure we were there in time for Christmas Eve. December 24th is a hard day for my husband's family. In 2015 my husband's dad passed away on Christmas Eve. Ever since then we make sure we are all together on the 24th. We want to be there for my mother in law as well as each other. It is definitely an emotional day for us. We made the best of the day with our three older boys and my husband making buckeyes. That was followed up by going to a candlelight Christmas Eve service on Christmas Eve. Candlelight services are my favorite at Christmastime. It was beautiful and such a great way to kick off Christmas with my family. We have the tradition of opening one present on Christmas Eve. The tradition is everyone gets a pair of pajamas on Christmas Eve and we wear the pajamas to bed and spend most of our Christmas day in the pajamas as well.

My husband and our older three kids making buckeyes.

Our daughter in her adorable Christmas eve outfit.

Christmas day was just the most perfect day. We spent it with my husband's family (my husband's two brothers, our sister in law, our nephew, and my husband's mom). Our kids enjoyed opening presents. We enjoyed watching them open their presents (the best part of Christmas for me). The best present our kids received were Build A Bears. All 5 kids got one and we call them their Papaw bears. As I said, my father in law passed away Christmas Eve of 2015. The Papaw bears (their Build A Bear) has a voice sound of their Papaw playing a game with our older two kids. It is a very special gift that my husband's mom gave them. It means so much to them and to us. We are doing our very best to keep my father in law's memory alive to pass on memories to our kids. After opening presents we lounged around and ended the day with a big Christmas dinner. As I said, I didn't get as many pictures as I wanted to, because I was enjoying every moment and making Christmas memories.

After Christmas
Once Christmas was over we prepared to travel to Ohio for my brother in law's wedding. We went straight from my mother in law's house to Ohio (we were away from home for a whole week). My husband and our four boys were all in the wedding. The wedding took place on December 29th. The wedding was absolutely beautiful. Again, emotions were all over the place. It was hard because my father in law was not here to be at the wedding as he was for our wedding in 2009 and my other brother in law's wedding summer of 2015. We made it through with close friends and family by our side. Here are just a few pictures from the wedding. Like I already stated, I didn't take as many pictures as I wanted to. I soaked up every moment with family at the wedding.

Those are all the pictures from the wedding. Here are some miscellenous pictures from our trip. Our trip was great. Our kids did so well traveling. Our hotel was simply wonderful! We really soaked in the time as a family of 7 as well as the time spent with my husband's family.

At a rest stop.

Eating breakfast at our hotel.

Naptime in the big comfy hotel beds.

The kids all got baby shark t-shirts for Christmas.

There you have it, our Christmas break! We are definitely ready for 2019! So far our 2019 has been great!

As I said already, we are getting back into our routine. I am so excited to get back into writing. I am looking forward to 2019 here on my blog and all of the topics that I have planned to write about. My goal is to keep up with my blog more than I did in 2018. I hope you all enjoy reading about our family as much as I love writing about our family. I love sharing the adventures of our family of 7 and how we keep the faith, hope, and love in everything we do.

I hope 2019 is a wonderful year for my readers!