It's been a while since I last updated. My life is still just as boring as ever. Sadly, I'm not sure that will ever change. Such is life, though.

We recently got back from a visit with my family for the holidays. We were there from Christmas Eve until the day after New Years. We had an awesome trip and the kids were thrilled to be able to spend some time with their grandma, aunts, uncles and most of all, their cousins. It was though not a single day had passed and they were all the best of friends, which was really nice. It's usually difficult to get them to play together at first because they haven't seen eachother in so long that they are a bit uncomfortable around eachother. Not this time though...they were fast friends, which I was thrilled with. I feel awful keeping them from their cousins. They have such a great time with them and would be such incredible friends if we lived closer.

Christmas went wonderfully. My kids got way too many things, and loved every single minute of it. Grandma was able to dote and spoil as grandma's should. The only thing missing was my dad. His absense was really felt by Emma. She was noticably sad that he wasn't there and made sure to include him in all of her prayers. I'm sad that my kids miss him so much, but very happy that they still remember him. That was one of my biggest worries...that they would forget him. Cole, of course, only knows who he is because of pictures, but he has some fabricated memories that I let him hold on to. The youngest two were born after my dad passed away.

We got pictures taken of all of the grandkids over Christmas break. I won't post the picture of all of the grandkids or the grandkids and my mom because I don't have permission to post them, but I will post the pic that my kids had done. I think it turned out really cute!

I can't believe how cooperative the kids were! It was as though the moment we stepped into the studio they turned into 11 completely different people! (Can you believe my parents have 11 grandchildren ages 8 and under?!?!?!? Come February there will be 12 and the oldest will STILL be 8...for the next 5 months!)

Ethan apparently wants to be a little model. He LOVED LOVED LOVED having his picture taken! He was always the first one out there posing. He acutally chose most of his own poses. I was glad that the photographer just let him go with it. She was really good with the kids. He's quite the little cheeser, apparently. I had no idea that the camera would bring him out so much. It was so much fun to watch.

The drive home from northern CA sucked...big time. I-5 was closed at 5 different spots and the drive that normally took less than 5 hours (from Sacramento to the grapevine) took almost 12. It was at that point that I decided we needed to pull over for the night and find a hotel. I was just too tired to continue and had at least a 4 hour drive still ahead of me, so I knew it was unsafe to continue driving. Ugh, I hate traffic. Of course, the kids all seem to know exactly when we hit traffic and chose those points in time to wake up and scream and cry the entire time. Ugh, that is quite nerve wracking...especially when you're already stressed out by being in traffic and it taking over two hours to go less than 25 miles!

So anyways, we're back home now. The girls are back in school, Drake is back at work, and it's back to the grind for all of us.