New Year's Day 1-1-2015

New Year's Day was spent half at the Elswood's after having slept over, and the rest at home. We had a nap when we got home and then in the afternoon we took down Christmas. I should say Matt took down Christmas and I decided what to get rid of from our decorations.

As we took down Christmas, we had fun with Kara took. We put the Christmas stockings on her and attempted to take a picture of her with a Christmas hat on too. She didn't like that idea at all.

Matt also dressed her in the tree skirt. She was cute and even had to stand on her stool as it was a little too long for her.

New Year's Eve - 2014

New Year's Eve, we kept our tradition alive with our best framily (friends that are our family). Matt and I were trying to figure out how many years we have been spending New Years with the Elswoods and decided it has been 7 or 8 years. We stay and play at their house and have a sleep over. The kids love it. We had dinner about 6:30 of homemade corn dogs, strawberry spinach salad, chips, and veggies. It all tasted really good, except I didn't even try the corn dogs. 

We then talked for awhile, had some bubbly with the kids, and then put them to bed about 9:30. David, Kristin, Matt, and I then played Seen It. We played two rounds as teams with our spouses. I even contributed a couple times. David and Kristin won both times but we enjoyed ourselves just the same. I like playing games. 

It was harder this year for sleeping over as being 27 weeks pregnant and I not being comfortable in my own bed. After a rough night of sleeping, I ended up sleeping in after knowing Matt had gotten up with Kara until 9:40am. It was so nice to be able to do that! Rough night of sleeping is for sure what I had as Matt tells a funny story of me having a nightmare about spiders and him looking over at me sitting on Kristin's outdoor bike converted into a indoor bike for the winter. Makes me giggle just typing about it. I guess I can really move with being pregnant and being chased by spiders. Good thing I wasn't too delirious and fall off the bike. That would have been hilarious!

Grace and Kara watching a Muppet movie.
I think this picture is adorable. 

Matt, Kara, and Katie shooting the bow and arrows at the door.
Kara would fetch the arrows after they shot them. 

Dinner time with the kids. 

Snow. It finally snowed enough to play in!

Snow! I love snow! Well with being pregnant again, I can't do very much that I like to in the snow, but that doesn't stop me. On December 29th, it finally snowed enough to need to shovel of the driveway. So we waited for Matt to wake up from sleeping, got Kara all dressed and went out to shovel the driveway. 

I tried helping but the shovel I had was tiny and plus I wanted to play with Kara. So I took Kara sledding in the neighbors yard. She loved it!

She had quite an enjoyable time playing in the snow. My mom mentioned that it was weird as most kids her age don't like it and scream because it is cold. 

After Christmas

12-26-2014-
I started not feeling very well on Christmas Eve, but it really didn't hit me until December 26th, which was horrible as Matt wasn't around at all that day because he sacrificed his sleep to go snowboarding with his brother from California and our nephews. Lets just say, Kara and I watched alot of TV.

12-27-2014 -
We went to my family party. This was the first Christmas party without my Gram. For as long as I can remember we would always gather around her on Christmas Eve and she would give us a present. This continues as the family got larger and larger and larger. Lets just say my aunt had 8 kids, my mom had 7 kids, my other aunt had 4 kids, and an uncle with 2. Plus add us all getting married and us having kids of our own. She always got us something. To me it wasn't about the present, but that she was there and it was tradition and this year the tradition was gone. 32 years and now she was gone. I miss her and thought alot about her this past Christmas season. I even have her Christmas tree that she use to keep at her house. It is small and sat in my room this year on the table, but it help me remember her. Gram - I miss you! Glad to know that you are in a better place and you are free from pain. Keep a watch on us!

My Aunt Carrie did make it special though and had a surprise for us to play 2 games. Made the night alot better than just having food and chatting.

12-28-2014
I went to my mom's for dinner. It was a smaller family dinner as it was just two of the families instead of 4. Kara and Leili had fun together as you can tell in this video. They ran around or were spinning around for at least 1 hour.

Christmas 2014

Well, we made it through Christmas. It was different this year as Matt was on his 7 on for graves, so we had to plan accordingly. The plan was to open presents when he got home if Kara was awake at about 7:30 when he came home. Thankfully, she wasn't, so I got to sleep in until about 8:30. Kara and I sat in her room for a while looking at the first real snow for the year. She was mesmerized by it. I finally had to tell her we were going downstairs to eat breakfast.

While she ate breakfast, I put the stocking stuff away, so that Matt wouldn't miss out on her opening her stocking items.

We played around until nap time and we both took a nap as I haven't been sleeping well lately due to the fact of getting more prego.

We all woke up about the same time from our nap, including Matt. So Kara and I had lunch while he had breakfast. Matt got the stocking stuff back out while I cleaned up Kara and then we watched her play with her stocking stuff for a bit.

Afterward that, we went to the frontroom for opening presents. Kara was alot more fun this year than last as she actually knew how to open the presents. She was quite particular though and had to get all the wrapping paper and tape off of each gift.

Kara got a couple clothes and dishes from us that she was able to unwrap. While Matt cleaned up, I jumped in the shower to warm up and get ready to go to my mom's.

We arrived about 4pm and the last ones to get there, but that was to be expected from Matt's work schedule. We opened presents first with the family and than had family dinner.

After dinner, we cleaned up and went over to Matt's parents to see his brother and his family that came through for a couple days on their way back to California. We only got to visit for about an hour as we had to go home for Matt to get ready for work that night.