Home Sweet Home Musings - The Rest of our time in Virginia

We headed back to Richmond just in time to celebrate my mom's birthday ... the kids had fun helping to open her presents ... who doesn't like presents? 

 

  

  

Now that's a gift that keeps on giving ... LOVE that glass!

  

  

I adore this photograph. I'm soooo glad that Meighan has this with her grandma like I had with mine. There is nothing quite as special as a Grandma!  Especially one that loves you this much ...

  

  

  

  

The kids were swimming fools, using Grandma and Grandpa's pool at every opportunity!

  

  

  

  

  

  

On our last day in town, our friends Henry and Lisa came over and we finally got to meet their little guy ... he's just about the sweetest little guy EVER! Amazing how grown up he is ... It was great to hang with them for awhile. We miss them so much. The kids loved playing with little Henry ... and he was a good sport. This was little Henry's first time in the pool ... we tried the raft but he wasn't a fan of that. He did like hanging out with his daddy and getting wet while in his arms.

    

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

 

Soon after Henry and Lisa left, we headed out of town and back to Missouri. It was really difficult to leave the twins in Richmond (they spent another week at Grandma and Grandpa's house). Leaving was very bittersweet for me. I miss home so much but, more importantly, the people that make it home to me. My family. Our friends. The familiar places. The comfort of home. Sometimes we take so much for granted. Going home after 12 months in St. Louis helped me to realize how fortunate we are to have so many people who love us. I will continue to miss Virginia and all the people we love but I'm also proud of us for venturing out of our comfort zone and moving so far from home to try to make a better life for our family. And, I was reluctantly eager to head home ... to our house, our things, my job, the people that populate our life in Missouri. I have to admit that I was looking forward to the idea of a week without kids ... that's something that I hadn't experienced in four years. It was nice to have some time to re-energize ourselves and do some of the things we rarely get to do since we had children ... But, we missed them and couldn't wait for them to come home to us!

Christmas in St. Louis

I hope all of you had a Merry Christmas! This was our first Christmas in St. Louis & we had a really nice holiday. Things have been so busy lately that I was a little behind where I'd hoped to be in terms of getting the house decorated, cookies baked & presents bought but it all came together in the end.

This year we did lots of baking! First up was Chocolate Chip Cookies which we made from a mix - I can't seem to find a Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe that I actually like as much as the mixes you can buy at the store so I stuck with what we like!

Meighan loved helping me bake this year - here she is making cookie balls for our cookies ...


Alex came in to help for a minute but he bored of it quickly & moved on -


I really wanted to make some different cookies this year, something the kids would enjoy helping to make. So, I found a recipe for sugar cookies with frosting that looked great (you can find it HERE if you're interested) & we decided to make homemade, from scratch cookies & frosting. A first for me (I'm not much of a baker!). Here's the finished product -



Meighan enjoyed helping me with the frosting - she and Alex picked the frosting colors (pink, purple, blue and green).

And here she is decorating the cookies with sprinkles - she said it was the best part!

Meighan's cookie masterpieces -

All piled up and ready to eat!

The mess that remained & mommy had to clean up!


Then, we began to decorate our tree. We wanted to do it earlier in the month but life took over and it wasn't done until the weekend bef0re Christmas. I might leave the tree up awhile just to enjoy it! I don't have many photos of Alex in the tree trimming pictures because he insisted on taking his pants off & running around with no undies. It wasn't worth the argument so I'll keep those pictures off the web & torture him with them later when his future girlfriends visit me!

Meighan loves her Daddy!!

On Tuesday, Mom and Dave arrived for the holiday! They drove out from VA, bringing along the dogs. On Tuesday night we ate out but on Christmas Eve, I made my 'infamous' salisbury steak! The one thing that I can cook well ...


We left cookies & milk for Santa on the new plate that Meighan picked out this year ...

Meighan being her sassy self with Grandma & Grandpa!

Alex was in a mood (no napping might have accounted for the mood) & insisted on eating some of Santa's cookies. He also wouldn't put on his new Christmas Pajamas so that I could get a photo but we made the best of it!

Meighan in her Christmas Pajamas - Princesses, of course!

Mom brought a tin of her famous sugar cookies which we all enjoyed ...

Me and my girl. Boy, I really need a haircut. And I need to lose some weight.

My handsome boy!


The tree, after Santa visited ... yes, the kids got WAY more presents than they EVER needed. Between Santa, Grandma & Grandpa, and Pop Pop & Nina, they had a TON of presents to open. They are very, very lucky kiddos.

Christmas morning was pure chaos. The kids actually slept until after 9 a.m. which was a Christmas miracle in and of itself. Then, they woke us up & came running down to see if Santa had visited. Sure enough, he'd left a TON of presents for them. They were so excited that they didn't even know where to start!

Mom and Dave brought these cool buckets for each of the kids. Alex's is SpiderMan & Meighan's is princesses/fairys. Very cool.

And they also brought his Hulk pinball game which was a big hit!

One of the kids' favorite gifts was the Leapster Tag system that Pop Pop, Nina and Elizabeth sent from Virginia! They loved all their presetnts but this was definately a hit. As were the bouncy balls with Ariel & Batman on them. They've been bouncing all around the house. (We'd hoped to have them open their gifts via the web cam that Dad and Nina sent but asking two 3 year olds to wait to open presents is basically impossible. So, I took lots of pictures & we'll show Pop Pop & Nina how much they LOVE their gifts when we get the web cam hooked up (we're hoping to get it up today so we can see them later today even!).

For weeks, all Alex has talked about is these little Iron Man guys. He was so so so excited to see them arrive from Santa. He immediately began playing with them. Santa seems to know EXACTLY what these kids like. Amazing!

Meighan got a TON of new Barbies which she LOVES. This one is a Veteranarian. Santa also brought her a princess Barbie & a President Barbie.

The kids are loving their new Leapster game systems. Alex got a Batman game for his & Meighan got a Princess game. They have had a blast figuring out the different games.

Meighan has been asking for a new waterglobe/music box so Santa brought her a beautiful Princess one. Now, if we can just keep it from getting broken!

Our very own fancy Meighan, got a Fancy Nancy book!

And the present that she's been asking for over and over for months - the infamous Cupcake Maker.


And Meg's Leapster ...


And the new IronMan movie which we've seen 6 times since Christmas morning LOL

The chaos ....
The boxes - why in the world do they make it so difficult to open up one little toy. Jeez.

So much stuff that even Mommy was overwhelmed ...

Alex the Reindeer -

Alex with his IronMan men - the obsession continues ...

Meighan getting ready to go to the movies with Grandma & Grandpa - they took the twins to see that new dog movie, Bolt. They had a blast ...


And that it is for me now. I have so much to get done right now - getting the house cleaned up & the last of the cookies baked (still need to make the Chocolate Peanut Butter cookies - YUM). And batteries ... we need lots of batteries. Happy Holidays!

****By the way, my cell phone is DEAD as a doornail so if you've been trying to reach me you might want to try Paul's cell phone. Mine is not working no matter what I do now. It's been on its last legs but I've been trying to keep it alive. I'm going to have to give in and get a new cell phone on payday. I'm tired of mine not working for me.