Where have the last 4 weeks gone?!

I don't think I've ever been so busy or behind in my life, and frankly, I don't like it. I've got to find a way to catch up. I don't mind being busy, but I hate being behind. Frazzled is not a good feeling. Where do I begin? I'm sure I won't remember all the little things from the last month, but the big thing was we went home to Indiana. Finally - after almost a year and a half. CJ had to work Mon, Tues, and Wed of Thanksgiving week so on the friday before the kids and I loaded into the truck for our drive home. I have such awesome kids! They were great. Morgan slept most of the way because he didn't feel good. He was throwing up until about midnight before we left at 4:30 am. Am I a bad mom for throwing him in the truck for 16 hrs? I wondered. CJ concluded that he could lay in his bed all day or sit in his carseat all day so we opted to drive. Stopping for gas, potty breaks and food proved to be a little time consuming all by myself with three kids but we still made it in 16 hrs 15 minutes - YEAH ME!!
We started the week at my mom and dad's farm. I love it there. So peaceful and relaxing. We raked up some leaves in their yard and had a blast. My kids have never jumped in leaves before - weird huh? But in Texas we've never had enough trees to have leaves to play in.

Dad took the kids on a tractor ride, which even Morgan loved for a couple of minutes. He took them on walks out to the barn and the woods. Grandpa loves the outdoors and so do my kids - it's a great match.
We baked cookies, read stories, and had lots of fun! My mom had pneumonia (can you believe it?) but she was a trooper and we still had a great time!
One of the greatest things was I got to meet my nephew for the first time: Meet Evan Jude...he's so stinkin' cute it's unbelievable! I also got to meet Laura (my brother's girlfriend) and Natalie (her 2 yr old) and they are sweet to. It was so nice meeting everyone!
On tuesday afternoon we went to CJ's mom and dad's. I have far fewer pictures of these days because Grace and I got terribly sick with a nasty stomach virus. Grace started about 4:30am on Wednesday and I started at 10:30pm that night. CJ's flight got in about 11pm - welcome to Indiana Honey, I can't come get you becuase I'm puking. Nice huh? It was really terrible. I felt bad almost the whole time we were there and so did Grace. But there was still fun to be had by all. Morgan decided that he could get on this riding toy in the kitchen, push off real hard and kick his feet up as he transitioned from the kitchen tile to the living room carpet and that was GREAT fun! It was hysterical to watch.
Papa Dave and Tanner made some building blocks to build bridges with. Which was a total hit! Jan had all kinds of craft projects for the kids. They made gingerbread men, pinecone ornaments, bells, a log cabin, and I can't even remember what else. Tanner got to enjoy it a little more because he wasn't sick but Grace would muster up a little energy every day and ask to do something.
On friday Grace and I both managed to get moving enough to go to the tree farm and cut down our own Christmas tree. It's such a fun experience to walk through all the rows and pick out your favorite one. They will cut it down for you or you can cut it down yourself - we opted for the latter. Tanner got to help and it was so much fun!
We ended the week on saturday having Thanksgiving with my mom's side of the family. I haven't seen many of them in over two years. Everyone is growing and changing and we have a whole new generation running around now. I remember when I was the little one, and now me and my cousins are grown (almost - my Aunt Esta still has school age kids but she's the only one)and there were 7 great-grandkids running around and one more on the way. We got to take this picture of Grace, Me, my mom, and my grandma - what a great opportunity. By the way - can you tell we're related? HA! Makes me so frustrated the Grace is not smiling. She refused. "I don't want to smile." Fine.
We left there to come home on saturday afternoon. About 10:30 saturday night while I'm driving through Missouri Morgan starts puking in the back seat and about 1 hour later CJ is too. OMG! I stopped at the first hotel I could find and we waited it out until CJ and Morgan could get back in the truck. Can you believe it? It really was terrible. A stomach virus is bad to begin with and then to be sick at a hotel? YUCK! I felt really sorry for the hotel people because I kept having to ask for more towels and linens. What a nasty mess. It was so bad I actually threw Morgan's car seat in the dumpster and bought a new one. Nothing like cleaning vomit out of a truck in a hotel parking lot while it's 30 degrees and snowing. Oh, well. We survived and made it home about 9:30 sunday night.

Last weekend we got lights up on the house. So, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from our house to yours! I'll try to blog more :-) Love you all and thanks for reading!