“Over the river and through the woods . . .”

Or, should I say “Over the snowy roads and through the snow/ice/drizzle”? Our holiday travel plans changed at the last minute due to the impending snow storm. Instead of leaving Thursday afternoon we ended up taking off last Wednesday after work to beat the storm. I’m sure glad we did – there were bad roads up there on Thursday! We had a lot of fun over Christmas. Everyone but Gina and Eric’s family was there on Wednesday night – they drove down on Thursday afternoon (very slowly!). My parent’s house was packed with people – 15 of us! Overall, though, it went really well. The older kids were able to spend some time outside playing in the snow with the boys all 3 days. Lola and Nolan kicked it old school and stayed inside the whole weekend. Nolan had a much harder time adjusting to being away from his regular routine than Lola did, but he survived. Gift opening started on Wednesday night and lasted until Saturday. Emma, Lalayna and Allie thought that was fantastic, and had a blast playing with all their new toys. It’s so funny watching them and listening to their conversations. Princess anything was all the rage, including Barbie’s, calendars, books and tattoos. Nolan made off with a bunch of new fun toys, clothes and books. I’m really excited about the Laugh and Learn Farm he got from Grandma Paula and Grandpa Tom! We were supposed to stay in Browerville through Sunday, but because we were there a day early we decided to trek home on Saturday afternoon. We checked the road conditions before we left and pretty much the entire state was under “difficult driving conditions”. They weren’t kidding! It took us 3 hours and 45 minutes to get home – normally a 2 ½ hour drive! Luckily Nolan hadn’t taken a morning nap on Saturday, so he slept the whole way home.

On Sunday we spent the day celebrating Christmas with the Bleck family at Greg and Ellen’s. We had another fun day, and Nolan came home with lots of cool new toys! It’s too bad he refused to take a nap and was crabby all day:) It’s really hard to completely relax and enjoy yourself when your kid is having a tough day.

This week marks week #1 of Nolan going through the babysitter rotation while Julie is on vacation. Jackie had Monday, Paulette had yesterday and today, and Lindsey has him tomorrow. The report so far is that he's a little crabby, not sleeping that great, and cries through most of his meals. Paulette thinks he's teething, which he may be again - that upper front tooth went back up again and it needs to come down sometime. When he is in a good mood his favorite new game is peek-a-boo. He likes to hide himself around corners and then peek his head around to find us.

Tomorrow is our 3-year anniversary, and to celebrate we went to lunch at Don Pablos yseterday. I know, kinda random, but it's become a yearly tradition for us. We also picked out the convertible car seat that we're going to order for Nolan at Babies R' Us. They certainly don't give those away! We're going to try and make do with one new car seat and see how difficult it is to switch it back and forth between the truck and CRV. I have a feeling we'll be getting a second one before we know it!