Happy New Year

I’ve really been slacking in the blogging department. That makes it nearly impossible to catch up on everything that’s been going on the last month or so. I’ll have to do what I’ve done in the past, which is write out a recap list(in no particular order). So here goes…..

1. 3am(two nights ago) we hear an enormous boom. It sounded like someone breaking in the house, but our house alarm wasn’t going off, so that didn’t make sense. Very long story short, we checked everything over in the house. Thanks to my ocd cleaning skills, I discovered the cause. A 48ounce bottle of shampoo fell off the top shelf of the shower. Boom explained!

2. We got a Wii for Christmas. I know it’s old school, but it’s amazing. It’s bringing back so many memories for me. I told the kids, for the most part I won’t limit playing time for the first couple weeks of owning it. Now that we are transitioning back into a school schedule, I have a reward system in place to earn Wii time. And after the kids are in bed, Mario Cart is all mine.

3. The week before Christmas, we volunteered at an outreach center. We served a meal to the homeless in Flint, MI. We took our oldest two kids along with us, along with several church members. My dad had the vision and did 95% of the prep work(with the help of my mom and the church youth group). The day before we were planning to serve the meal, my dad was hospitalized with kidney stones. Brandon and I took over and headed up the outreach day. Honestly, we didn’t have to organize much. Our church members were incredible, and everyone pitched in. Also, my dad is extremely detailed, so the majority of the work was already done. Brielle was begging for a job to do, once we were there. We ended up sending her and a friend around to pass out candy and say “Merry Christmas” to everyone. It was a really special memory for us. We are so incredibly blessed. It was good for my kids to serve and have their eyes opened to some of the heartbreaking issues so close around us.

4. The past couple years, our Holiday tradition goes as follows. We celebrate Christmas with my family, The Gascho’s, on Christmas Eve. Then we attend the Christmas Eve service at our church. Christmas morning, we open gifts with our kids at our house. I make brunch. After we eat brunch, Brandon and I take down the Christmas tree while the kids play with their new things. We do this, because the day after Christmas we leave for Ohio(where Brandon’s family is from). By taking the tree down, it makes it so much less overwhelming when we come home. Plus, I’m worried the house could catch fire and burn down, because we always cut down a live tree. By the way, I do this for the sake of the family. Cutting our own tree, is one of the kids favorite memories. So I put up with the needles.

5. I have really enjoyed our time at home. School and routine are so much easier when we aren’t on the road. We’ve also caught up with our friends, who we miss so bad when we travel. We are leaving again in a couple weeks for another motor home trip. I have mixed feelings about it. I always love it, once we are gone. All the prep work is overwhelming, but as soon as we leave, I love it. This time we totally cleaned the motor home out, for the Winter. So I have to pack clothes and literally everything. It will all work out. It always does. I just might be a grump for a few days.

6. We celebrated New Year’s Eve at a friend’s house. All 4 of our kids made it until 12:30. They weren’t in bed officially until 1am, when we got home. Isla is the child who refuses to miss out. Being the youngest, she’s always trying to keep up with her older siblings. So she stayed awake until 1also. All the kids blessed me and slept in until 10am New Year morning.

Here are some pictures from the last few weeks

Brielle and her friend serving candy to the homeless.

Grandma Lori always makes the kids Grinch pancakes, when we go to her house for Christmas.

We ate a sunshine cake, in honor of Great Grandma Myles(Brandon’s grandma). She passed away earlier this year. She used to always send Brandon and I home with a sunshine cake, when we would visit her. It was Brandon’s favorite.