Christmas in Missouri

 After our big move, we went back to Jack's parents house to celebrate Christmas with them. Boy how it was nice to drive 3.5 hours and be there!!

Katelyn and Sadie were playing dress up!

Cheese!!!!

Present time!! Magnetic Dolls!!

Katelyn once again helping open presents. We just don't know how to do it right.

Sadie and Katelyn helping Grammie! She must have needed a lesson on unwrapping.

Another fun Christmas!  So much to be thankful for this holiday season!!
 #1 for me: Family!! I've got the best family a girl could ask for - both extended and immediate!! How did I ever get so lucky!?!

Move in Day!

I kick myself now because I was too busy that day and didn't get many pictures! Thanks to my mother in law for snapping a few.

We had quite a day getting the 4 hours from Jack's parents to our new place. We were halfway to the house, in the middle of St. Louis, when Jack says over the radio "I think I've blown a tire!" Oh crap!! Sure enough - there was a shredded tire on the trailer. We were almost to the on ramp to take the by pass around St. Louis. (Not such a good place to change a tire) So they decided to limp along to the nearest exit and change it there in a much safer location. You would not believe how many people were backed up behind our 35 mph caravan (the speed limit was of course much higher). I didn't see how many fingers we received - oh well, at least we made it to a safe location. Jack and his dad got busy taking the shredded tire off and putting on one of 2 spares we were prepared with. Well once they got the spare on, they realized that it didn't fit! Thankfully, we had pulled into a church parking lot and a gentleman came out to check on us and said that there was a tire store just down the road. Jack's sister happened to be caravaning with us and had room in her car to throw in the old tire, so off they headed to the tire store for a replacement. Thankfully after going to 2 tire stores they were able to get the tire replaced and put back on the trailer. So 2 hours later we were back on the road!!

Our crew eating dinner! Both of the trailers were unloaded at this point. Jack's mom was so kind to prepare lasagna and the works to heat up so we didn't have to worry about what we were going to get for dinner that night for everyone and it worked AMAZING!!

Oh what a mess!!! Looks like we have LOTS of work to do!!!

The baby's room and more than just his things in there!

A huge THANK YOU goes out to everyone for helping with the pack up, move out, move in and unpacking!! We couldn't have done it without everyone's help!!

Once we get the house all put together I'll do a post with the finished look!  No promises on how soon that will be - we need to order furniture, etc so once everything is in I'll take some pictures!

SNOW!!!

 We went back to Jack's parents house for a few days until it was time for our BIG move and the next morning Katelyn and her cousin Sadie woke up to SNOW!! Katelyn was much more excited about it than Sadie. Snow is probably old hat for Sadie, but Katelyn on the other hand hasn't seen much snow in her short life.

Katelyn and Sadie looking out the window. Katelyn kept saying "How did that snow get there!?!" She was so puzzled!!

Katelyn was pretty stoked to get out in the snow. We didn't have much snow gear accessible so we managed with what we had. Sadie wasn't too interested in playing so Katelyn and Daddy went out and had some fun - before she got too cold!

Making a snow man. There really wasn't much snow there but they made do with what they had!

The little guy is ALL done!

Time for a snow ball fight!

 

Hopefully we'll have much better snow to make snow men and make snow balls with once we get all settled in. Everyone keeps telling me that I'm crazy for wanting snow but I just want some for Katelyn to experience it all. I understand that driving in the snow with all the crazy people isn't so fun. At least Katelyn and I can just stay home and look at the window at the beautiful falling snow. 

Christmas in Kansas

Christmas this year was lots and lots of driving and took up the whole month and then add a move on top of it!! Although, it was a busy month, it was great to see so much family and once we were in the midwest, we knew we weren't going to be leaving  to head back to the south after the holidays. It was so nice to wake up knowing there was only an 8 hour drive ahead of us and not a 22 hour drive!! 

Coming down the stairs to check out what Santa brought (Round #2!)

Checking out cookie situation with Papa- Santa just left crumbs again!!

Tearing into the packages!

Of course she had to make sure everyone else got help opening their packages too.

A new suitcase for all her visits to the Grandparents houses!!

 

 

Paper!!

A new blanket for her new big girl room

Farming with her new pink tractor.  She took it everywhere. This might have been her favorite Christmas present this year!

Testing out her new vacuum. Now she can be just like Momma and actually let me vacuum on my own instead of insisting on helping me. It's supposed to pick up dirt - no such luck with that!

And look at allllll these foam puzzle pieces! Oh she loves them alright but they are a mess to put back together! One day she'll get it all figured out and she can do it all by herself!!

Christmas in Kansas was fun as expected, but our time at each family always seems to go by so fast! Now back to MO for a few days and then move in, and Christmas Round #3!!

Once again, good thing we are so much closer now and only 2 more months until we will get to meet the 4th member of our family! 

Christmas Eve in Kansas

All fancied up before Christmas Eve Church service!
I just loved her dress and she would spin around saying she was soooo pretty!
Yes, honey, we know you are, even without the beautiful dress on!

I haven't uploaded photoshop to my new computer so sorry for the yellow tint.
Note to self: fix this picture!

With Uncle

With Papa and Grandma

After church service - picking out Cookies to put out for Santa (Round 2)

All ready for Santa to come!!

Cousins!

December 23, 2011 - During our Kansas Christmas trip, we were able to see some cousins that we hadn't seen in at least a year!

Katelyn and Owen are a year apart in age but he's just as tall as she is!

Watching for Owen's dog out the window. He was a big hit for Katelyn!

December 24, 2011

On Christmas Eve we went to visit some more cousins on the other side of the family.
All of them playing "Memory" or their version of the "Memory" game. Katelyn didn't quite grasp it and the older ones were getting a tad frustrated with her!

Cooper didn't want to cooperate for the picture so his Mommy had to jump in. But we got all the second cousins together for a picture. I don't think that's EVER happened!

4 generations! Katelyn hadn't gotten to see her Great Grandma since last Christmas. Hopefully since we're living so much closer now that won't have to happen again.

It was so nice to be able to see everyone and hopefully we'll be able to see y'all again soon!

Christmas cookies with Grandma

Katelyn loves helping in the kitchen, especially with cookies/cupcakes/muffins. Grandma told her that she would wait on making Christmas sugar cookies so Katelyn could help her. Grandma didn't really have a choice after she mentioned it to Katelyn because Katelyn wouldn't stop talking about it. Katelyn was going to hold her to it!

Katelyn sporting her new Christmas present! The most awesome apron ever!!! She looked sooo darn cute in it too I just couldn't stand it!!

With Katelyn helping make sugar cookies, you end up rolling out the dough much more often.

She hasn't quite figured out the trick to get the most out of the dough. I guess that'll come with time haha. What 2 year old has that figured out?!

Checking the finished product!
She's the cutest little baker in the area!!
I just love this little baker!

Moving Day!

Well the day has finally arrived!! We are loading ALL of our stuff into 2 trailers and heading back to the good ol' midwest! We had great help on our move out and couldn't have done it without all our friends and family there to break their back for us. Katelyn had 2 of her best friends come to play - all 3 girls kept each other busy and occupied. At the end of the day they were all exhausted!

Just to clarify - the Army WILL hire a moving company to come to your house, pack your goods and move them to the next location. However, the Army will also pay YOU to move yourself. They pay you as if you are self employed. So when you do a full move they will pay us 75% of what they would pay a moving company and then we'll get to put it on taxes the next year and recoup even more of that 25% they took initially. BUT, aside from the money, one of the main reasons we move ourselves other than we have the means to do it is......nothing gets broken and if it does, well then it was our fault. We have too many friends who have nightmare horror stories about their moves and we don't have to worry about that. I've never had to file a claim with transportation and from the sounds of the process - I'm one lucky girl!!

Lots and Lots and Lots of boxes!

Grammie did lots of traffic directing with 3 little girls and a car!

Katelyn and Esmee out for a drive!

The Whites and us! I sure miss them :(

7 Months at this point

{31 Weeks, 5 day}

The trailer is getting full!! And we still have SO much stuff left!

Even Katelyn helped load!

Helping Daddy figure out how to put the plugs back in the washer.

A little pooped! She almost fell asleep on Pops' lap.

ONE clean, empty house!!!!!

Ready to pull out - Missouri here we come!

We left Hinesville, GA at 11 AM (EST) and arrived at Jack's parents house in MO at 1:15 AM (CST) It was a LONG drive but so much better than stopping at a hotel somewhere and trying to get the suitcases out and what not! Katelyn was THE.BEST.TRAVELER.EVER!!! I could not have asked for a better 2 year old especially to have one that had to be stuck in a carseat for 15+ hours!!! She's a Johannes after all! :) This will be the first of many moves for her. She was pretty eager to help this move, but I can imagine that eagerness will fade fast the older she gets.