Post-holiday Blahs

Well, Christmas is over. I love Christmas, but good riddance! That sounds awful, but Christmas Eve I started coughing, and neither Jeremy nor I felt very good on Christmas day. By Christmas night I had a fever and was pretty miserable for the next several days. I'm still not feeling that great between interrupted sleep and this lingering icky cough. I'm so thankful for the existence of Tylenol and Motrin, which I finally started taking so I could feel functional even though I wasn't completely yet. The flu has been making its way through our whole house and I am tired of being sick! Also, Jeremy has missed several days of work, which isn't something we can afford right now. Such is life. I am ready to move on though. Bring on 2013!  I'll keep trying to update sort of chronologically though...

The last week of November was mostly filled with lots and lots of packing! You wouldn't think there would be that much to do, but I guess we -had- been living there for 4 months. (Which is longer than we lived one or two places...) Plus my parents are thinking about selling their house sometime in the next year or two, and they were ready for us to take all the stuff we had been storing at their stuff since we got married. The nice thing was that some of our kitchen towels and pot holders had gotten pretty scary-looking, but I found some brand new ones from our reception in a few of those boxes. :)
Between all the storage boxes, all the stuff we had been using to -live- since August (including my computer set up) and the several pieces of furniture we were taking with us, we filled up a medium-sized enclosed trailer, my Dad's truck, and my van. (Well, it was mostly full of kids, but all the extra spaces were filled too). My parents took the big load down and the kids and I followed an hour or two later. I wanted to be there when everything got unpacked, but really, my timing was perfect. We got there just as they were finishing up, and we weren't in the way...
The first two weeks here were pretty chaotic as we tried to find all the essentials and unpack everything. I'm so grateful that Jeremy is an efficient unpacker or we'd still be living out of lots of boxes... (instead of just a few) Within a couple days I got Reilly registered in a charter school here, and so far he loves it! He was sad to leave his first kindergarten class and teacher, but excited to be in school period. This kid needs stuff to do! Here he is at his school in Pima on his last day there, and with his teacher, Mrs. Ruland.  Sometime soon I'll try to get pictures of him at his new school...

Our house has come together over the last several weeks, and we rushed to get our Christmas stuff up so we could enjoy the season. I'm not much of a decorator, especially when it's not actually our house, so we are usually happy with homey and somewhat clean!

 

These were all taken about 2 weeks ago, so some strides have been made in the boxes. Also, the girls' room is still rather under construction. I'll try to take a picture of that soon. We've really been enjoying living together as a family again, and as much as I love the Christmas season, I'm excited to put the decorations away and try to get some good routines (and chore charts!) going...

Some of the fun activities we've been up to (other than unpacking):

Playing at the swings at our complex

Stuck!

Celebrating Jaina's birthday!

Trying to take Christmas card pictures

Play-dough!

Homework!

Talking to grandmas who are not quite so close anymore

Bass Pro Shop

Katy in her new big girl bed!

Making some Christmas treats

Checking out some of the parks close to us.