Christmas in Dallas

Although we weren't in Colorado or Minnesota we did have a white Christmas! The plan was that Josh and a guy from Ft. Worth would leave right after Spanish on Thursday, Christmas Eve, and drive the 8 hours to Dallas, arriving around 1 AM. Well...it snowed in Texas! The interstate was closed at Abilene so the guys tried another route, but the road was really icy and it just ended up being a 2 hour detour. Once they got back onto I-20 it was still slow going. I picked Josh up around 5:30 and we were at the Bonus's by 6:30 AM on Christmas Day. Not exactly what we had planned, but it worked. We (especially me) were SOOO excited to see him!!! The Bonus kids slept in a bit, which was nice, and we started our Christmas morning with cinnamon rolls. The present opening took almost 2 hours as each present the kids opened they wanted to play with. It was a lot of fun! Here are some pictures. We failed to take pictures of the snow and pictures of us as a family. Oops.

Emily, Shelby, and Abigail all dressed up for the church Christmas party.

Shelby with the books from Uncle I. Mostly Shelby liked the ribbons. :) But we like the books, thanks I!

Grandma Mary sent some fun clothes!

Thank you Uncle Russel & Aunt Z for the great robes! The kids loved them.

Shelby rolled over from her tummy to her back for the first time completely on her own on December 1st. It has been fun to watch her. I am trying not to hurry her, but I am excited for her to roll from her back to her tummy and for her to crawl. All in good time, I know.

Shelby still has her rash and it looks more and more like dry skin / eczema each day. So I am putting lots of lotion on her. Josh had lots of dry skin when he was a baby as well - so that combined with my sensitive skin doesn't give Shelby much hope. Next week we'll have her 6 month check up and shots so I am sure the doctor will tell us what he thinks. I am so glad that it doesn't bother her!

As the song goes, Shelby decided that all she wanted for Christmas was her two front teeth! She has her two front bottom teeth, but for the past 3 weeks she has been working on her two front top teeth. They are just about to poke through. This time around she has a runny nose - she is getting sick of me wiping her nose. I will say, the booger sucker works great! :)

Josh and I are SOOOO ready to be done with living apart! This weekend Josh plans to head down to Sanderson. Hopefully he'll find a place to rent. If not then we'll be looking into buying a house and fixing it up. No, our condo here in Greeley hasn't sold yet. If you think of us, please do pray for us!

We hope you had a wonderful Christmas! Thank you for all the Christmas cards and pictures. One of these days we'll do a letter for ya'll. For now this blog will do. :)

Happy New Year!

Happy belated Birthday, Grandma Mary!! We are glad you had a nice day yesterday!! We love you!

Next is Dallas

November 30th Shelby & I drove to Adam & Kim's in Dallas to stay with them for the month. Shelby got a rash that has lasted a month, but it doesn't seem to bother her much. We are pretty sure it is Eczema.

Shelby enjoyed Nathan and the girls playing with her all the time. It was so nice for her to get to know them.

Shelby loves being outside and she enjoyed her first ride in the swing.

Shelby had lots of new toys to play with. Here she is "holding" a baby doll and giving her quite the ride in her bouncy seat!

Shelby played in the exersaucer (sp?) and loved it! It cracked me up that she was holding this dolls hand.

Emily had some fun making these glasses and we just had to try them on Shelby.

A huge THANK YOU to the Bonus family for having us at your house for a month! I know it was trying at times, for all of us, but we made it and enjoyed it!

Kim started working the week before we got there so it was an adjustment for the kids to be without mommy and to have us there. After Shelby got to where she could sleep with some noise and after I relaxed a bit (that all took two weeks) we really started having fun! We tickled lots and played Webkinz. The girls went to the American Girl store while the guys went to the LEGO store. We ate at Chick-fil-a a lot! (Check this sweet song out!) We went to Emily's dance lessons. We took the kids to AWANA. And towards Christmas we had a lot of fun baking and shoping and decorating and watching movies. Of course there were things that we didn't get to, but it was such a special time for me to spend with them.

Next...Christmas!

It's been...

Ok, we are back in Colorado so I can share some pictures with you! It's been over a month since I've been able to put up pictures of Shelby! I'll try to remember and share all that has happened. Here we go...

We can't post pictures from graduation and the BP Academy, but here are some pictures of Thanksgiving. We celebrated with the Thomas's (left) and the Drakes (right). The Holiday Inn let us use their breakfast room which was great. All of the food was cooked in the microwave and all but the turkey turned out pretty well.

Thank you to Cheryl and Traci for making all of our food! We had a great time with you all!

The weekend after Thanksgiving we went up to Cloudcroft, NM. Josh was so glad to be out of the flatlands! We all enjoyed the cabin in the mountains and the SNOW!

So many things...

I don't have pictures, but at least wanted to update everyone on the last three weeks.

Shelby and I made it to Artesia the 20th of November. Graduation was great! Josh got two awards - one for "1st place" in driving and one for getting the second best "grade" overall. We had a great week with Josh - November 20th through November 29th.

Thanksgiving was interesting...and fun! We were going to spend it with a family from Josh's church, but decided to spend it with some guys from the BP. The Thomas family and the Drake family and us had a microwave Thanksgiving in the breakfast room of the Holiday Inn. :) We really did have a good time and were amazed at how well everything (but the turkey) turned out.

The weekend after Thanksgiving Josh, Shelby and I headed up to Cloudcroft to stay in a cabin in the mountains of NM. It was a great little place and it snowed six inches while we were there! What a nice break from the flatlands of Artesia for Josh.

Monday Shelby and I took off for Dallas. It was a long trek, but went well and we arrived before dinner time. Then Shelby got sick for her first time. :( She has had bumps all over her body and a runny and stuffy nose. Not sure what the bumps are, but she hasn't had a fever and the seem to be going away.

Shelby rolled over by herself for the first time on Tuesday, December 1st. She was on her tummy and rolled over to her back. It was so great! She has done it several times since then, but today she must have forgot how to do it because she just kept fussing while on her tummy.

She is six months old today!!! I'll try to post pictures sometime soon.

Our current plan is to stay in Dallas until after Christmas. Josh and one of the other guys may be able to borrow a car and drive to Dallas on Christmas Eve arriving around 1 or 2 AM. We'd have Christmas Day and Saturday together, then they would drive back on Sunday. Still working out some details, but that is the plan. Fun times!

Still praying our condo will sell soon. We had an offer, but it didn't go through. Josh hopes to go to Sanderson next weekend to check out where we can rent. So much to do in "just" seven weeks! We are all so glad that the time of being apart is almost over. PTL!