Christmas ROUND 2

Hoopes family got together on the 24th of January at a cabin in Heber.  We were only able to stay one night but the rest of the bunch stayed two nights.  We had fun playing games, eating, sledding and opening gifts for our Christmas Celebration (complete with ugly sweaters!).  Always fun to get everyone together!

 (Rudolph looks a bit exhausted :)

(And THESE are the sweet CROCHET SHORTS Ramey got LeGrand- we all had a good laugh but were pretty disgusted at the same time, lol!)

(Avi got Loa all fancied up with her sweet make-up skills)

(We caught Loa having a movie party with the stuffed gator)

(Aunt Kenzie gave Loa her first real haircut! - Super cute but I'm ready for it to grow back :)

January

Lots of Friday and Saturday mornings spent like this:

Got to meet up with our good friends the Holley's for lunch in Logan at the Texas Roadhouse.  For some reason the Roadhouse thought it was my Birthday (even though none of us said it was...who knows) any way, they brought the famed saddle to ride on and the kids had a ball!  And I got free dessert - haha!

Lytzi started eating solids & rolling all over the room!

Spent the month working on 'homemade' projects for our ROUND 2 of Christmas --the Hoopes family Christmas was 'homemade' themed this year...and we didn't celebrate till the end of January so it such drug Christmas out for us!

(Just one of my projects...made for Ramey & she LOVED it!)

Homeless!

On January 10th we closed on our home in Saratoga Springs.  It was a very bitter-sweet day for me.

I'm super excited not to have to deal with renters anymore, it was a pain in the bum to be 3 hours away and dealing with renters.  Never really knowing if they were tearing the place apart or what was going on.  At the same time, I loved still having that connection to the neighborhood.  It is such a great place, we made a lot of memories there & put a lot of work and love into the house, I didn't want to let it go.  I'll be the first to admit that change helps us grow, and honestly I usually thrive on change BUT it is always harder on me than I think it will be. 

I know it was time.  We thought our renters were staying until spring and the plan was to put it on the market in about March or April.  We were excited as we know this is the best time of the year to sell a home.  Then our renters called on November 1st and dropped a ball on us, they were moving out on the 30th of November.  UGH, it was the middle of winter and the holidays and we didn't have much hope to get it sold quickly, better yet get a good price out of it. 

We listed the house on Monday December 2nd, by the evening of the 3rd we had a full price offer.  Then from there everything went as perfectly as it could've and we are so grateful for the obvious blessing this has been to us.

We live in company housing here in Grace so we are officially homeless :)

Christmas Vacation!

Laex had two weeks off for Christmas/Winter break and we were busy having fun the whole time :)

Lots of  movie nights followed by sleeping in the living room on a blow up mattress!

Papa & Grammie came and spent 4 days with us over Christmas and the kids were in heaven!  Loa got to harass Papa all she wanted :)

We spent a day doing random acts of service --the kids had fun leaving candy canes on car windows, taping quarters to vending machines & passing out gift cards to people out shoveling snow.  We also enjoyed some Chinese food as is tradition in LeGrand's family at Christmas.

While we were out we went to Hooper Springs where we got to taste the fresh soda spring (which would be what Soda Springs, ID is named after) it was disgusting but we all tasted it :)

We had a little birthday cake and sang Happy Birthday to Jesus & Joseph Smith.

Spreading Reindeer food & Setting out Cookies & Carrots on Christmas Eve

 We had a fun Christmas morning, and a chill day

We went sledding in the afternoon, the weather was beautiful!

After all the fun, Grammie and Papa headed home the day after Christmas and LeGrand headed back to work.  It was a total let down :/  we had so much fun playing games for days and eating lots of yummy food that we had to take a couple days to get back in the grind!