More New Year Memories

We got home yesterday, and although it is always nice to sleep in my own bed, I miss my family already. My sister Cynthia is such a wonderful hostess, and once again we have left stuff at her house that she has to mail back to us. I guess that means we want to go back soon, right?

I want to tell a few more stories of what we did when we were in Houston plus I want to share a few more photos. In this picture, Eric is playing with his Legos on the floor in Cynthia's room. Eric received a few Lego sets for Christmas and he wanted to play with them while he was there. We were worried that he would lose some of the pieces because he isn't very good about putting his toys away. Cynthia let him play on the floor of her room with the Lego pieces on top of the poster board to keep them together.

My Mom and Dad drove to my sister Melissa's house because it's closer for them, and then she brought them to Cynthia's house for New Year's Eve. On New Year's Day, they were all about to go back to Melissa's house including my niece Emily whose Dad was going to pick her up so they could spend time together on New Year's Day. Dad wanted a photo with all of his grandkids, but the big boys weren't up yet, so at least we have this photo of the girls with Dad. We should have gotten a photo on New Year's Eve, but I didn't even think about it.

My nephew Nick recently "rediscovered" their Nintendo Wii. They had not played on the Wii in years, but when his PS3 stopped working, he started playing his old Wii games. Here he is playing a Star Wars game with Eric, which of course Eric LOVED. Patrick decided to let Eric stay up an hour longer than he would have, just because they were having so much fun. What other opportunity would they have to play together? Anthony and Alex were at a movie at the time, and when they got home, they played on the Wii also. Our Wii isn't working, so they "rediscovered" the Wii as well.

We mostly hung around the house during our visit. The big boys played with their electronics, and the girls hid out in Aly's room. We did manage to go out on the evening of January 1st. I went shopping at the local outlet mall with my sisters and Alex. It still amazes me that Alex is my one child who always wants to go shopping. Still, Cynthia and I agreed that Melissa has the most shopping stamina. The cell phone reception was spotty there, so we had trouble reaching each other. Alex had gone shopping on his own and I went with my sisters, mostly to be able to chat and socialize with them. When we met up with Alex again, he said he was ready to go an hour before, but he figured we still wanted to shop.

Meanwhile, Patrick took Aly, Natalie, and Eric to see the Disney movie Frozen. Natalie and Eric had already seen the movie, but Patrick and Aly had not. Natalie and Eric didn't mind seeing the movie again, especially Natalie, who had seen the movie a second time with her friend Margo already. This was her third time seeing the movie. After they got back, Anthony drove Alex to the movie theatre to see Anchorman 2. Nick had already seen that movie with his dad, so he stayed home to play on the Wii.

I took this photo before we left on January 2nd. Emily had originally planned on coming over then, but she was invited to her friend's house and she decided to do that instead. It's too bad we didn't get a photo of all of the cousins together.

Right before I took this photo, I called them all to come to the living room to get their photo taken. The younger kids automatically gathered on the sofa. Anthony and Alex were the last ones to get into position. Alex was still fixing his bedhead and was the last one to come downstairs. I told the big boys to stand behind the sofa and crouch down. Anthony fussed at me, saying that didn't make sense since they were the tall ones. He thought they should be the ones sitting on the sofa and the other kids standing up, but the other kids were already sitting on the sofa. I love how this turned out.

January will be a busy month for us, with swimming championship meets coming up and high school soccer games starting. I'm not sure when we'll be able to visit family again, so it was really nice to be able to spend a few days with them over the New Year holiday.