Holidays with the family

So the sunday before Christmas my brother, Doug and sister, Samm arrived. 

The day they arrived we realized some fleas, so we decided to flea bomb our house the next day to get rid of them before our family arrived.

I love how we have a fireplace in our home. Makes the Holidays so much more homey and warm.

When my Mom, Dad, and Sister (Julie) arrived Christmas Eve this is what they brought:

Happy boy! ;-p

My parents also gave Scott and I their Santa Fe SUV!!!! We now have two cars! I'm so grateful for my Dad and appreciative of his generosity.

 Games

Stockings hung up on the wall :-)

 Our cute Christmas tree and all the presents

 Doug found the pickle!

 Scott frying up the Christmas breakfast bacon

 Being goofs

 So Handsome!

I love my family.

 Opening Presents Christmas Morning

I LOVE this robe I am holding in the picture! Egyptian cotton!

 Christmas Dinner, Crock-pot ginger ale ham. MMMM MMM!

Being Goofs and wearing my Christmas PJ's

 One of the nights we went to the Winter Wonderland light display.

 They had 3-D Glasses to wear...oh boy, it was trippy.

 This is the lights through the glasses. Though this pic doesn't really capture how neat it was
.

 Stacey arrived in Kansas friday evening.

The first place we went all together was "Speck's Bar and Grill". We totally have our own bar! Haha, but they had 3 lb burgers there, so we got that and shared it. Fed 8 people! Poor dad couldn't come out to the restaurant because he was sick, but we brought some home for him.

Wesley, my nephew, could possibly be the cutest baby in the entire Universe....

Expressions while watching "Warrior":

....I don't have an explanation for this picture....

We were able to visit the Topeka zoo, which was actually quite fun.

 Everyone taking turns with Wesley

 We had our own little Christmas party an had a White Elephant Gift exchange. 

 We also played some games 

 Another night we went to a neighborhood called "Potwin", which they are all required to decorate for Christmas/  It's neat to drive through and see the neighborhood roundabouts with interesting facts about different country's and how they celebrate Christmas and all the decorations on each house.

 Like I said, Cutest baby in the entire Universe!

 New Years "Candy Bar Game"

 Walking around the Washburn Campus, Mom made a friend.

 ....And Stacey got stuck....;-p

I love this picture!

 Gwargeous Stacey

 New Years Eve we celebrated by playing games, Talking, and eating pizza!

 Happy New Year!

Some Christmas Decor Pictures:

So New Years day we took Stacey to the airport and while out in Kansas City we stopped by the Cabellas.

The next day we took my mom and dad to the airport and after we dropped them off we drove around Kansas City to see what there was to see. Then when I got home it just hit me, it was so quite and I already started missing my family. I cried the rest of the evening and watched movies with Scott. 

Had such a wonderful Holiday with my family. So glad they all made it out for the holidays!

Getting ready for the Holidays

So I'm extremely excited!!!! My whole family is coming out for the Holidays!

Scott and I have been working hard on getting everything together for their arrival...It's been tough since we only have one car and I work all day long.

Tonight was a super warm night, so we attempted to get all the leaves raked up in our front yard because we haven't had time to do that during the day.

Yes, that is me in the middle of our leaf pile. And this is after we already filled 4 bags!

LEAVES

It even covered Scott completely

:-)

Raining Leaves!

As we were racking leaves this cutie came up and kept me company. REALLY friendly neighborhood cat. :-)

After that, we worked on the kitchen the rest of the night (we're, mostly Scott, are rewiring some electrical boxes now). 

Here are some pics of our progress in the kitchen:

When we first moved in: Vinyl floors, and we found a rotted spot under the counter (the rot didn't reach the baseboard thank goodness), nasty old cabinets (they look cute in the pic, but up close...not so much).

                                                                  Ripping up the Vinyl

                                                                           Prepping

                                                                     Yeehawww

I cut straighter than Scott!

Mine

Scott's ;-p

Yay Tile! (Before Grout)

Getting the Wallpaper off before I found a better way to do it.

                                                                       I wet the walls, scraped and peeled....not very effective...

We found this thing at Home Depot: This thing is super awesome! It puts little holes in the wallpaper then you spray it with vinegar and warm water (they had a "wallpaper remover" solution, but it was expensive and vinegar and warm water worked just fine!) let it settle for a bit, then peel it right off!

Look how much better it works! AWESOME!

Doing electrical before patching up walls then gonna put the counters back in temporarily so we have a kitchen for the holidays. :-)

Getting so excited for my family to come out!

Christmas Party at Work and finally the weekend.

 So work has been extremely hectic with the Christmas Bureau (trying to get all the families adopted), and trying to finish up this year's campaign. But today was a nice breather. I worked till about 11:30, then we carpooled to the Casino for the Office's Christmas Party. First we had a cocktail hour (I ordered a VIRGIN Pina Colada of course), then a fancy catered lunch, and we had a "white elephant" style gift exchange. After much swapping, I ended up with the one I wanted, the gift card to Home Depot! Yay!
Then we all received a card with 25 dollar credit on it to go gamble in the Casino. I of course, didn't use mine but I was a "lucky charm" to one of my fellow employees, who ended up wining 21 dollars. They gave me $5 for being their lucky charm, but I didn't want to accept.....they forced me to, so they will just find the $5 on their desk on monday. :-)

After all that I picked Scott up at school, he took one of his finals today.
I also found out today that my sister Stacey will be able to make it out here around Christmas while my whole fam is here. We are hosting Christmas for the fam this year in our new home. I'm so excited! Just hope we can get everything together to accommodate everyone.
This weekends plans:
Finish the kitchen floor.