It's been a while

I'll have to add pictures from the last 2 months sometime, but if I don't start small, I won't start at all. It has been a wonderful couple of months. We spent Thanksgiving in Utah with friends and family and we had a great time. We even drove and it wasn't too bad. (Thank you DVD player). Miia was an angel baby...slept most of the drive except to eat. We stayed with some friends from dental school, spent Thanksgiving at my Grandma Lowder's house, got to see some good Michigan friends, the Quinns, and I was fortunate to have a lunch date with some college friends (aka Divas) so thank you Cafe Rio. I love Utah because we get to see so many people when we go. Everyone seems to have a connection to that place.
December came and went so fast. We took a quick trip to Portland to see Teem's family a couple weeks before Christmas. When we got back, I decided to host an Ugly Sweater Party and we had a great time. There were definitely some uglies there. (Sweaters, not people) :) The monday before Christmas, we flew to Dallas to spend the holidays with my family. We survived the trip and my kids even got to sit first class on one of the legs. Long story short, Teem flys a lot so he and the kids got upgraded (there were only three seats left). Teem offered his seat and I gave him the choice to take all the kids to first class or be in coach alone. So, I got to sit in coach all alone. Wow, so much better than first class. I even slept for part of the flight.
Christmas was great! The kids enjoyed opening all the gifts, although Luukas was a little overwhelmed and Kaija asked at the end of the madness, "when do we get more presents?" I just looked at her and laughed. We were also blessed with a few fabulous warm park days. Kaija is already wondering when the snow is going to melt here so she can go to the park.
Speaking of snow, before we left Coeur d'Alene, we got record snowfall (I think around 3 1/2 feet). Then we came home to even more snow. My friends told me that even Walmart was closed for a couple days. Walmart? They never close. Teem had to dig his car out of mounds of snow so he could get to work the next day.
For New Year's Eve, we tagged along with my sister, Shelley to her friend's party. Thanks Mimi and Poppy for watching the kiddos. It was pretty fun because we did a white elephant exchange with a twist. All the wives brought something of great sentimental worth that belonged to her husband (without the husband knowing). The looks on the guys faces was priceless. It wasn't until about halfway through that they realized the joke was on them. (They were a little slow to catch on). One of the gifts was a box of very valuable baseball cards. My sister brought a picture of her husband with Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders that was on his "wall of fame". Another had a signed BYU helmet and seriously I think I saw tears in the guys eyes. I brought Teem's collectible star wars light saber (it was actually Luukas' that Teem gave him for Christmas, but Teem was rather attached to it). The funny thing was that the light saber was the first to be stolen and all these grown men looking at it with envy gave me a good chuckle. I decided they are all just oversized kids in disguise. Oh man, it was a hoot, so I'd highly recommend playing this version of a white elephant game.
Overall, it was a wonderful Christmas and holiday season for us. It's nice to be home but we are already planning another trip to Dallas to get to good weather.