What we've been up to

A lot has been going on.  We are now living in Oklahoma City as Brad is going through training before we move to Boise.  So it was a crazy month full of spending time with friends, getting ready for Christmas, and moving.

We were able to escape from all the work for one quick weekend to spend time with friends up at one of their families cabins.  This is one of the things I am going to (and already do) miss about where we use to live.  We had some great friends and they all happened to have a bunch of boys Levi's age that Levi loved playing with. 

This is just a few of the kids playing.  We had a total of 9 kids, ages five and under, at the cabin; 7 boys and 2 little girls. We hardly saw Levi while we were there, he was in heaven playing with all the kids.

As we were emptying out our house we still tried to keep the spirit of Christmas in our home, so our Christmas tree and presents were the last things to leave our front room.  It was like this for a week.  Levi loved running around and playing ball in that empty room.

And then our house became empty. . . I cried as I drove away for the last time.  I will really miss that house.

 

With our house empty, we enjoyed an early Christmas on the 18th with family. We didn't want to have to haul all our presents to OKC since we had to fit all the things we needed to live with in our van.  The boys had a good time on this "pre-christmas."

 We found this driving video game at Kid to Kid for Levi to "drive" while we were driving the 2 days to Oklahoma.  As a side note, the boys did pretty good in our long drive, I was very impressed.  : )

Once we arrived in OKC to our furnished corporate apartment, Brad set up a little bit of Christmas in our home.  Then Levi and I colored ornaments to tape on the wall inside the tree. (notice Levi poking Jared to try to make him smile?) 

 On Christmas Eve we went downtown where they were giving free boat rides on a canal to look at the Christmas lights.  It was really fun!

 They even gave us free hot chocolate and a cookie after! 

"YUM"

Then we walked around Myriad Gardens where they had more Christmas lights.

We had several angels that helped us provide some Santa presents for the kids on the actual day of Christmas.  Levi had been asking Santa for a trampoline all month and luckily Santa knew someone that had a little trampoline that they weren't using anymore. 

We had a very modest Christmas day with a few presents, going to church, and then just being with ourselves. This day made us really miss our families.  But we are going to enjoy the time while we are here. And we realize that by doing this, we are providing a better future for our family, so it's all worth it.

I hope everybody had a Very Merry Christmas!!!