Home for the Holidays

We LOVED every second of our trip home to Utah for the Holidays - we spent the entire week at Nana & Gramps' house and now we're suffering from withdrawal -

noise withdrawal, teasing withdrawal, our 2:00 - 9:00 AM sleep schedule withdrawal, good food withdrawal, and laughing withdrawal.

Owen still walks around the house chatting about

Bamps, Nana, "B", Addy, Ashy, etc....often telling them, "It's okay."

Owen and Addy were hilarious together. They were definitely co-conspirators and we couldn't let them sneak off into any of the rooms. Iwould let Owen stay up with us (well at least for some of the time) and he would try to sneak into the room where Addy was asleep - we even set up barricades. He was quick and made it in to comfort her and another time he was in and out with her baby stroller. When Addy got up in the morning,

she would whine for "Buddy" on one side of our locked door, and Owen would be saying, "Please.... Addy....open" on the other side.

The Bullough Bunch got together for Christmas Eve - all 12 of us packed in pretty tight, but that was part of the fun (as long as you steered clear of the wii remotes flying). We opened presents from one another on Christmas Eve and stayed up late chatting and playing games. We then sleepily got up with Owen and Addy to see what Santa delivered. Owen is like his parents and he took a long while to wake up. He kinda just sat there for a while looking around. Addy helped him along and eventually the two of them were their screaming selves.

 

One of my favorite things this year was to see my lil' sis so preggers. I loved looking at her belly and sometimes it would just make me crack up. She's having a Bullough, that's for sure. Owen and Addy love their baby cousin already and would often kiss Ashley's tummy. Owen would also pat "Baby Tree" with his chubby little flexed hand.

Christmas morning at Grammy's is one of those traditions that I love so much. All 23 of us enjoy a marvelous breakfast and then exchange and open gifts. Grammy has all 23 personalized stockings hung and the house decorated to the hilt.

 

So, I did IKEA trips 3 days in a row. I love IKEA and I'm not allowed back for a long while. In my defense, I plan all year for my annual IKEA visit. I do confess that I have a bit of a problem.

While we were shopping (my dad insists that my mom and I are zealots....not true), the men (who are  indeedfishing zealots) took an ice fishing trip. They found lots of hoagies and drilled too many holes in the ice.          

 

In addition to shopping, we also decided to grab some culture. We took the kiddos to Thanksgiving Point's Dinosaur Museum. Owen is WAY into dinosaurs right now, but they do scare him a little bit too.  I have to admit that it was so hard not to giggle (or encourage) when he was death gripping one of us. His eyes didn't go back to normal size for about an hour after the visit - they spent the entire time in the museum on the verge of bulging out of his head. I couldn't get him to look at the camera when we were visiting the shark, but when we left the room, he very sweetly said, "Bye Shark."  Miss Addy was pretty brave. She was scared sometimes....when it was justifiable....when her daddy was holding her up to T-Rex's mouth and stuff like that.

I know that there are some that tire of people blogging about their children - I do this mainly for myself and for Owen so that he can see it. But, really, it's good for me because I get back into the grind of busy everyday life and I forget the fun memories. Spending time with family is so important and it's worth rambling about. Really, not much else is...