Hello Everyone!  Hope your Christmas and New Year's celebrations were wonderful!  We were very busy during ours :)  We left home on December 21st and headed to Illinois for about half a day then left there on the 22nd for Virginia.  We got in there stayed at my parents house until the 29th.  While in Virginia we spent Christmas Eve at my mom's parents house.  On Christmas morning we opened gifts with my parents, sister and her hubby at Mom and Dad's, later that afternoon we all went down to my dad's parents home.  On the 29th we drove to Ohio to visit with DH's grandma for a few days.  We then returned to Virginia on New years Eve because my sweet little sister decided to wait until I left Virginia to go into labor!  LOL  So, we returned to meet Zoey Jane who weighed 5 pounds 7 ounces at birth on December 30th at 12:07pm.  She was 18 1/12 inches long, has dark hair like her daddy and gray blue eyes.  She is an absolute doll!  Our kids loved meeting her.  DD8 would not let go of her and DS20 months had a great time looking at her and kissing her.  We never could get him to say Zoey, he calls her baby :)  We have no pics of her yet.  We stayed there for a day and helped out.  We then left Virignia for Illinois and stayed there for a day.  While there DH experienced great pain in one of his tooth to the point that he had an emergency appointment 45 minutes away from his sisters house!  The dentist was wonderful and quick, he started a root canal and placed a medicated filling in there for now.  He needs to go see our dentist within 4-6 weeks.  We also had Christmas there :)  We left for home on Sunday and arrived safely that night!  We are glad to be home but now we are taking care of the issue of unpacking the car without losing the house!   We will be having Christmas again this coming weekend, this time with DH's parents!  LOL  I'd tell ya what I got Mom but she might read this;)  LOL 

Oh a few more interesting things to note :)
Mom and Dad videoconferenced us via Skype from my sisters hospital room so we could be there for a few minutes of labor (she was in labor for 15 hours).  They were helping my sister and her hubby buy a house too.  So when Zoey was born they were at closing and passed around the camera phone with her picture!  LOL  (they said that was a first for them, the people doing the closing)  The hospital also said that it was a first for them to have a video feed during labor ;)  I was talking to one of the nurses via the feed.  Once Mom and Dad got back to the hospital, they videoconferenced us so we could see Zoey.  Zoey's apgar scores were 9 @ 1 minute and 9 @ 5 minutes. She did the best on her hearing tests out of all the newborns that day :)   Oh and at 5am this morning I woke up and could not find DS20months!  DH and I began searching the house for him, I found him in the first place I should have looked but it was the very last - his siblings room!  LOL  he ws in there playing.  We took him back to our room and made him lay in our bed and go back to sleep!  i guess we all need to do some adjusting to the time!

While in VA I was able to meet with my friend, Friday, whose DH has cancer.  She is not doing well herself (diziness, faintness, thrush, exhaustion from taking care of Robbie and their 4month old DD).  She has a drs appointment today.  Pleas continnue to rpay fro them both, he has another round of chemo Wednesday.  The dr has suggested hospice. 

We also met with another friend of ours, that we have not seen since the last VA trip.  He is engaged and planning to get married in Jamaica, I dont remember when though :)  Obviously we wil not be making that one ;)  LOL 

We were bummed not to be able to see everyone this trip but such is life with a large family that grows larger every year.  It was wonderful to see those that we did get to see though :)  And we are looking forward to visits from those who have "threatened" a visit soon :)

This week we will be spent cleaning kids bedrooms and rearranging them (still) and bringing in everything from the car and grocery shopping and planing school to start back up next week and going to the midwife and basically life!

Well, I better run and get the laundry started :)

~ Rachel