It's been so long!

I know, I know... it has been a LONG time since I posted anything and I am realizing that I hardly took any pictures our whole trip, so if you are interested, check out my sister's blogs. They probably have quite a few posted, or maybe they will send me some soon? I have a couple of the kids in the snow and on Christmas day, but that is it. We left the middle of December and got home the middle of January, and I just didn't see the point in posting anything in-between because we were with our family the whole time. We had a great LONG, COLD vacation though. It snowed and snowed and snowed and snowed! I think we ended up with a total of 30 inches or so by the time we left. The kids got to go out and play in it a little bit and had a great time. It was really nice to be able to see everyone and spend so much time with our families. We had a great holiday season and it was hard to get back into our daily routine. What wasn't hard was to come home to 80 degree, sunny weather! Now I know why we love it here so much! Who's ever heard of laying out on the beach in January? Anyway, we got home Saturday the 10th and my kids both got sick on Monday the 12th. Go figure. Donovin was just running a fever, nothing else (?) and Halle had a runny nose and was sneezing like crazy. I wondered if she just had allergies or something, but she stayed home for a day of school. She was fine after that.

On Sunday my dad called and said that my grandma Koplowitz was not doing well and he was going out there on Tuesday. I didn't really expect much to happen, but then he called on Thursday and said she had passed away that night. The funeral was going to be on Friday. My sisters and I decided to all fly down to New Mexico and be there. We are all very glad we did. It was very last minute (seriously, I had like five hours to get ready to go) and our husbands were all wonderful to take time off and watch all the kids. We just couldn't send everyone, but we wanted to be there really bad. It was a beautiful service and we are so glad we got to be there for our grandpa and see our dad and aunt and uncle. She was an amazing woman who was always full of love and smiles. She loved her family dearly and always took such good care of everyone. You could not be around her and not feel loved and especially full... she LOVED to feed everyone. We will miss her greatly.

Oh yes, one other thing... Dononvin is potty trained! Yay! That is always such a relief for parents to have over with. He didn't have a single accident today and woke up dry from his nap. I am so proud of him. He is doing amazingly well!