last christmas post...promise

This is terribly past due. It's an important time of the year though so it's going in the blog!

So we we had a temporary case of insanity this year and decided the 17 hour drive to Idaho was a good idea. It actually wasn't too bad thanks to splitting it between two days and listening to The Hunger Games and Mocking Jay. A good time was had once we were there, and we tried to enjoy the snow before heading back to the barren dessert.

christmas morning at Gma and Gpa Mcs

Funny thing-I can count the number of times Ry has woken up after 7am on one hand, one of those times was Christmas morning, and all her cousins were patiently waiting to open presents. So a first in Ry's life, being woken up in the morning (which doesn't quite make up for the thousand times she has done it to us).

All my kiddos and their stockings. Kevin is included in that, I have this fear that now that he's married Christmas morning will be lame.

Love that she is overjoyed to get a pair of wings...which is good because that's about all she got from us. Lame Christmas morning fear is legit...I'm the worst!

christmas day at Gma Lou's

I LOVE this pic. This is my little bro...uncle mike. Ry insisted we get him a present, and I convinced her he would love this plaid shirt (that was 75% off).

Thank goodness for Gmas and Gpas, my kids had a great Christmas. Ry got a princess dress from my dad and his wife, and transforms into Princess Ryeena every morning right around 5am.

Sledding. Ry loved, Soph froze.

She was much happier to be back in our toasty warm car.

Spent our last couple days in Jackson Hole, WY with Kev's brother (at his cabin) and their friends. Always fun, thanks for taking us Jeff and Maja.

My niece came along and watched Sophie one day so we could take Ry skiing. The best part was after we sent Ry home with my sis-in-law and Kev and I enjoyed some runs alone.

Jackson Hole...fabulous, not so great was the three hrs. it added onto our already 17 hr. ride home.

it's christmas. all over. again.

Christmas was a CRAZY time for us here in El Paso. It was so nice to have Christmas decorations that filled our empty house. We also enjoyed all those fun Christmas activities (many of which revolve around baked goods), getting to go to Idaho to visit our families, and telling the story of Jesus' birth every FHE for a month straight.

We did miss delivering and receiving all those Christmas goodies on our doorstep (we miss you Denver people).

Something new this Christmas was Kev's company's formal Christmas party. 1. We get to get all gussied up. 2. We get a night of eating and dancing without the kiddos. 3. Some of our closest friends work for the same company so we got to bust a move with these cool people.

Don't let this pic. fool you....I have MAD moves on the dance floor (even though Kev compared me to Elaine Benes from Seinfeld in this pic...rude).

Also, my favorite part of El Paso are these women. They also came from Colorado and they are the best. They have saved me from many days of crying over loneliness.

This was our first year of making "ginger bread/graham cracker" houses (actually a house). We gave it our best, but it was pretty sad looking. Got to love kids though, they thought we were the coolest parents...something about all the candy you could eat.

The finished product (complete with a flower garden).

Kev was unimpressed with my last minute addition (a bridge).


The next day when it was suspiciously quite, I came out to the kitchen to find Ry had managed to move the house from the counter to the table...and proceeded to make a meal of it.

And let's not forget Christmas cookies. We had every intention of delivering these to our neighbors, but I wanted Kev to go with me (due to a slight language barrier), and we just never had a night that worked...so we downed all these little girls and boys ourselves.

flashback

Got all my pics. back and am ready to post. So this is a flashback, not to the 80s or anything cool, but to our week in limbo during our move. We had a week to kill before we could move into our house so we took our time touring New Mexico and all its glory.

First stop-Taos, NM.

Enjoyed Swimming, celebrating my birthday in the hotel with cupcakes and Ben and Jerrys. We even found some snow and skied on it. Well, Kev and Ry skied while Soph and I hung out in the lodge.

Also found this little Native American restaurant and had ourselves some fry bread with choke cherry sauce...AMAZING!

So cute. So tired.

Second stop-Santa Fe, NM

Saw Tangled, toured down town Santa Fe, and checked out some cool Mexican furniture stores.

Pretty cool, but next time we move I vote we kill time at Disneyland!

Finally we have arrived (and yes...Ry is wearing moon boots).

the perfect storm

So my ambitions of blogging all our happenings now that we have the internet have been foiled because our pics. somehow were transferred to my mother in laws comp...and what's a blog without pics? Actually, this post is picture less...but do read.

This is a short comedy from the lives of Kev and Stef McMinn, who due to a flu ridden kid and a malfunctioning washing machine, had one crazy night. Let's preface the story by saying our entire day was spent in the car on our 20 hr. drive from Jackson Hole to El Paso.

Ok...dim the lights.

It began at 3 a.m. when Ry walked into our room claiming her stomach hurt, and although all past experiences have taught us to run her to the toilet IMMEDIATELY, we laid their daze just trying to console her. Any parent knows what happened next...Kev's side of the bed was doused with puke. Any remnant of sleep was quickly gone and we rushed into action. Me cleaning up Ry, and Kev tearing off the bedding. Fast forward to the bedding in the washer, Ry sleeping on our floor with a big bowl by her side. Right as we were settling down I heard a noise from the laundry room that didn't sound quite right and begged Kev to check it out. Kev obliges and next thing I hear is "ohhh", so I jump out of bed and proceed to sprint down the hall.

I need to pause to describe the layout of our home. Our entire house is tile except for the bedrooms. Our laundry room is just a couple feet straight down the hall from our room.

And begin scene. I take off full speed to the hall, and the moment I set foot on the tile my feet fly out from under me, I enter the air, and crash onto my back smacking my head on the tile. And there I stayed for the next minute pretty wet and hurting, until I could make it into the fetal position....then cue puking (not me, but Ry). Do you comfort your sick child or try to prevent the flowing water from entering your carpeted room? I did the latter, but THEN I attended to Ry.

The rest was pretty uneventful, the washer hose had come out from the wall, lots of towels, big headache, but a little giggling between Kev and I. At 4:30 as we were crawling back into bed, Sophie could be heard on the monitor just waking up. Kev called it the perfect storm.

Two things I was grateful for that night:

1. That Ry didn't get sick on MY side of the bed (sorry Kev).

2. That we were forced to run the laundry that night, instead of the next day when I would have been home all alone. I would have probably admitted defeat... immobile and crying.