Life has been busy. December wasn't that long ago, but seems like a blur. We had Uncle Jim, and cousins Travis and Erin here for a long weekend...or so we thought. The storms on the west coast forced them to stay an extra couple of days and they didn't arrive home until Christmas Eve, or maybe it was Christmas morning before they actually set foot in their house.
Christmas Day was spent opening our gifts at home and then joining Uncle John & Aunt Lola, Mason & Carissa & kiddos, Mom & Dad, Christy, Heather & Brian, AND the Browns--Stephanie with PJ & Brookelyn. We were thrilled to catch up with them and hear about their new life in Florida. Elena, Charles, & PJ played together and made Mom & Dad's house quite noisy. The love to play together. PJ is a lot of fun and great at entertaining them.
After they headed back to Lyons, we had our Goentzel Christmas. Charles loves opening gifts and "helped" everyone open their presents. He was less than thrilled with the clothes from Grandpa & Grandma and the shirts from Aunt Christy, but they were fun to open. Aunt Christy is ever the librarian and gave us about 15 new books to add to our already overflowing bookshelves!
Grandpa & Grandma Sharp met us in Lamont at Great Grandma Heusel's house. We left Charles & Micah with Grandpa & Grandma so Russell and I could go to use his Christmas present, tickets to an NBA game, the Oklahoma Thunder vs. the Phoenix Suns.
We arrived in Oklahoma City in plenty of time. My brother met us at Ted's (our
favorite Mexican restaurant) and we had just the right amount of time to get to the game. We were headed in the wrong direction (don't use Google maps) and stopped to look at the map. We discovered the Malibu was overheating. Thankfully Brain was just a few minutes away. The problem was the cell tower near his house was down and we were able to talk to him for about five seconds at a time. I was able to communicate where we were and that we needed water and a flashlight.
Brian rescued us! He was our chauffeur to the game...almost curbside service...and picked us up afterwards. We missed the first quarter of the game, but did see the Suns beat the Thunder. We ended up spending the night at Brian & Heather's, thankfully I planned in case of an emergency and brought clean undies, makeup, and toothbrushes!
A few weeks ago Micah had two red ears, needless to say we had some sleepless nights. After getting the medicine I noticed Micah had a tooth poking through the skin. Then, just a few days later a second one appeared. He's now got his two bottom front teeth.
Since the end of Christmas Break we've spent lots of time indoors. Charles is potty training and we've dropped out of all extracurricular activities except Kids Day Inn. Charles is doing pretty well. So far it's still Russell & I taking him every so often. Only a few times he's initiated needing to go. We've been out running errands and he's been dry the entire time. I'll spare you the gory details, but we've had some incidents with #2. On a positive note, he's learning he doesn't want to go in his pull-ups, but it's where he does go that's a problem. Usually it's during nap time when he's not sleeping and is in his room unsupervised. All I can say is that I'm glad we have a carpet cleaner!
Time to wrap this up. Brian, Christy, & I are trying to decide where to go for lunch. I'll, hopefully, have some pictures/video posted sometime in the near future.
