Atlanta

For Christmas this year, we braved our first ever cross country flight with all three kids and went to Atlanta to celebrate with almost all of the Ducote crew.  Despite, Julia throwing up everything on the car ride down to the airport and dry heaving on the airplane, the flights both ways actually were great (even better on the way home since barf bags were not involved!)  I had thought that maybe Julia had eaten something that wasn't sitting well with her since any time she wasn't getting sick she was super happy, walking around everywhere and acting fine, but a day later in Atlanta when Joseph got sick we knew it was a stomach bug.  Joseph made my heart totally burst on the night he was getting sick-he had just finished throwing up for like the third time and I was rubbing his back and he says to me, "Mommy, I know you're doing your best to make me feel better."  How sweet is this boy? It totally made my night and I forgot (for a minute) about the sheets sitting in the hallway covered in puke!  Julia was nicknamed "Patient Zero" and the bug went through all three of our kids, and many of the adults and some of the cousins.  Thankfully it was short lived, everyone was healthy on Christmas day, and we still had a great visit...just way more laundry than I was expecting!!  

Ready for the flight!  

We had rain for a few days but thankfully packed rain boots so the boys stayed busy and had a lot of fun in the big puddles!

Napping with Daddy on vacation is the way to do it!

Sweet Sam fell asleep almost every night holding his tablet-it was so sweet!  

We made cookies for Santa on Christmas Eve.

This picture was taken about two minutes before Ella threw up all over herself, me and her cookies!!  Thankfully we were able to salvage a few for Santa!

The rain stopped for the second half of the week so these boys were outside constantly!!  They just had SO much fun together!  

Pretty awesome football game of Uncles vs. Cousins.  We can't wait to see how this game grows over the years!!

LOVE this one!!

Ella was so excited about the Hello Kitty pajamas that Santa brought her-she wanted her picture taken!

So much fun together! We had 7 out of the 9 grandkids (all who are under the age of 8) together which was just so great.  It really is awesome to watch them get together and just really enjoy one another and pick up from right where they left off.

I loved finding Ella playing the piano-I feel like it is almost a rite of passage at a grandparent's home to sneak in and play by yourself.

I took these three boys and Ella to the park one day and it was so much fun to watch them.

I'm so sad that we didn't get a picture of all of the cousins together...even on Christmas I didn't get one which I just can't believe but a picture isn't needed to show how thankful we are for our Ducote cousins and how much fun we all have when we are together.  Looking forward to our next time together!