Patricia Haws Funeral

On December 23, 2014 my grandmother Patricia June Story Haws passed away. She died in her home with my grandfather. She had been in poor health for many years so although it was unexpected, it wasn't completely surprising. It is a little sobering to have a funeral looming a couple days before Christmas, but we did our best to celebrate Christmas and then my sister Marisa who was in town from Arkansas and I flew to Utah to join my parents, 2 brothers, and other sister for the funeral. Ragnar was wonderful about being willing to take some time off of work so that I could go support my mom and family and be able to celebrate my grandmothers life. I had to take Deacon with me as he was only 4 months old and he did really well on the flights and the trip. I consider that a huge blessing in itself. 

Here is Deacon on his first flight. He was a good baby. I was worried about his ears hurting or something but he fell asleep as we took off and slept for a while. It was my cute sister Marisa who was next to me that we should have been worried about! She had major motion sickness!

When we got to Salt Lake City, miraculously my brother Corey's flight from Michigan, my brother Chris' flight from Washington, and our flight all landed within 20 minutes of each other so we could rent a car and drive the 3 hours to Vernal, Utah together. It was so nice to be with my siblings. When we got to Vernal, Deacon got to meet his great grandmother Mabel who is still living at almost 90. She is an amazing lady who still hosts and cooks and cleans and cooks and cooks some more! She loves to feed us and is going strong. She is a good example of staying healthy.
Sunday was the viewing "visitation" for my grandma.

It is always a little unsettling to me to look into the casket and see their lifeless body. I am grateful for the knowledge that this will not be the last time I see her and that we have eternity together. My grandpa was doing fairly well and in true fashion he had all his disposable cameras with him to take pictures :)

Here I am with Grandpa Haws. He has a fun sense of humor and although I am sure very sad, he was enjoying having his family around as I know my grandma would have loved.

It was really wonderful that all of my siblings could make it to the funeral. I sure do miss having them around and I love each one of them so much!

The funeral on Monday was sweet and a good reminder of the wonderful woman my grandma was. It was a very cold day so going out to the viewing was pretty freezing and my dad made it short and sweet. I love this picture of many of her grandsons carrying her casket.

It was great to be able to spend some extra time with my sister Marisa. I don't get to see her often and she was a great help with Deacon. There were so many blessings along the way throughout this trip. Deacon had an overall very happy/content demeanor, the travel plans all worked out great and we were even moved to first class on the way home.

Ragnar did awesome with the kids, they really missed me and were happy to have me home. They made me this cute sign.

Overall, I really felt like angels were watching over us and our families as we were all gone. My brother even had his son born the next morning. It was a great time to be together for my grandma. I will miss her phone calls. She was really the only one who called our house phone so it will be weird not to hear it ring. She was always so proud of us and our family and always let us know. I will miss hearing about her life adventures and the things she knew about the world. Although we never lived close by to her, I knew she loved me and I will miss her. Families are Forever.

Ugly Sweater Party

Our friends the Miller's have been hosting an Ugly Sweater Christmas party for a few years now and it is one Christmas tradition we have really looked forward to. We have some fun friends and we are always excited about a night out. I have a tradition of updoing the pants more than the sweaters since they are easier to find. The gold pants I won with 3 years ago have resurfaced every year ;)

Here was our outfits this year. We couldn't find a babysitter and weren't sure we were going til a few days before so we did the best we could ;) Who doesn't love Olaf?

Ragnar ended up wearing the same shirt as Brittany! Must be Walmart! Lets face it, it should be ugly t-shirt party in Houston, it was HOT!

People really stepped it up this year and there were some funny sweaters! As you will notice a little bit of a woman's head in this guys photo as Natalie and her husband made a conjoined sweater! haha!

The girls looking good!

Somehow we all fit in the picture!

Here were the winners. Ty was an elf and he won for the guys...GROSS! Shannon won for the girls and made this beautiful outfit herself :)..notice the matching accessory. The Bodily's won best couple and he had a battery pack of lights and was shining all night long! 
This year they changed it up and had us do a 30 min scavenger hunt for certain Christmas decorations/items. I felt like I was in high school again running in and out of the car! I am glad we have great friends!

Disney on Ice

I can't believe I forgot to blog about our girls day out to Disney on Ice Princesses Edition in November! My friend Rachael asked a couple of us if we wanted to take our girls and since we love Disney we were happy to join along. Ragnar was able to get us nice seats and we had a great time!

Despite Ella having bad allergies (as you can tell from her eyes), we had a great time. Channing was enchanted as she had never been and kept asking over and over which princess was coming next and where her prince was! They had added Frozen to the mix this year and the girls were very excited about that! Afterward we went to the Aquarium restaurant and the girls loved looking at the fish as we ate. I thought Channing would be scared and I was a little hesitant as she was the youngest child in the group, but she did great!

Here she is enthralled with the fish! That is one BIG fish!

Ella wanted to eat next to the glass! Thankfully our table was the closest one so we settled for that! Here are some pictures Ella took.

Here are the girls. Emily's girls Sunny and Macey, Rebecca's daughter Kaitlin, Rachael's daughter Cheyanne, and my girls! It was a fun day and I love being with my girls and hamburgers and Disney are at the top of my list as well :)

Fall Soccer 2014

Another season of soccer in the books! This was Cavin's 4th season playing and he loves it. He was on the same team again with many of the same boys and was glad to play together again. This year Ragnar tried to be more present and coach more when he could. He is getting better and better but I can't wait til he can put all of this skills and knowledge together at the same time! He still falls very frequently, but I think that has become a usual for him ;)

He sure is a handsome boy!

These boys are getting so big. They were the black Bulls this year and they played on the big field so it was good exercise for them!

We had a simple end of the year party at Spring Creek BBQ and Cavin got his much anticipated trophy. He sure loves getting a trophy. We are so glad he loves to play soccer!

Nutcracker 2014

Every year since Ella was 3 we have had a tradition of going with my mom and sister Natalie to the Nutcracker ballet at Christmastime. Most years we go downtown to the performance, but occasionally when time, schedules, and ect. don't permit we find a smaller ballet company and attend that for the year. This year we had the Kingwood ballet performing right at the Atascocita High School right by me and since Ragnar had a basketball game every Saturday in December, we decided to give it a try. 

Ella LOVES the music and was so excited to go.

This year we started taking Channing along and she was excited to join.

We went to the Olive Garden before and met my mom and Natalie there.

This is the only shot I have with Grandma and Natalie.

And....this is how we felt....we waited and waited and waited......The performance started 30 minutes late....who does that? So although the actual performance was fine enough, me being the person I am who cannot stand when things start late, had a hard time focusing because I was frustrated. Then, the intermission was twice as long as it was supposed to be! Ahh I was dying! There were tons of kids there...did they really think they would patiently wait for them to get their act together? Anyway, we will be spending the money and going downtown again next year. We do love the Nutcracker tradition though! Glad we get to continue it with Channing now! She did great....besides asking me 100 questions throughout the whole thing....that girl is going to be one rough movie date when she gets older!

Santa Babies and A Gingerbread House!

Last night we had a fun time making our annual Gingerbread house. The kid love putting them together. We do a "boy" house and a "girl" house every year in effort to only have to make 2 ;) It sure was messy yesterday but the kids had a good time!

Deacon got to sit in his highchair for the first time while we were making a mess!

He sure loved it! 

About to begin the houses!

The boys!

Their finished product....

And the girls....

Here they are together (After a LOT of the mess was cleaned off the table;))...

 Then we took turns with our Santa hats ;)

Had to have a couple of our baby and then Cavin wanted me to get in on the fun!

A visit with Santa!

Last weekend we got to go over to my moms neighborhood and they had a neighborhood get together with soup and Santa. My moms friend put it together and invited us to join, so we went over. The kids loved it. They got to go on a hay ride and meet Santa. I thought Channing would be terrified but she surprised me by wanting to wait in line and sit on his lap. Typically something she would NEVER do. 

She gave him a big hug and told him she wanted an "Elsa" dress. 

Ella was also excited to tell him what she wanted

Cavin was the most hesitant but got up and sat on his lap.

It was sad though, after each kid "Santa" gave the kids candy from his bag. The girls got a candy cane and then he gave Cavin a snickers. As some of you know Cavin is allergic to nuts, so Cavin whispers to me..."mom, I guess Santa doesn't know me very well, because he gave me a snickers :(" He got over it pretty fast though. haha. We love Christmas!