Being with my husbands family is a very relaxing time. Most of the adults take turns napping so that someone is always watching the little ones...but we all end up sleeping. It's a good time.
Then for New Year's we went to my family's place in Alta Vista. I love being there, too. I love the food that we all eat (oodles and gobs...and I still have cookies left). I love my nieces and nephews all the same on this side of the family too.
But you know, after all those similarities, my family is totally opposite. Where I get rested up at my in-laws house, I usually wear myself out at my parents house. We stay up all hours of the night and then get up early the next morning (or just a few hours later) so that we don't miss a single moment with anyone.
This year my older sister and her boyfriend came down. This thrilled all of us because she lives in Minnesota and doesn't get to travel to Kansas very often. And her boyfriend, Robbie, is so much fun to be around. I'm very adamant about couples being married before living together, but I guess in this case I will love them anyway and call him brother-in-law.
It's so neat to watch the family grow and watch us have to use a bigger table each year. We used to be able to fit on the dining room table with a card table in the living room close by. Not anymore...my parents pull out the full-size ping-pong table and we cover it with a pretty table cloth and set the chairs around it. Then we have a dining room size table set up for the teenagers (and a couple or two that think they are still young...lol). And then there's the really little kid table...a plastic "little tykes" table. This seats the 3 that are old enough to sit by themselves. (there's still one that is an infant) I'm pretty sure I won't even try to count because I would get lost.
And this year it was our turn to add to the table. Yeppers...Katryna got to spend New Years Day with us. She didn't get to spend the night, but we left at 4:00 in the morning to pick her up by 6:00. Then we got back to my parents house at 8:00 and got ready for church. It was so much fun to watch her interact with everyone again (I say again, because she was with us at Easter just as a guest). She did meet a few new people that weren't there at Easter. She had to be back to the place she's staying at 10:00 pm. Boo =(
She got to open a bunch of presents from everyone, and was even a part of our white elephant gift exchange. We took pictures as a family, even though we were dressed in sweats and "play" clothes instead of "good" clothes. We are so ready for her to be in our house.
She started talking that day about changing her name. My older sister asked her what her last name was and Katryna almost wasn't going to tell her. Daggers almost shot out of her eyes. (I can't blame her for not liking her last name...I can't share, but there's a good reason). She then talked about changing her facebook page asap and putting the Soodsma name on it. And she wants the yearbook to have it as Soodsma as of when she gets back. It made me tear up to hear her talk about taking our name.
And then, to top it all off, she plays piano. Ok, let me back up a little to share the whole story. Martie got a keyboard for Christmas from Santa. Within a week she had a song learned and was playing (two-handed chords) and singing with it. So we had her play for my family on the piano. Martie gets done, and Katryna asks if she can play a song. All I have to say is that my girls are very talented and I can't wait to polish it all up and get them performing with me on stage.
Well, I could go on forever and ever, but I'll save some for another post. If you can't tell, I'm so excited. I love being a mommy to two beautiful and amazing girls. What a blessed woman I am.
Below is our family of four...and of course the new sisters:
