My Nativity Collection--Part 1

I finally took all of the Christmas decorations down last weekend & put everything away in the shed.  (Except for the string of outside lights & the nativiy water globes.)

So I decided I wanted to post the pictures of my collection of nativities. 

I have 55 nativities I display, & then there are 3 or 4 ornaments that were on the tree.  I just forgot to take pictures of those.

So here is part 1 of my collection:

Hopefully it won't take me another week to post more.

Home again....

Here is one more picture of Benjamin at Aunt Pamela's.

The roads were terrible until we got to the interstate.  I decided to go through Idaho Falls instead of the short cut through Ririe, because I didn't want to take the chance of yucky roads.

When we got home, we unloaded but did not unpack.

Rusty had been busy.  The house was nice & clean & all of the laundry was done.  Rusty even did a couple of loads that evening.

And he organized & put shelves in the kitchen cabinets so we could get our nice dishes out that we have stored for years & years & years.  He also put in mug hooks & hung all of our mugs. 

Benjamin missed the dog (along with everyone else).  Zeb is a good dog & lets Ben give him lots of lovings.

And even gives him a "piggy-back" ride ☺

I love Benjamin's smile here.

Brienna got creative one evening (or maybe she was just bored) & made names out of her snack of pretzels.

Emmalee thought that was so "cool"

Zane--in pretzel!

Brienna & Emmalee cleaned their room.

Brienna took pictures of how clean & organized the room looked.

wow--you can even see the floor!!!

And she organized her make-up & hair bands & ribbons. 

Aunt Pamela's house....

After we packed & squished everything into the van,  we left around 1 pm from Lander, WY--heading to Thayne, WY  (Star Valley).

As soon as we tried to get up to the 65 MPH speed limit, I realized immediately that the van wasn't shifting.

So we had to pull over to add more transmission fluid.  Of course I didn't have a funnel, so we had to try to use a paper cup for a funnel. 

Luckily I didn't have too much "stuff" packed on top of the tote that had the transmission fluid.

We saw this beautiful (almost "fake") cloud on the trip.

Around Crowheart Butte, Callum told me he felt like throwing up.  I pulled over to find the red "barf" bucket.  (I bought this bucket for 50 cents from DI one day when Emmalee wasn't feeling good.  I decided I didn't want to clean up when someone missed the grocery sack or it leaked).

I told Callum to make sure & tell me when he knew for sure he was going to throw up, so I could pull over & he could throw up outside.

About 2 miles later, I heard the unmistakeable sound of Callum throwing up--A LOT!!!

Luckily he made it into the bucket so I stopped & had him "clean up" while I emptied the barf bucket & wash it out.

This was stop # 2 (or 3--I'm not sure).  I don't know if it was the "car whoosies" or too much celebrating with all of the people from coast to coast.  But Callum couldn't keep anything down.

This is waht the roads looked like when Callum threw up for the 4th time. 

I was finally able to pull over about 10 miles later (at Togwotee Pass Lodge)

Brienna took these pictures from Pamela's jeep.  They were behind us (you can see the van in front).  We (I had Ethan, Callum, Benjamin & Emmalee) were only going about 40 tops most of the way. 

I was a bit stressed on this trip--for a few reasons:  I had a head ache still; I usually don't drive with bad roads (Rusty or Pamela do); Callum was sick; Emmalee was not behaving the greatest & kept asking "Mom" for everything; & it was storming!!!  I experienced "white blindness".

Needless to say, we finally made it to Pamela's house around 7 pm.

Aunt Pamela played Candy Land (Emmalee got this for Christmas) with the kids.

Benjamin had fun in the laundry basket.

He made himself right at home--on Aunt Pamela's bed ☺

Good thing we didn't stay too long, because he was getting into EVERYTHING!!!

This is what I woke up to--Benjamin & Callum snuggling in the bed I was in.  I was only supposed to share it with Ben, but Emmalee & Callum joined us.

We kept checking the radar & all of the web-camera for the trip to Idaho & the roads looked terrible.

But...(not to spoil the ending)...we DID make it home ☺ 

More Wyoming Fun...

I am finally getting around to posting some more photos of our Christmas vacation in Wyoming.

Emmalee, Brienna & cousin Kailey (2nd cousin)

All of the kids playing at Aunt Laurie's house (& Uncle Don's too ☺)

Aunt Laurie L♥VES playing with & having the kids at her house!!  Brienna trying out her new camera

More play time!!

A rare picture of Ethan at Grandma's & Grandpa's.

Playing the piano at Grandma & Grandpa Carter's--back to front:  Caleb (Tina's little guy), Benjamin, Brienna & Kailey (Tina's cutie bug)

Me holding Tina's newest baby--Jonathan.  He is 2 months old.  (FYI:  Tina is Laurie's daughter)

Tina's children:  Alyssa (7), Jonathan (2 mo.), Caleb (2 yrs.) & Kailey (4)

Emmalee helping Aunt Laurie

Uncle Don hosted a "kids only" New Year's Eve party at their house.  They celebrated on several time zones--starting with New York (10 pm) and Callum claims to even have celebrated with Hawaii (2 am).

We were planning on leaving early (8 am) on New Years morning, but I had a head ache & the weather wasn't the greatest. 

So we finally decided to just go to Pamela's house & then on to Idaho on Saturday.