north carolina.

Our cousins down in North Carolina invited us down to their new home for Christmas this year.  Since Jeremy had two weeks off, we decided to go for it.  There is nothing like being with family for the holidays!  The drive down was pretty uneventful.  We decided to leave around 3 or 4 and got there in the middle of the night.  It was perfect traffic most of the way there and the kids slept half the time.  We stopped at McDonald's for dinner.  The kids love the place.  I always feel weird after I eat there.

The kids loved it so much they didn't want to leave!  Graham is still asking me if we can please move to North Carolina.  I think their house had a little something to do with it.  It was breathtaking.  There was so much room to run and play!  Peter's favorite place was the lofty area where he could look down at the rest of us and see all of the action.

Lots of time was spent outside.  Jumping on the trampoline, visiting the giant sand mountain, playing in the woods... Graham and Lincoln even found the crawl space under the house.  Luckily there weren't any snakes down there.

We managed to have two Girls Night Outs.  Once for massages and another time for hair cuts.  I got a 'deep tissue' massage.  It was brutal... but I loved it.  These girls are so much fun.  I enjoyed my time with them so much.  The dads managed to get some time in as well.  They saw two movies together.  We are so lucky to have such amazing friends/family.

We made gingerbread houses.  Grace was thrilled.

More outside time!  Jayne and Lincoln were so darling together.  Jayne has already put in a request for one of these tractors when we move to our next home.  We'll see about that.

We went to 'feed the ducks' one day.  It was freezing and there were no ducks.  We managed to take some cute pictures before we went back inside where it was warm.  Aren't these girls so cute?

The big boys....

And the little boys.  This is one of my most favorite pictures from the trip. 

Of course Peter's asthma flared up and we spent half the trip trying to keep him from having to go to the hospital.  Luckily we had some medicine from a previous episode and were able to keep his breathing under control.  We come prepared when we go on trips.  This poor little guy.  He has been sick half his life or more.  He was still as sweet as ever despite not feeling very well.

Grace is still talking about Kate.  Wishing that we lived near them again.  They were inseparable the entire trip. 

Peter thought he was hot stuff climbing the stairs and walking across the bars.  He spent at least 40% of his time up here.  He's getting so big.

I fell in love with this little guy.  He is so adorable.  He figured out that if he pulled the stool close enough, he could snitch m&m's from the new candy dispenser.  I had to capture it.

We managed to get the kids out of the house at least once a day.  We went to Chuck-E-Cheese one afternoon.  I think everyone else in Fayetteville was there too.  It was crazy, but fun.

Jeremy had the best visit with his cousin, Chauncey.  He was in heaven talking business and dentistry when they weren't playing video games or basketball.  It was the perfect visit for him.

Did I mention that we have 10 kids between us?  It was crazy... but looking back on it, I don't remember very much fighting or drama.  Our kids are great friends.