Baby #4 and More: Alex's Birthday and Christmas

Alex's Birthday and Christmas happened as we were in the midst of moving. I had started packing as much as I could before Christmas. As Alex opened his birthday presents, they went from his hand to a packing box. Same thing with the Christmas presents, they were opened and packed in moving boxes simultaneously. It was a very different kind of Christmas. Our tree was up the day after Thanksgiving, which just happened to be the same day we accepted the offer on our house. That put things on the fast track to move, since our house was sold, but we had no house to move into. The day after Thanksgiving we viewed 10 houses and then again that Sunday, we viewed 10 more houses. We had gone to several open houses during September and October. The first open house we went to was on Labor Day weekend. It was an amazing house, but I didn't get too excited because it was priced about $20,000 above our limit. Turns out, after a few months and several price decreases, the house ended up well below our $250,000 limit and we were able to buy it! LOVE THE HOUSE! It is on a lot and a half, has three bedrooms, 3 1/2 bathrooms, living room, family room, dining room, awesome deck and patio and a sweet backyard with no backyard neighbors besides the high school, which is far enough back and the fire station, which has turned out to be a great neighbor. We have a fireplace, an attached garage, which has quickly become a favorite part of the house. We have a sidewalk on our side of the street, most of the city does not have sidewalks at all.

Our kids have continued to attend Mary Queen of Saints and we've continued to attend Holy Assumption since Caryn will be receiving her first communion in a few weeks. I've been hanging in West Allis a lot since I go straight to the gym after dropping everyone off at school. I stay there a few hours and then run errands to Target, Menards, Sams Club, Pick n Save, etc. till Benjamin is done at 11:30. Then it's off to home for lunch and back to pick the kids up after school.

It has been an eventful first few months of 2012. Here's a few pics from Alex's Birthday and Christmas, we'll have to steal pics from Claire's iPhone for the first months of the new year, since the camera looks to be empty.