remember blogging? and a gazillion pictures from 2014

remember when people used to blog?  maybe it's still happening, but it seems like most blogs i used to read have morphed into instagram feeds now.  which is fine with me.
i like using this space to remember moments that fly by with the rascals and sometimes processing through this motherhood gig.  but, it has been a while.
since it's november, i thought i'd go ahead and post some pictures from last christmas since it's almost been a year.
christmas eve at matt's parents:

waking up christmas morning.  such sweet sweet time:

 

in november of 2014, my sweet grandpa turned 90.  so the big ol' extended family planned for a trip after christmas to be together and celebrate him.  he lives in naples, florida so the mooney crew was fine with that!...however it was gonna be the first time all 5 of us have flown together.  as with each kid, they change a lot in a year.  i'd feel fine about taking lena today, but last year at this time her behaviors (associated with her autism) were different than today and i just had no idea how that would go down in airports and airplanes and away from home all her familiar.  on top of all that, i had back surgery in september, so how would bags and traveling and 3 kids and all that work post-op?

maybe lena threw a magazine at the guy sitting next to us on the airplane and maybe it knocked his ipad onto the floor, but he had had a few drinks to loosen up on this particular flight, so thankfully, he was extremely laid back about the ipad situation.  and actually the first flight, we happened to be in first class.  whaatttt??? all 5 of us...in. first. class.  this is still a crazy mystery to us....and we had to explain to hazel and anders that the seat on the next flight would not have quite so much room.

overall, it all went great.  if you know our family, then you know this is huge!  kids were champs and it really was a vacation we will always remember.  still, almost a year later and i am still amazed and grateful.  it was an amazing trip.  sun, beach, family.  such a gift!!!!

don't get used to this, anders:

 someone was a HUGE fan of the first time she saw the ocean!!!

yep, hazel really is that high up in that tree:

is it 2nd cousin?  or first cousin, once removed?  not sure, but both were probably there:

 my dad and his siblings:

 celebrating my grandpa:

and my nephew celebrated his birthday too:

 cousins:

just our 5 escaped from the big crowd for a while to the naples zoo.  hazel loves giraffes:

 found these animals in the brush:

 so tired:

seriously, she's so pretty:

she is too:

 it's a vacation miracle...all 3 rascals looking in the general direction of the camera:

girl cousins:

 every now and then, matt and i take a picture together...the one before this was probably at the alter:

 he's such a goof:

 sweet brother:

 nana and papa tom and all the grandkids:

my brother tommy, mid-sentence...if you know tommy, you know he's not one for silence, so i love this picture:

 mom & sis:

whew... that is a lot of picures.  now that i've posted pics of christmas 2014, maybe i'll get around to more pictures for the year 2015 before christmas rolls around.  doubt it, but it's my blog and i can pretend that i'll get to that if i want to.