I'll Be Home for Christmas...

The boys enjoying a cartoon together

I've always loved that song! :) Wow, it's been a busy couple of days here as we get ready to leave tomorrow for all of our travels. While it feels like I'm packing up half of what we own, I'm also trying to clean the house along the way so that we have a clean house to come home to on New Years Eve. Levi is doing well through finals and has the last one tomorrow morning before we leave.

We're very excited for our trip and are praying for safety on the roads, decent weather at least on travel days, and that everyone stays healthy. (I do realize all of this is a lot to ask for) We'll be taking a blogging break for the next three weeks to enjoy the holidays and family time. We hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and a blessed New Year!

Seeing the finish line...

Marcus in his spare time...
Levi hitting the books

Levi is seeing the finish line, for this semester anyway...This week is finals week, so the last few weeks he has been really busy studying and getting ready for this upcoming week. Most classes will end, but I think one or two carry over into next semester as well. He'll have finals Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday of this week then we will pack up and leave Sioux Falls for the next three weeks. On the 17th he'll start a week long clinical in Kirksville, which I think he is really looking forward to. It will mostly be an orientation to his clinical site, getting to know staff, seeing as many cases as he can in a week. It is possible he might do some intubations, but not too much further than that yet. I guess if he does get to do an intubation it will be his first live patient...though he has had lots of practice on the simulator patient. It has been a very intense semester, but I can tell he is learning so much and will really enjoy this as his career.

Once that week of clinical ends he'll have a nice three week break. We plan to spend time in Kirksville with family, and all of the Lebron side of the family is coming into town for a family reunion that we are all looking forward to. Most live fairly close, however Santiago and Mary Lebron (Levi's Grandparents) will be traveling from Tucson, AZ. His cousin Charity is coming from California, and Uncle Michael and family will be there as well. They live in Mongolia.

It will be a great time of visiting and catching up. After the reunion we'll head to KC to see my family, have the Ballew Christmas Eve party, and spend time with family and friends for a week. Then for the final week off, we'll be back in Sioux Falls to get the boys back on a good schedule and have time to just relax at home before starting the new semester on January 7. We are praying that the boys do well with all of the traveling and that no one gets sick, so that we can all enjoy the holidays to the fullest. I've never been away from home around the holidays, but in a wierd way it feels so much more like Christmas with all the snow around, travel plans, and the excitement of seeing people we haven't seen for a while. We are so thankful that we have all of this to be excited about.

Wintery weekend

Daddy playing with the boys

Twins watching the snow plows
Cole enjoying some snow
So wrapped up they could hardly move!
Oh no! MAN DOWN!!!
Daddy to the rescue!
Marcus riding his tricycle

Looking out our front door
Could this hat be any more ridiculous Mom?
Ooops!
Deep in thought
Not very happy about having to wear this hat!

This weekend we were supposed to get a big snow storm, however we only had 4 inches of snow, then the rest was ice...a pretty far cry from what they were predicting. It was a nice quiet weekend at home though anyway, and gave us a lot of time to rest up and start feeling better. The boys have runny noses still, but other than that seem to be doing better. While we had a little snow we let the boys go out for a little bit today (probably not the best parenting since they are just getting over colds...but we couldn't help ourselves), it was the first snow the twins have really had a chance to play in. It was fun, but shortlived, as everyone seemed to get tired and not want to be outside anymore... it probably took us longer to get them all bundled up than the actual time we spent outside. We'll try it again soon though!