Welcome to the McClaflin's: Better Late than Never

We have been catching some flak around here because of our old dusty, crusty blog site! Of course, I can use the old tire excuse of "but I have twins," but x 5 ers will say "woopity-doo, you only have 2 kids!" We could use the excuse of "my car needs fixed," but most would say, "what does that have to do with blogging?" So, I will skip the excuses and get to the updating.

First is the visit from the Wood family. The pictures below do not truly convey the chaos that was our house during that ~12 hour period. Having 7 children and 4 adults in a fairly small room was ____ (I don't know what word to use to fill in the blank). It was a whirlwind visit, but much fun.

Next, Shawna and I got our Christmas tree. Below are before and after pictures:

Early in December, Alina took her first trip to a junk yard! Her Daddy had to find a part and Mommy was busy taking Conlin to the doctor for a follow-up, so Alina was bundled up in her snow suit for the first time, rode in the truck for the first time, and met her first part-puller! What a day!

Then there was the trip to Columbus for Andy's Memorial service. Judging by the picture below there was apparently a lot of burping going on (or maybe singing):

But seriously, I wanted to put up a posting right after we got home to convey a couple of memories I had of Andy. I enjoyed every minute I spent with Andy. I have been in almost 10 different countries with Andy, and one memory I have of him is that, no matter what country we were in, if we passed a McDonalds, he would sing a part of their comercials "At McDonalds." I also was remembering how he liked to pronounce the names of foriegn cities like "Munchin" in Germany. He was always willing to sit in the back seat so I could help navigate, even though he didn't fit very well. He always ate what was put before him, no matter whether it looked like it came from the animal that it was expected to have or not. All in all, he was a wonderful person to be around, and I love him. I know many others including his family loved him too. Just look at this small sampling of those who cared about him.

In other news, this week was Christmas at the McClaflins'. We traveled to Ohio again to spend most of a week at "Mimi and Papa's" house. It was a fun, relaxing week where I got to spend lots of time with my family and got to see more of my own kids than I have been able to in a long time. Here are a few pictures from that trip:

Conlin and Alina on the move!