Wrapping up...holiday update!

Wow, I can't believe it's NYE?!?!  This month has flown by in so many aspects and some it seems it has been at a snail crawl!  Our family had a GREAT Christmas this year :)

The kids and I headed for TX on Sunday before Christmas!  I had good intentions of seeing lots of people during the week we were there, but unfortunately that didn't happen :(  (Ashley, I'm sorry :*( )  We were busy the entire week!!  Between helping my mom get the rest of her Christmas stuff done, visiting with my grandmother and other family, it seemed like Christmas Eve was here before I knew it!

With us having such large families, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day are always busy!  Christmas Eve we started out at my dad's house, then went to my sister-in-law's house to exchange gifts with Jeremy's immediate family.  THEN we went to Jeremy's aunt's house and celebrated with my mother-in-laws family!  So much fun and enjoyed getting to visit with everyone!

Christmas Eve night we stayed at my mom's house.  The kids have been BEYOND excited about Santa visiting this year!  The only thing they have consistently asked for has been a wii.  To the point that they didn't care if they got anything else, as long as they got a wii!  Well, Santa being the jolly ol fellow that he is, brought the kids (and me and Jeremy) a wii!!!  My mom said she met Sydni coming down the hallway when she first woke up and she had already been in the living room...she said her eyes were as big as saucers telling her that "Santa brought us a wii NiNi~!!!!"  So cute :)  We opened presents just from us and then my brother and sister-in-law and their boys came and we opened presents again!  Lots of presents opening went on this year!  My mom totally spoiled all of us (even the big kids)!  It's funny to me that I was SUPER excited about my gifts this year and they were new pots and pans and dishes!!  10 years ago, I would have been like, "you have got to be kidding me, who wants household stuff as a gift?!?!?"  Now at 31, I'm loving it :)

Christmas Day afternoon we went to my Memaw's for the Metcalf celebration!  I enjoyed visiting with family and I know my kids had fun playing with cousins!  The gift game was fun as usual..so excited I got what I brought :)

We headed back home around lunch time on Sunday....we were all exhausted at that point and just wanted to sleep in our own beds!

This week has been spent being lazy, playing LOTS and LOTS of wii, playing board games, laundry and some outside time on Wednesday and Thursday since it was nice.  I'm not gonna lie, I am READY for the kids to go back to school on Monday!  Jeremy is actually off on Monday, so we will have the day to ourselves!  Thinking about going to see Little Fockers....

I was bad this year and didn't take many pics...actually not any at all of the gift opening :(  Here are some random pics tho of Dylan shooting his bow that he got, the kids skating (both got rollerblades for Christmas and were so excited to try them out!), and last some pics of our new house!  Warning, not everything in the house is finished, no base boards, etc and not all of my decor is exactly where I want it, but it's 75% done I'd say! 

We are leaving this afternoon to go to Oklahoma City to stay with some friends (okay let's face, the ONLY friends we have in this state : /) tonight!  SOOOOO looking forward to that!!

It's gonna be COOOOOOLLLD this weekend, so we may not be doing much at all but hanging out in front of the fire!

**Say a prayer for me, I had 2 interviews this week and have a 2nd interview with one of the places next week!!  I'm hopeful that I will get an offer cuz momma needs a j-o-b like yesterday!! 

Okay, now for the pics:

Here's a collage of the Christmas pics

Collage generated with Smilebox

Here's pics of our new house:

Looking into kitchen from living room

looking into living room from kitchen:

Sunroom/Playroom off dining room:

another view of kid's area as we are calling it:

one more view and door to back yard:

looking down hallway from garage door entry:

looking into dining room from kid's area:

one corner of living room...I'm still struggling with that big shelf space!!  And I have 2 more crosses to add to the wall also :)

another corner of living room...struggling with that shelf also and need a lamp shade for the lamp behind the TV!

looking into kitchen/dining from living room:

kid's bath at end of hall - has swinging door that goes into tub/shower and toilet:

better view of bathroom:

Shower area, door leads from here into Sydni's room:

in Sydni's room, door with mirror goes to bathroom, curtains cover closet:

Sydni's room BEFORE she got new bedding for Christmas:

prepare your eyes!!!!!

yes, that would be LIME green zebra and cheetah print!!  She loves it :)

Some more things in Sydni's room:

from the doorway looking in:

now onto Dylan's room:

from the corner by closet:

he has an awesome closet!!!

Our room isn't anything special, we need to get some bed rails, but I did put some stuff up! Looking in from hall:

looking from bathroom into the room:

Looking into bathroom, to the right is the shower/toilet and the left is my closet:

That's pretty much it!  I'll do some outside pics next week :)

I said I would share some pics of my new ride and here they are!!  I'm BEYOND proud of this thing y'all!  It made the trip coming to TX and back SOOOOO much nicer!!!

Hope everyone has a GREAT NYE/NYD!  I'm so excited about what 2011 will bring for the Segroves family!!

Our new town and Christmas cookies

Since my last post was kind of a whirl-wind of updates, I thought I'd give a little more details about this new town that we call home!  Jeremy says Texas will always be home and while I agree, I'm good with calling Oklahoma our new "home" for now...

Here's some factual data about Duncan, OK if you are interested...I'll give you the low-down!  Although the population of Duncan is around 23k vs Lindale's 5k or so, it is a very old town.  There are no chain restaurants and no chain department stores...except Wal-Mart!  You know I couldn't live in a town that doesn't have a WM!!  Luckily we are close to it since I've been there EVERY day since we moved.  I told Jeremy the other day that I'm actually TIRED of going at this point :/  If I was going to buy stuff I want in stead of things we need it would be different...I think.

Anyway, I would say this town is about 10 years behind in their way of life.  There's not much that is on-line and most everything has to be done in person.  The school has been the biggest adjustment for me so far.  There are 4 elementary schools in the town and they are all k-5.  I'm super excited that they are on the same campus for once!!  There are about 400 kids per school and each grade has 3 classes.  Definitely a lot smaller scale than what the kids are used to!  The schools here are what they call "neighborhood" schools.  They have a bike rack and kids actually RIDE their bikes to school!?!?  Can you TX folks believe that??  I'm gonna take a pic and post on here!  There are no car tags, as long as their teacher recognizes you, you are good to go.  The car line is similar to Lindale's, but after the first 2 days I watched other parents and now I just park on a side street and walk up to get them.  They have made friends super fast and seem to be adjusting well! 

I told someone today that I've enjoyed being off and getting the house situated and making sure the kids got adjusted and doing all the things required when moving to a different state (car insurance, registering vehicle, etc!)  However, momma is ready to find some friends and is anxiously looking for a j-o-b!!  It's sooooo weird to go in places and not know a SINGLE soul!  I almost want to just say, "Hi I'm new, anyone wanna be my friend??"  LOL

In other exciting news, momma got a new vehicle!!!  Beyond excited and thankful :)  It's a 2008 Ford Expedition!  I'll take some pics tomorrow and post them for y'all!  I'm like a 2 year old...I was plain giddy the other day walking out of Wal-Mart and opening the back door with my remote!! 

Today the kids and I baked some Christmas cookies.  Other than their shapes, there is not much that's original about them, but they had fun and that's all that matters, right??  I keep telling myself that as I clean up their mess...and I did the floors today so I'm way anal about stuff getting on them.  Did I mention that my kids are as messy as they were when they were toddlers eating in a high chair???  I thought that would get better with age, but no such luck!

Here's some pics of our cookies :)

Flour, flour everywhere!!!!

Me and my girl :)

And the finished product :)  Not typical, but it worked for them!!

Tomorrow I will have pics of the downtown area (soooo neat) and my new ride!  Hope everyone is enjoying my blog :)

Blogging from Oklahoma!

I almost struggled with where to start on this update! I haven't blogged since August... Not sure if I mentioned in previous blog posts, but we had our house on the market since Feb/March. At the end of Sept, we had a contract on the house AND Jeremy had a phone interview with Halliburton all on the same day! Talk about excitement!! That was on a Thursday. The following Friday he went to Duncan, Oklahoma for a face-to-face interview. By Monday morning, he already had an offer letter and we had less than 2 weeks before we closed on our house! We rented a storage building and moved pretty much our entire house into storage since we didn't have a place to live yet in OK and we weren't sure about logisitics, etc of when we would move.


We closed on our house on 10/15 and Jeremy started his new job on 11/8. Since we weren't able to find a place to live on our first trip to OK, our only other option was for Jeremy to stay in an RV park. We used my grandma's RV and he stayed there during the week and came home on the weekends. The kids and I stayed with my grandmother until this past week!

The month of November was HARD for us :( We have never been apart like that before and it was just hard all the way around. We were basically living out of a suitcase and the kids didn't have their stuff and space, etc. I'm thankful we didn't have to rent something for a month and could stay with family, but MAN, I don't ever want to have to do that again!!

We found a house to rent and moved in last Saturday! I'm SO excited that we are all together and we each have our own space!! There is a park RIGHT beside our house so the kids are loving playing there!

I know I've left a lot out of this update, but each day I'll work to post pics and give more info about the new town that we live in, etc.

The kids started their new school this past week and so far, it's been GREAT! They both came home the first day talking about the new friends they had made and just seem like they are transitioning so well. To be honest, I was worried. Worried that we had made the wrong decision to move, worried that we were scarring them for life by moving them. It's good to know that's not the case. I might have over-exaggerated on that...just a bit.

Jeremy is settling in well at his new job at Halliburton. His title is Senior Mechanical Designer and I'm SO dang proud of him :) I'm not working yet, but will be looking for a job once the kids go back to school in January.

I'm impressed with myself that in 1 week I've managed to un-pack the entire house and the garage is clean as well! The only left is the wall decor, but we are tackling that tomorrow! The house that we moved into, the owners are remodeling...some of the work still has to be done, so I will take pics of what is finished so I can share our new home with family/friends back home.

I've got several other blog post updates already typed up, so I'll be posting those in the next few days! May I never go another 4 months without an update...

til tomorrow.....

Pictures

I've been meaning to post some pics from when we went to Six Flags and just some other random pictures!  I finally got through them and here they are!

turtle at the Dallas Aquarium

Jaguar - I wish that rock hadn't been in front of his face because he was eating a meal...some other type of animal!

Not sure what they are looking at here, but Sydni, Dylan and mom

NEMO!!

Turtles on a log

This is what my diet coke looked like, how cool?!?!

Okay, Dylan was obviously fascinated with this bird and it was *right* there beside him...it even tried to bite his finger, he loved it :)

Next up was the Rangers Game!

At Joe's Crab shack, taken by Dylan

Dylan & my nephew Tate

My little man :)

Tater Bug

Cutie Pie

Mom, really??  It's 100 degrees out here and I'm TRYING to watch the game, could you please put the camera DOWN!  Thx

Mom, Richard and the grandkids ready to take on Six Flags!!

And just a few of my baby girl, because I can ; )

Sporting her new haircut for school!!