A Beautiful Morning!

Mike and I got to take Lydia and Isaac to do baptisms for the dead in the Houston temple.  It was Isaac’s first time!

So fun to share the experience with cousins!

Alice is 3!

Alice turned 3!  What a day!  We were in a crazy week of sickness.  Alice had been sick earliest in the week and, luckily, was feeling great on her birthday.  Evelyn and Bridget were sick the day before, but had a fun recovery day home with the birthday girl.

Lydia and I weren’t up to speed.  I had to take some medicine to get myself up off the floor and decorate the cake.

Alice’s Book of Threes!

She got a super fancy princess dress!  How do I make three fingers with these gloves on?

How we love our sweet Alice!  She is such a joy!!  How I wish I could keep that sweet little face forever!

Isaac

Isaac received the priesthood in our new ward.  Our home is so richly blessed!
 

The Robins came down from Dallas to be a part of Isaac’s big day. The Calls drove across town and squeezed us in before their own ward meeting time.  So much love (and height) in this room!  Us Johnsons are short!  

Welcome to Texas!

We had a good trip down to Texas and were excited to take the kids to Lambert’s Home of the Throwed Rolls on the way.  The last time we'd been was on a road trip years ago when Isaac was just a baby.  Wayyyy too much food!

Hooray for getting to stay with Laura and Patrick in Dallas!  We’re so happy to be closer to them!

Things didn’t go quite as we planned with the house when we got to Houston.  Our beloved Calls were so generous to let us stay with them for a whole week.   

Mike’s first day of work.

First day of school.  Waiting for the bus in front of our new house!

Here are a few things we like about Houston.  H-E-B, a great grocery store!

Mexican food and absolutely gorgeous winter weather!  

Christmas

We were so happy to have Christmas with my parents in Cincinnati!  It was a well needed vacation in the middle of our moving chaos.  For a Christmas present Oma and Opa gave us a trip to EnterTRAINment, a land of model trains!  It was magical! 

It even had a sort of carnival section at the end.  The kids liked the tilt room, but it just made my head spin!

Oma collected hole punch dots by the bucketload and we had a "snow" fight outside.  We were finding dots in our pockets all week!  

We taught Oma how to make Buckeyes.  You can't go wrong with peanut butter and chocolate!

And we made graham cracker gingerbread houses.  It was a good way to use up all the left over candy from our pantry in Westerville.  

I loved that the weather was decent enough to have an outdoor nativity play on Christmas Eve.

Alice wanted a turn to be Mary.

Eager children on Christmas morning.

Happily playing and reading.  Joy!

Opa showed us one of his fabulous Santa ensembles!  Once again Alice was less than thrilled and cried as soon as she saw Santa.  Even when Opa took off his beard she was still not convinced.  

It was such a wonderful Christmas vacation!  It was truly a blessing we were able to have a great solid family visit before leaving Ohio.  

Last Days in Westerville

We found out in late October that we would be moving to Houston at the end of December.  The rest of the year was a whirlwind.  We were so sad to leave Westerville.  Here are a few pictures from the last couple months there.  

Neighborhood Pie Night!  Oma and Opa even came up for it.  We had about 44 people there, it was wonderful!  

My best friend Laura and her family came again for Thanksgiving from Indianapolis.  We will miss having them so close!

We had a visit from Santa one night.  Our wonderful neighbor John works closely with the local police and Santa is a good friend.  Santa even arrived in a police cruiser with the lights on!  It took Alice a little while to warm up to him.

Our beloved Walls.

Westerville was full of wonderful people.  Mrs Prince was a great piano teacher and friend.

I was so blessed to know this amazing band of women from the bus stop, lovingly refered to as the Ladies On The Corner.  Seriously, they are the best and I am so lucky to call them my friends!

Moving day was no fun.  Lydia missed the last day of school with her friends because she was home throwing up.  With a house full of movers!  Luckily she found a mattress to sleep on for most of the day.  My heart ached for her!

Luckily the next day when we finished cleaning the house she was feeling much better. Some friends came to say bye.  Best friend Tessa.

Anna and Jenna.

We pulled away tearful.  I'd told myself over and over not to feel cheated for the short time we had in Westerville, but grateful that the Lord allowed us to even have this chapter.  We've been so blessed!