Christmas Extravaganza

For us, Christmas started on the 23rd.  We started with a soup potluck with our Bible Study group.  As the evening wore on, Hannah started looking paler and paler.  By the time all of our friends left, she was lying on the couch and feeling feverish.  After giving her some medicine to help her feel better, Shad and I decided to let the kids open their stockings since we were already planning to do our family “Christmas morning” the next day.

Poor Hannah.

Before passing out the stockings, Josh read the Christmas story to us from the Bible.  He was very proud and excited to be the reader.

I try to keep the stocking stuffers to reasonable, minimal and something they will actually use.  Therefore the kids usually end up with gum, undies, socks and a small toy or two.

Oh, yes, and hair clips.  She put as many as she could in her hair.

The kids were excited to get to bed.  We had plans, the next morning, to make cinnamon rolls and coffee and then open gifts with the kids before we headed down south to spend the rest of our Christmas with our extended family.

Cue the sick kids…

Josh and Hannah both woke up with fevers, snotty noses, phlegmy throats, head aches and coughs.  I loaded them up on medicine, then we headed into the living room to open gifts.  At this point we still had high hopes to pack it in in a few hours to head south.

Hannah’s not in this one because she is laying on the couch.  Josh handles sick way better than she does.

Shad and I went running that morning, can you tell?

“Yay!  More Legos!!”

Hannah was able to get up just long enough to try on her new jammies.

So heavy.

I heard so much about this sword.  It’s already taken down a picture off the wall.

Here we are enjoying our gifts.  I love my new cold gear sweat shirt that Shad picked out for me.  Hannah picked out the head band and Josh got me a hat. 

(Last year we started a new thing for our family.  I got the idea from this blog post.  Each child gets four gifts: something they want, something they need, something to wear and something to read.  We set a budget per child and buy from those four categories and, besides a few small things in their stockings, that’s it.  The kids seem happy with this and it keeps us me from overspending on kid gifts.  The problem was that I would buy the kids’ gifts first, then every other time I was out gift shopping I would see something else that one of them might like and I would snatch it up.  The next thing I would know there would be 10 gifts per child under the tree and we would have to spend time after Christmas cleaning out toy boxes to make room for the new stuff.  Absolutely ridiculous!)

By the time we played with our new toys, some of us ate cinnamon rolls and I drank my coffee, Shad and I had to make the decision not to head south that day.  Josh and Hannah were both exhausted, miserable and feverish.  We spent the rest of Christmas Eve laying around and watching movies.

Despite Hannah still feeling poorly, Christmas morning we headed down south.  We figured that she was going to lay around all day anyway, so why not do it while celebrating Christmas with our families.  By this time Josh was feeling much better and Hannah was trying really hard to feel better.  We arrived at Shad’s brother’s house by about 9:30 for breakfast.  Hannah became tearful (this was not a new thing for her since being sick) and complaining that her ear hurt.  My sister-in-law, Michelle, broke out the children’s Motrin and Hannah reluctantly took it.  Fast forward an hour later: Hannah was a different kid!  She ate, she wanted to play, she was perky and she was smiling.  She looked terrible, but she felt so much better.  After breakfast, Shad, his brother and his mom headed to the next town over to visit Shad’s grandparents and uncle at the nursing home while Michelle and I stayed at her house with the kids.  At this point Hannah even took a bath.  She was a greasy, rat’s nest of a mess from laying around being sick.

Later, Shad, the kids and I headed over to my parents’ house.  We ate, we opened gifts, we ate some more, we made fun of each other, we had fun.

 

My big bro, Gabe, little bro, Sam and my dad.

My sister, Abby, and sister-in-law, Breanna.

Josh and more Legos!

Cousin Frankie with me and my girlies.

Silly!

After Mom and Dad’s, we headed over to Shad’s mom’s house to stay the night.  We put the very tired kids to bed then sat and watched a marathon of one of those Alaska Frontier shows. 

The day after Christmas, one more celebration.  This time at my mother-in-law’s with Shad’s mom and siblings and the kids’ cousins. 

Gramma Connie made teddy bears for all of the grandkids.  And gave them some cold, hard cash.

Mason has a thing for air planes.

Hannah and Rylee

Gramma Connie excited about her knife sharpener.

Greg, Zach and Mason.

We had another great time celebrating Christmas.  The ham dinner rocked and the company was great too.

Alas, four days later, our Christmas extravaganza was over and we headed home.  We have spent the last week with Hannah continuing to mostly not feel well, and crying at the drop of a hat, I might ad.  Bethany started being sick the day after we got home and is still trying to feel better.  The sickness that never ends, unless you are Josh.  So far Shad and I have not gotten sick, as long as you don’t count the fact that I have been light headed and my arms feel super weak today. 

It’s called denial and I’m sticking with it!!