blogger mom

I started this over a week ago...things are crazy around here...sick kids for a long time, finally we are healthy again. I wanted to post this for my own record keeping. I love looking back at these entries later and remembering.

Christmas was super fun this year. The week before Christmas was relaxing. We enjoyed spending time at home together as we finished preparing for Christmas. We always celebrate Christmas Eve at our house with my parents and my grandma. It was a good evening and I am so thankful that my grandma is still able to handle the drive to our house so she can be with us. Trey and Evan were sound asleep by 8:30 or so, but poor Riley couldn't handle his excitement. He finally had to come to bed with me at 10:30 to fall asleep because he had gotten himself so worked up. He was convinced he would never fall asleep and it would "ruin" Christmas. He's a touch dramatic.

Christmas morning a little four year old in fleece jammies jumped on me in bed at 6:10 yelling, "Mommy, wake up! It's Christmas Eve!". I couldn't resist his mess of brown curls and toothless grin, so I hopped right up to get the coffee started. This was the first year that I had waited to put all the gifts under the tree until Christmas Eve. I knew if I put them out early, then Cora would unwrap them. I think we'll do it this way every year now because it was so fun to see their faces when they saw all the presents from mommy and daddy and Santa that morning for the first time. We sat the boys on the couch (Cora was still sleeping), and brought them gifts one at a time. They were at such a great age this year...so sweet, so grateful, so excited. I wish we could have just stopped time and spent about a week in this moment. I'm trying to type out all these details because I want to be able to read this when they are teenagers and remember this morning vividly. I want to remember Evan with his new Anakin figure that was an immediate special treasure. I want to remember Riley kissing his new Harry Potter book and jumping up and down with excitement. I want to remember how Trey immediately opened his new giant art box, ready to start a new masterpiece. My sweet boys. Sister bear woke up just as the boys were finishing up so she opened all her gifts when they were finished. She didn't get the whole unwrapping thing and didn't seem to understand what all the fuss was about! Give her another year!

It was then time to head to Nana and Papaw's house. We met my brother and his family there and had another great Christmas together. Nana started the festivities off with a scavenger hunt and the boys found their Wii. Christmas could have ended there. The boys are thrilled to finally have a Wii, and Eric and I think it's pretty great too. Of course, that was only the beginning because Nana and Papaw have a tendency to get a little carried away at Christmas time. The boys got some really great stuff that has been fun to play with as a family. The boys were also very excited to give Nana and Papaw the artwork we framed for them that boys had done at school. It was a good day.

Unfortunately the next morning sickness hit our house pretty hard. Trey woke up with a nasty fever. We started rearranging our plans for Monday, a Christmas gathering at Eric's grandparents house. I took the three healthy kids while Eric stayed home with Trey. We were hopeful he would recover soon and the rest of the week we would be able to keep our plans. That wasn't the case. Tuesday was no better and then Cora woke up with a fever on Wednesday. So, we canceled our plans to celebrate my mom's birthday. Sadly, on Thursday we were still a mess. This was a real problem because it was time to celebrate Christmas/New Year's with Eric's family. For seven years now we have been celebrating with a special trip that gets the entire family together. This year Eric left with Riley and Evan to meet his family. I sat with a very sad and sick Trey and feverish baby here on the couch and watched them drive away. Trey and I were determined to make the best of it, but his fever was relentless and we made a second trip to urgent care. I would love to have our last week of break back, I want a do over. It was Eric's week off work and the kids last week off school. Since then we've had Evan puking and Riley with a trip to the doctor for an eye infection. I hope our turn with sickness is over for the winter!