~~~ The Holiday ~~~

Our holiday festivities started on Christmas Eve day. I hadn't done ANY baking or goodie making this year so we took advantage of the time we had that day and made some snickerdoodles, kiss thumbprint cookies, and some fudge. That evening we had our special Christmas dinner and discussed the special reasons we celebrate this season. Then the kids got to open their present of new pajamas. After changing we went driving to see Christmas lights. When we got home we read a special Christmas story from a book Gma & Gpa had sent, followed by the tradtional reading in Luke. Then it was off to bed to have sweet dreams and wait for Christmas morning.

Aaron and I were totally amazed at how compliant the kids were on Christmas morning. We had told them that no one was to go downstairs or come in and wake us up before 7:00. Surprisingly, they all played together in Karter's room until the designated time -- WooHoo!

When we came downstairs the kids were totally psyched. Emorie wasn't even interested in looking in her Santa Box because she was completely happy with the big item Santa had left next to her box: a play kitchen. She was so excited! It took some coaxing to get her to even look at the stuff we were pulling out of her box for her. It wasn't until she saw the play food that could work with the kitchen that she took notice. Rylie and Karter were puzzled by the specially wrapped presents left on top of their Santa Box. Karter was the first to get his open and loudly announced, "I got an ipod! This is the best Christmas ever!!!!" Rylie was quick to follow in getting hers unwrapped and was able to say, "I got one too!" (** Guess Santa knew the kids would be needing some entertainment on their long flight to Germany. He must have also known that mom was going to need to eliminate the space taken by the many cd's because of downsize in housing in Germany.) They were all very happy with their "big present" as well as with everything else they got.

Aaron and I mostly did presents that work for both of us (kitchen stuff that we've been wanting or wanting to replace). I got a zoom lens for my new camera and a longer lasting battery for my new camcorder (we're preparing for all of those cool shots we're going to get in Europe.) I also got the one thing I did ask for: an exercise ball. The kids were very generous in giving both Aaron and I little notes and homemade gifts of love.

The one thing I really would have loved to do with the family this year was to help teach the kids about the needs or others and how to serve them. I would have loved to take the kids to a food kitchen to serve, but I think their age would have not allowed that AND I wasn't much up to the challenge of doing too much extra this year because I've just not been able to pull myself together and have so little energy for the extras.

The Wednesday before Christmas started the season off on a sour note for us. I should have known something was wrong when Emorie fell asleep on the couch Tuesday afternoon. Wednesday morning she started vomiting and had diarheaa. She was sick for five days. Other than when she was an infant, she has never thrown up and has never really been sick. This whole episode was pretty traumatizing to her and every time she was about to throw up she would start screaming and crying. Poor little thing. She's almost 3 and only weighs 23 pounds so she didn't have anything to lose, but we could tell that she got thinner over these five days. On Sunday night, as Emorie was getting over it, I heard Karter in the bathroom throwing up. Just great! Once I finally got him settled and back to sleep, I got to climb back into bed and wait for the next episode which, fortunately, never came. His was just a one time thing - Yeah! Oh no, though, we're not through... we still have one more kid and it hit Rylie HARD on Monday night. She wasn't as lucky as Karter and proceeded to vomit all day Tuesday. I felt so bad for her because she was so hungry but anytime she even took a sip of water to wash away the yuck from throwing up, it would come right back up. Fortunately she felt much better on Wednesday. It was a long week for me though as I wasn't able to get anything done, except for a lot of laundry. I'm just grateful that they were all feeling better before Christmas and were able to enjoy the day.

As most of you know, the holiday season is usually an eventful time for us. We've also celebrated Aaron's birthday as well as our anniversary. We'd arranged for a babysitter (our neighbor) for our anniversary but she ended up needing to leave town with her dad at the last minute so her wonderful mom filled in for her. It was funny to hear Karter say, "The babysitter's here." She got a chuckle out of that too. She was awesome and wouldn't even let us pay her. We went out to dinner and then went to see Seven Pounds with Will Smith. All-in-all it was a good movie (a little slow and hard to understand at the beginning but then it all made sense by the end.) Aaron and I haven't been out on a date for quite some time and it was really nice to eat and be able to talk (to each other) without interruption. Wow... 18 years... Can you believe it!