catch up

holy crap--its been a long time since i've written anything here. sorry doug and virginia. i know without facebook you probably have nothing to read on the computer except this blog, and you've checked with anticipation every day only to find that i've written absolutely NOTHING!! haha!! but, i do have excuses, and they seem like good ones to me!

christmas has come and gone. so has the stomach illness that went along with the holiday. eden got us started with it all and threw up so much that she had to go to the hospital. next was me. thankfully, i am part machine. the machine part of me can stay up all night with a puking kid, spend the day in the hospital, come home to sleep but spend the night vomiting instead, sleep sitting up in a chair for two hours, and then get up and head back to the hospital all bright and shiny like nothing has thoroughly wiped me out! we then had a one-day intermission with no vomit. that brings us to christmas eve.

christmas eve began with ma barbie and scot coming over with bags and bags of gifts! i'm pretty sure the kids were up at 6:30 am, but we didn't open presents until 10ish. i just love watching the kids get so excited about their gifts! simone does this fist clenched shaking laughing thing when she is beyond excited, and its sooo funny!! following gift opening #1, i put all the new clothes in the wash and got everything organized. we spent the afternoon resting, and then dustin got sick. he went to bed moaning and groaning and fevered. in bed he stayed while i got all the kids ready and left for ma and pa's. actually, when i left he was hanging over the toilet, but i later found out that he did NOT vomit.

christmas eve in paden city began with supper of chips and cookies. of course there was healthy food, but whats christmas eve without cookies for dinner?? after we ate, we attended christmas eve service at ma and pa's church as tradition leads us to do every year. we have often talked of staying home and having our own "service", but i don't think any of us could really go through with it! the kids were amazingly well-behaved through the church service. nice, quiet behavior is hard to do when you know you have gift opening round #2 waiting for you at ma and pa's when church is over.

for the first time ever i think the kids really did take turns opening gifts. i know they were excited, but they were somewhat subdued as well. it could've been the 6:30 wake-up time and lack of naps. but it was nice to see them taking things a little slower and enjoying each gift as it was opened. oh...i forgot to mention that before the presents were opened, dustin showed up!! thankfully whatever sickness has fallen upon us was quick moving, and he said he felt 90% better than he did earlier in the day. so thankfully, he did not have to miss opening presents at ma and pa's. it was horribly lonely without him.

just as christmas eve church is a tradition, so is my anal organization of christmas gifts when we get back home on christmas eve night. i have dustin carry everything in, and then i set out all the presents in kid specific locations...cana and eden's on the couch, judah's in the chair, simi's on the loveseat, and nadia's on the coffee table. i throw away all trash, vacuum, and put all of mine and dustin's things away. this way the kids can wake up and see their presents all over again. dustin fought me on this tradition for about three years, saying that it was entirely too late to be doing such a thing. he would've preferred to come home, leave it all sitting in bags, and go through it in the morning. but thankfully in recent years he has relented and come to see the logic beyond the organization.

it makes christmas morning a whole lot more enjoyable! we got up and opened presents from one another. dustin and i get each of the kids three gifts in memory of the gifts jesus received from the three men from the east. after breakfast and gift opening round #3, we got ready and left for maryland.

i'll skip the gory details of the long drive in the ice storm. uffda.

we arrived at meme's in time for dinner. it had been a year since we had seen dylan, selena, and selena's kids, so it was a long overdue reunion. the kids really missed seeing their cousins when we were over in the summer, and they all had a lot of catching up to do! after dinner, we had gift opening #4, and then the kids were ready for BED! the next day we spent laying around and playing with Christmas gifts. that is, until Judah got sick. he came upstairs to tell me that he *thought* he might throw up, but it was too late. just as i was instructing him to go to the toilet, he turned around and vomited all down meme's steps. he was trying to get to the bathroom while puking the entire way there! that meant a LOT of cleanup. poor judah. he just cried and cried to come home, but there was nothing i could do but make him comfortable on meme's couch and hold the trashcan for him. the redeeming event of the evening was ordering papa johns pizza. yum yum.

sunday morning we came home. i've never been so ready to get home and back to our routine! i was just tired of being sick and the kids being sick and tired of being tired. while christmas with all of our family was absolutely wonderful, i knew that we all needed some much needed rest in our own beds with no anticipation of gift opening to keep us awake!

as it stands no one else in our house has been sick. we are rested and healthy and enjoying our week with dustin off of school. i did some christmas returning yesterday and then went to a doctor to see about my pelvis problems. he seems to think it will heal just fine and will not cause me any problems with labor and birth. i have a list a page long of projects for this week, and today i organized the laundry room. that was probably the biggest item on the list. next will be to clean out and organize the office. i had to do the laundry room first so that homeschool stuff from the office closet can be stored down there. the rest of the list includes small things that are just annoying and time consuming. but i want to get them done this week while dustin is home. i can imagine that completing this to-do list will help me get a great start to the new year! there's nothing like starting out the year with a clean house and organized life!

come january i will get back into my usual routine and hopefully will not be so neglectful of this blog.