Christmas has begun!

We kicked off Christmas early this year with my my mom's extended family in Cda. We're pushing close to 100 of us now and we can't fit in anyone's house so we meet at the Grange Hall down the road for an entire day of Christmas fun.

Henry got a snooze during the greedy game. That's little Kimberly with him.

Playing the greedy game--there's a lot of us!

Jemma was happy to find people she knows so she hung with Stephen and Susan.

The big kids do crafts and play-doh and decorate cookies and ornaments.

Getting ready for dinner. Jemma loves to sit on the counter and get hand-outs while I cook, here she is with just a smidgen of all the garlic bread we eat!

Here's Henry (he's the grumpy one) with my cousin Charlie's little Charles. We make some cute kids in this family!

My cousin Becca playing a game with some of the kids.

Dinner!

My grandpa. The one who started it all.

Overflowing.

I passed Henry's room the other day and caught my Jack holding his brother's little hand and rubbing his belly. And my two little boys were cooing at each other and all was right with the world.

a daddy's work is never done.

Ed has a big job, building a big business. I hear him on the phone and I realize he's all grown up and he's smart and people call him about important things. Sometimes I forget that because I've known him a long time...in fact I knew him 17 years ago when one of the things he wanted most for Christmas was a pair of Nike Air Jordans and guess what's topping his list this year? That's right, some good old Air Jordans!

So you can see why I sometimes get confused.

However! The one thing I know for sure is that while Ed is good at a lot of things, he is the very best at being a daddy! (In fact he's the one who recently mentioned that having five kids is not a bad idea...I'm really not sure how far he'd go!)

Here he is with one little monkey:

and just a few minutes later with another:
To my partner in this crazy, messy business of parenting: there is no one else I'd rather pass in the hallway at 2:00am cleaning up one puker after another!

Christmas Program!

Looking awfully cute!

I didn't realize till later that we were missing one in this shot! He was just hanging in his crib, dressed and ready to go!

Jack on his way up to the stage. Mmm! So handsome!

The kids' Christmas program was fun this year--the theme was Christmas around the world and there was an African drum part that little Jack was loving! Ava's an old pro at these things but this was Jack's first time on the big stage and he was so nervous his little legs were shaking but he was so fantastic--I wish I could post some video, his voice was loud and clear and his smile was huge and I got a great thumbs up from him when his part was done! Kinda makes me teary just thinking about it!

First!

We are all better!

We are happy, healthy, and ready some Christmas fun! Yay!

Can I just say this was the longest three weeks of our lives. The December I was eight months pregnant with Jack, I hosted 2 showers, a graduation party, and a Christmas party, catered two parties and did a wedding, and it was still a very distant second to this as the worst December we've had. But we are now back in business and there is still a lot of fun to be had!

She might be sick

but she's still pretty darn cute.

and on it goes.

When we woke up Friday morning I laid in bed and did a 30 second check of the family. I felt fine, Ed was fine, we hadn't heard anyone throw up in the night, and Henry's breathing was loud and clear on the monitor. Yay. Relief. We spent the day running like crazy to get ready for our annual Christmas party--shopping, baking, decorating, cleaning (or seriously de-germing the house). My mom offered to take the kids for the evening so Ed ran them out to her house and I was so excited to have two whole hours to myself before people came. I seriously couldn't decide if I should lay on the couch and stare at the ceiling or run to the mall to find something to wear. Then Ed called with the news that he hit a deer on the way home. Ed, who drives 50,000 miles a year happened to hit a deer, in my dad's car, 5 miles from home.

(I'm not sure if you can hear the cha-ching sound where you are but let me help you out...ER visit for currently uninsured baby (cha-ching), overnight hospital stay (double cha-ching), car repairs (what's a a little more cha-ching).

Grrr.

Finally the weekend arrived. My house was clean and shiny, there were yummy leftovers to eat, all was well. Till this sweet pea started the puking again:

So sad. And so gross.

While Henry had croup and the kids had the flu, Jemma had rotovirus. The nastiest virus I can think of--it is a good week or two of puke, fever, rash, and just when you think it's gone, it comes back with a vengenance. My kids all get it around age two--Ava's wasn't too bad, Jack's lasted 10 days, Jemma is currently on day 12. She has had several 48-hour periods of perfectly good health, we think all is well and do the scrub down and then she pukes again and we're right back where we started. I think poor Ed is going to go totally nuts if he has to put the stupid bedskirt on her crib one more time!

We are currently at 36 hours and counting, her room is scrubbed, the window is open and the sun and feezing air are flooding in, if we can make it one more night we might be in the clear!

And for the record, Henry recently got the rotovirus vaccine...the best parenting decision we have ever made. In two years, I will be giving myself a giant pat on the back.

Spoke too soon.

So just about 30 minutes after my last post my Jack started throwing up.

Every 30 minutes all.night.long.

Ed was in Montana so I was on my own but after about 3 hours of sleep from 4:00 to 7:00am I woke up and felt pretty confident that the day could only get better.

However!

Henry woke up a few hours late with some serious croup. I waited a few minutes, tried the usual standbys, but soon he was white mouthed, wide eyed, and "struggling to breathe." I called Paula and she heard one breath and said she was on her way to watch the others while I ran him to the doctor. But right before she got here, I had a funny feeling that all was not right with Jemma and I thought I should check before I ran out the door. I opened Jemma's door and got an eyeful and noseful of head to toe puke. I'm not a panick-er but I am a crier and I burst into tears! Paula was just running in the door and she was nice enough to offer to clean up Jemma but she was so miserable and so nasty I had to do it myself. Paula grabbed Henry and headed out for the doctor's office. I cleaned up the mess, called my mom to come over, and called Paula to head down but she said the doctor was sending them to the ER. I met them there and carried Henry into the back where a good 5 or 6 doctors just swarmed over him and went to work. They had him looking good quickly and while I was sitting there holding his hand, I realized my legs were shaking so bad I couldn't have stood up if I had to!

A couple hours later, Ed was back in town (and home with the sick kids, all of whom were eventually throwing up) and Henry was admitted for an overnight stay. And let me just say that staying at the hospital with a sick baby is nothing like staying at the hospital with a new baby.

What I would have given to be moved to our good old family birth center! It was a long, miserable night. Henry slept surprisingly well considering they picked on him every hour but I slept maybe 2 45-minute chunks. I just spent hours listening to his little heart monitor beeping.

My sweet sweet baby.

sweet sick baby.

miserable.

all tuckered out.

sweet chubby feet.

making friends with the hospital buddy.

back home where he belongs!

Feeling so much better today!

Sometimes I can't believe they're mine!

Ha!

So, while I don't like having sick germs take over our house, I expect them sometimes and just deal but last week I was seriously annoyed that we were all so sick in December. Seriously. We have better things to do this month than hang out at the doctor's office! So now that we're on the mend, I have been running like crazy to catch up. I ordered Christmas cards, ordered Christmas presents, and finally tackled the pile already hiding in my gift closet. Here's my first attempt at wrapping presents, 19 down.....who knows how many to go! Take that sick germs!

It's official!

Henry's stocking arrived and now it feels like he's here to stay, and boy are we glad!

Jack's back

to feeling like himself:

tie, sword, knife....what else do you need?

Tree Day!

We got our tree really early this year. Which ended up being a good thing since we all got sick right after it. So the tree is still living on our back porch but we'll get it up soon!

Ava packing some snowballs.

Grandpa fell in!

Our tree!

(I think)

Family shot.

We tried to get a good one for the Christmas cards. This is not it.

But I like how me and Jemma have the same frown, Henry is so not happy, Ed's smile is hanging in there, and the other two are super excited about something!

A few weeks ago...

Henry went to his first Coug football game:

and it was so hot we had to keep him shaded! In November!

He did this the entire time but he got plenty of oohs and ahhs anyway!
We've had the same seats for seven years now and we've seen the different people around us get engaged, married, have kids, and others have had kids graduate, have grandkids, take awesome trips, move, survive cancer, you name it. So when Henry made his debut, everyone was happy to meet him.

Whew.

We've been sick.

In the last week, between the 6 of us, we have had a nasty battle with croup, four regular colds, one painful, lost voice (for 5 days!), two monster ear infections, the biggest throw-up fiasco since we had kids, 3 different fevers, two chest x-rays (on the baby!), two trips to the doctor, and one house call from our friendly family doctor. We've also taken three trips to Lewiston, three to Pullman, two to Spokane, hosted a baby shower, had a fancy-schmancy work dinner, and done the regular bit of school, work, life at the same time.

I.am.tired.

However! Thanks to hundreds of dollars at the pharmacy and one good night of sleep, I think we may be back in business. Stay tuned.