Christmas Crazies:)

Christmas started off with a trip to Illinois for a few days.  Since we didn't make it out for Thanksgiving this year I was extra excited to go out there!  About 2:00 in the morning the night before we left, Sawyer woke up with the pukes:(  But the next day he seemed fine and away we went.  He scarfed down his lunch with no problems and we were out of the woods!  (Or so I thought.)  We were about 45 minutes away and had to stop for one quick potty break.  Tucker was sooooo sad that he was stuck in his car seat still.  He was ready to be DONE!

Wednesday night we went to the big Christmas program put on by the choir each year at my home church which is always a treat.  I used to love singing with them and so of course I get all sappy and homesick about it but it's still fun to go!  

Thursday morning I went to an old roommate's house to catch up for a couple hours and it wasn't near long enough!!  We could have sat and talked for two more hours.

Thursday night I went out with some of my cousins (and Tucker) for supper.  We embarrassed ourselves by wearing these fabulous sweaters to a "cool" restaurant.  It was great!!

Aaaaaannnnnnnd then I got home and discovered a very sad and sick little girl:(  The poor thing puked all night long every 20-30 minutes and we couldn't do anything for her.  She was finally done around 4:30 in the morning and then slept pretty much the next 24 hours with a few 1/2 hour breaks here and there to get a drink and try to eat a few bites.

Friday night my mom stayed home with Summer so the rest of us could all go to my extended family Christmas.  She was up helping me some the night before too, when at one point I was worried enough to call the on call doctor back home.  Plus cleaned up the first big round of puke while Danny was busy putting Sawyer to bed.  (That's quite a chore these days.)  Thanks mom!

By Saturday Summer was much better and was able to enjoy our immediate family Christmas.

Sawyer stayed healthy too for the rest of the weekend.

Buuuuut……. Danny and I both got it Saturday night:(  Even poor Tucker had a touch of it!  One of those things where I knew it was coming but was trying to convince myself that's not really why I don't feel great.  It's just because I ate too much junk, right?  Wrong!!  So I sat in the corner during family Christmas but I was still able to enjoy it some.

We thought about staying for an early supper on Sunday but decided we had kind of had enough so we hit the road.  The kids slept for a solid two hours in the van, which is pretty miraculous seeing as how it's usually only about 30 minutes when we're driving!

On Monday we did these cute little gingerbread houses that my mom sent with us.  She had planned to do them while we were out there but, you know, puke.

Then we had our own little family Christmas.

On Christmas day, we went to Danny's parent's house right after church, ready to spend the whole day there and waiting for the chaos to ensue.

Summer has been asking for roller skates for several months and she finally got them!  I love the combination here of the headband, messed up hair, and skates.  Looks like she came straight out of the 80's!

A couple years ago we had the famous Fear Factor Christmas.  This year it was Minute To Win It.  One of the games was "poop the potato", but you can't see any of those pictures:)  But we had lots of laughs the whole way through!

Each year the kids to the Christmas play and Summer and her cousin petered out.  They just laid on the floor and talked while the rest of the cousins performed.

We had a few days to recover from the madness of the week and then had one final extended family get together.

And with that, it's Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, everyone!