I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas! Ours was filled with the ups and downs of little ones, who really, still don't understand what in the world was going on.lol

Christmas day started early for us with Evie waking with a fever. She was glassy-eyed and you could just tell from looking at her that she wasn't well. We took her temp and it was 102! We gave her some Motrin and once it took hold she was back to her usual self. She ran around waking everyone else up once she realized that today was Christmas.lol

Everyone came barrelling into the great room pretty fast once they were awake. Right before we started, Isaac woke and joined us. We have over an hour of him on video having temper-tantrums because we were ruining the pretty boxes by opening them.lol

The gifts...

Allison received the only thing that she really wanted...a Les Paul Epiphone electric guitar with accessories.

Jon received a PS2 and a few new games.

Genevieve received a Baby Alive from my parents and a beautiful little tea set.

Isaac received so many new trains and cars and trucks that he's set for life.lolol

My parents gave Eric and I a new microwave!

They also gave me 5 new Willow Tree Angels. They are just beautiful!

Really, we were just overwhelmed by the gifts that we received this year! What a blessing to be thought of and to receive so much from everyone.

After we had our own time at home to play with our new toys, we headed over to my parent's house to celebrate with them and my sister and her family. Normally we wouldn't take a sick little over there but they were leaving the day after and there was no other day we could celebrate with them. We opened even more gifts and had a really good Christmas dinner at 2pm and then Eric and I felt we should bring Evie back home. She slept for a lot of the time we were there but was awake and miserable when we left. I have to say that I was pretty wiped out by this time and going home to rest was exactly what I needed too.lol

The rest of the day was spent watching the kids play with all their things and watching Isaac slowly open all his gifts one by one from morning until right before bed. Then he started opening them again in the morning.lolol It took him until the next day in the afternoon before he had finally opened all his gifts.

The day after Christmas we started cleaning. The house was destroyed and I couldn't take it any longer.lol We went through all the major rooms and my bedroom and put all the new things in the right rooms, decided how many new bins we'd need, took down the poor Christmas tree, put all the inside decorations away, and gave the house a really good thorough cleaning. Whew! It was so nice to get the house back into order! I felt like I'd been stepping over and on things for so long and the build-up of clutter was impressive.lol After we cleaned, we ran some errands. I needed to go to Target for the bins so that I could get a handle on the new toys and to a game store for some memory cards for the PS2. We ended up with some amazing deals at Target! Everything we bought was on sale. We got Evie a Hepa filter for her room and saved $30 on it. We've been slowly buying them for the whole house and it was her rooms turn. We have so many allergies that living without them is not fun.lol Also, their EmergenC was half off and even Airbourne was on sale! Yes, we go through these things often.lol After we got home, we dropped the littles off and the olders watched them while we went to my parents house to clean out their fridge.lol They offered for us to take home Christmas dinner, so we went over and picked up all the remaining food. Once we got home, we started putting it all into freezer bags and I think we have enough for several meals throughout the next month! Probably around 5-6 meals worth of Turkey and Ham.

We got home just in time for me to begin dinner and I decided on Spaghetti. We really needed something different.lol While I was cooking, we found out that my dh's mother had called while we were gone and she was back from visiting my sil and wanted to celebrate Christmas with us. We invited her over for dinner and after dinner opened even more gifts. I think by then, the littles and I were both feeling quite overwhelmed.lol Isaac ended the day by having a huge temper-tantrum and I took him to bed with me since I wasn't feeling too well from all the day's work. Grandma hung out with Eric and the older kids for a while and then, since she was sick also, went home. It was a loooonggg day.lol

Evie still has a fever today but she's feeling better. Isaac hasn't caught whatever she has yet so today has been a good day. Eric is playing Dance, Dance, Revolution with Evie right now and it's quite amusing to watch.lol The older kids are still asleep right now (those lazy bums...lol) and I am finally updating my blog. I have to say that even though Christmas wasn't spent doing those things that we would normally do, we still enjoyed the time with relatives and were still blessed by this season in our lives.

I am thankful that we will now start to slowly get back into the daily grind and begin to make more progress in our schooling and in my goals for my home, my relationship with the kids, and preparing for this new little one due in 8 weeks!?!

Blessings,

Lisa