Merry Christmas! Fevers, vomiting and ear infections for everyone!

It wasn't as bad as it sounds, but all parents have a perfect vision of what Christmas morning should look like and my vision didn't involve any of those things. We really had a wonderful Christmas despite the illness. We drove to Birmingham on the Friday before Christmas. The drive down went great, first hurdle cleared. I had dinner at Village Tavern with some dear friends who I don't get to see often enough. Not everyone could make it and they were missed :( My first duty of the 2013 is to plan a fun playdate that everyone can come to. Wish me luck! Saturday we had Christmas at my mom's house with my cousins on her side. We had a great time. Some of them met Sam for the first time!

Saturday night I decided that Sam had an ear infection. He was fussy all day, pulling on his ears and he's already had 2 in the last few months. We got him some meds and he seems to be feeling better. I'm praying this isn't the start of chronic ear infections. Poor fussy baby :(

On Sunday, Joey played golf and I hung around at my mom's house then that afternoon we went to my step-sister's house to have Christmas with my dad. We had a great time with them too! I'm so ready for my dad to retire and move back to Birmingham. When that happens, my entire immediate family will be in one city! We won't be there, but at least we'll only have one place to go to see everyone :)

On Monday, we had Christmas with Joey's family and we celebrated his grandparents' birthdays. I wish we could have stayed longer, but after dinner we rushed back to Huntsville.

We had a lot of work to do. We had to unpack 3 Christmases worth of gifts, 4 days worth of luggage and laundry and we still had to get ready for "Santa". Thankfully, the kids fell asleep on the way home and we slipped them both into bed and they stayed asleep until morning. We made some coffee and hot chocolate, put Christmas Vacation on and started putting things together. It was nice :)

 Frosty the Elf had to leave us, but he left a sweet note for Finley.

Joey and I were up before the kids on Christmas morning. We were so excited! Finley got up and I immediately knew something was wrong. Her cheeks were bright red. She held out as long as she could, but shortly after seeing her presents she wandered back into her room, got in the bed and passed out. She had a 101 degree fever :( She alternating between playing with her toys and napping.

Sam woke up shortly after Finley and was feeling much better so he was my happy boy again.

Both kids are all smiles today so my only problem is finding a place for all of this.

Now for the MVP (most valuable present) list...

Finley: plasma car from Joey's parents, dollhouse kitchen from us, a train that my dad and step-mom gave Sam and the reading tent from my Mom.

Sam: the painters tape we put on the tv cabinet doors so he wouldn't smash his fingers and Finley's plasma car.

We had a wonderful Christmas and we hope you did too!

My Baby Man

We're a nudist colony around here during the day. Sometimes I just get tired of doing laundry.

Frosty's Antics: Day 3

That scoundrel, Frosty, is at it again! He rolled the bathroom! Finley thought it was really funny. Unfortunately, we think Frosty flew away for the day because she was so upset about Finley's behavior this morning. Finley wasn't very nice to brother. We're not sure when she'll be back :(

Frosty's Antics: Day 2

Look what Frosty did last night while we were asleep!

A family of performers.

Finley's Christmas program was last week. She did great! She sang most of the songs and shook her jingle bells. She looked so cute! This year they wore angel costumes. She was so excited when she saw Sam and I had crawled to the front to wave to her.

On Sunday, Joey was in the Boar's Head service at church. He was a wonderful shepard and even grew his hair and beard out to prepare for his role.

Oh, Sam...

Before Sam arrived, I heard horror stories about how boys are always hurting themselves and I started to get worried. So far he has successfully crawled down the small flight of brick stairs in our house. He was barely crawling at the time and he made it down unscathed in about 5 seconds. We put up a gate, but if that gate is left open it's like his radar goes off and you've never seen a baby crawl so fast towards anything in your life. I vacuumed up a broken ornament and then set the dust buster on the floor and a few little pieces of BROKEN GLASS came out of the hose and were on the floor. I had to fish the pieces out of his mouth.! He slammed his finger in our entertainment center last night and had a huge dent in his finger. I was headed out the door to the ER when I realized it was already popping back out. He somehow got the cleaning cabinet open (it has a child proofing device on it and I have trouble getting it open sometimes) and was sucking on the spray nozzle of a Lysol bottle. You get the idea. If he's not trying to harm himself, his sister is jumping off the furniture over him, choking him, laying on top of him, squeezing his head, or throwing things at him and laughing hysterically. He's only 8 months old! I try not to think about how this will compound when he's older. I know he will most likely have a love for sports like his Daddy and I always imagined cheering him on in whatever sport he decides to participate in, but I wouldn't mind a son who is interested in music or art. If he insists on playing a sport, I suppose golf would be okay :)

Frosty the Elf

Our elf arrived this morning! Finley has named him Frosty.Today I have been moving him around while Finley isn't paying attention. She likes to look for him and gets excited when she finds him. She  said she hopes she can see him fly. I told her he was shy and didn't like to fly in front of people. I'm not really counting on this to improve her behavior because if she doesn't care what me and Joey, Jesus and Santa Claus think I don't think she's going to care about the opinion of a stuffed elf, but we'll see ;) For now, I just want it to be the start of a fun Christmas tradition.

I'll report his antics as they happen, but don't expect anything over the top. I already have a husband and two children to clean up after ;)

Her SHE is (Finley calls it she) sleeping in the chandelier. She flew into Finley's room to sleep on her light fixture, but I overheard Finley say, "Frosty, don't sleep in here okay?" I guess those shifty eyes creeped her out.