Christmas

Oh friends, Christmas this year was interesting, in not such a great way.  But, I'll get to that.  First, lets cover the fun  and good stuff!

Christmas this year was on Wednesday, and since my parents' house was ready for sale, they and my grandmother came to spend the holiday with us at our house.  They came in on Monday evening and stayed until Christmas afternoon, when they made a hasty exit.  But, again, we'll get to that.  

On Christmas Eve, I always let the kids open one gift and it's always the same thing.  Pajamas.  They've yet to figure this out.  This year, I also let them open their gifts from their little friends from McKinney too.

Piper loved her Doc McStuffins Big Book of Boo Boos, one of the accessories to the hot toy of the season.

In the past year, Caleb has developed what has bordered on obsession with Duck Dynasty.  Miriam bought him every episode and you can see he was just a little bit excited...

At our church, the kids are asked to wear their pajamas to Christmas Eve service, so that's what we did too.  It was cool enough, thankfully, so they were all cozy and comfy while we were at the service.  This ended up being a good thing, as my oldest baby ended up laying in my lap with a fever for about 2/3 of the service.
A sign of what was to come...

When we got home, we shuttled the kids off to bed and Jes got to work putting together the one toy that needed to be done, Piper's Doc McStuffins Doctor Station.  If I could express the craziness that involved actually procuring this toy, you would never believe me.  But, thanks to my quick thinking, calling a Target at the last minute and a wonderful store worker who was begged, bribed and threatened when he wouldn't sell it to other customers and eventually hid it in the electronics section, we were able to obtain this for our girl!  You guys just have no idea...  And this was a full 3 weeks before Christmas!

So, Santa came and the kids got some great stuff.  P got her Doc McStuffins things, her very own personalized lab coat, a Bevo (go UT!) and some fun stocking stuff.  Caleb got a BB gun, a bow and arrow set, a target and some great stocking stuff.

My big girl in her lab coat.  Take note, friends.  You will see this photo again in about 20 years, if she does what she says she will.

Poor Caleb wasn't feeling 100%, but smiled and did the best he could.

My grandmother even got in on the action a bit.  I'm not going to lie.  This scared me a little...

One of the things the kids got in their stockings was jump ropes.  They actually figured it out pretty quickly and were jumping rope in a jif!

After we got breakfast in everyone and stocking/Santa stuff cleaned up, we all sat down to open our gifts to each other.  Of course, the kids loved everything, but their favorites were their new iPad minis.  We struggled with whether our 8 and 5 year old should have iPads, but they can and will use them for school, as well as fun, so my mom and dad and grandmother went in together and bought these.  I bought an iPad 2 for Jes and my dad got one too.  So, this was an Apple holiday!

Piper got her first Coach bag this year too.  Now, before you start shaking your head and saying that my kids are rotten, let me set you straight, they are rotten, but I also got this Coach backpack at a consignment sale for $12.

Clearly my mom needs a tutorial on how to wear her infinity scarves.  :)

After we opened all our gifts, we finished up lunch and sat down to eat.  About 15 minutes into lunch, Caleb threw up and lunch and the holiday was over.  My mom, dad and grandmother were gone about an hour later and we were down for the count.  By that night, Jes was sick as a dog and I knew things were not good.

The next morning, P woke up crying, saying her legs hurt.  This is her way of saying that she was having body aches.  I managed to get an emergency appointment with one of the partnering doctors at our pediatrician's office for both kids the next morning and off we went.  Both kids had the flu and Jes went promptly to urgent care.

The poor things were trying to rest in the doctor's office.  It was a madhouse and we had to wait a bit, but they were both so brave and tried to have good attitudes about the whole thing.  However, by this point, they were done.

So, the long and short of it is that we did have a good holiday, but we could have done without the flu.  It was so, so bad and I don't wish it on anyone, but I'm happy to say that everyone is all recovered and we're on to bigger and better things.