My Overthinking

Philly Area mom, Life forever changed by adoption

Christmas Recuperation

It’s now the 29th of December, a week after my last post. So, here’s a whirlwind recap.

Our Christmas celebration starts on the 23rd each year as we journey to Bethlehem (not kidding), drive past the spot where we got engaged on that very night (always have to point it out to the kids who seriously don’t care as we smile at each other and remember that night), and arrive at Mark’s mom’s house to finally sit and simply talk over food and coffee and hungarian kiffles after days of crazy busyness. No kiffles this year though. Mark’s sister and brother-in-law were celebrating his doctoral graduation in Hawaii (also not kidding) and Mark’s mom (St. Grammy) was watching their 4 children (yes, 4 kids. She had two quiet children of her own and ended up with 8 grandchildren….so far…had to put that in there). For some reason, caring for 4 children (9, 7, 5, and almost 2) kept her from her usual Christmas baking…can’t imagine why. So, as you can imagine, our quiet sitting and talking wasn’t all that quiet. But, the kids sure enjoyed each other until we left Christmas Eve night. We even let them sleep in forts in the basement. So not safe (please look past the ironing board and the dangling Christmas lights). Please note that Lydia slept very safely in a pack and play.

Drew is our king of facial expressions. Loved this one of the sheer awe factor as he admired cousin Wyatt’s new Star Wars figure.

And, this one, happy as can be with his new slinky (it was going to be in Lydia’s stocking. But, Grammy slyly moved it over to Drew’s upon hearing about his meltdown at the kids’ school the day before when Evan’s teacher gave the kids each a slinky and Drew could not get it through his noggin that he didn’t need to have one too).

Christmas morning — 4 kids in front of our tree. The classic picture. Lydia was super excited about the presents. Afterall, she had opened 24 advent presents from Nanma and Granddaddy already (not counting the ones she not-so-secretly opened ahead of time from Ashlyn’s calendar). And, the word “present” had become the first word she said when we got her out of the crib each morning. Nice.

We give our kids 3 gifts each year (and a full stocking)–we relate them to the three gifts of the Wise Men to Jesus. The first gift is a practical gift–the girls got a Mickey Mouse tunic top I made and the boys got Mickey pirate tees. The second gift is an experiential gift–this year, since we are going to Disney World in only 30 days, a photo of Disney World is what they were given as their experiential gift. And, their third gift is a gold gift, something they really like–the three big kids got Lego sets and Lydia got a big stuffed dog.

Despite a folded over ear in this picture, I just love it. She is so pretty modeling the hair thing I made to go with the tunic top and another Disney outfit.

We headed down to MD by the afternoon to stay with my parents for a couple days. 9 kids at this location, so the fun just kept on going. Here’s Drew and his cousin Boh modeling their new G.I. Joe outfits. 
Ashlyn with the look of a child over sugared and over gifted.

A sweet picture of my boys.
Which quickly became a silly fest.

Celebrating Christmas with my fam is always a 2 day deal. This year, we had the special experience of witnessing the baptism of the newest family member, my nephew Thatcher. 

Here are my two sisters–Erin on the left, Megan on the right, and Erin’s 3rd child, Thatcher.

After some another feast of food–I should have taken pictures of the spread–we gathered together for a family game of Bingo which is our spin of the old White Elephant game. Winner picks a gift from the pile or steals a gift from someone else. It always seems like it’s going to be lots of fun and then breaks down when children are not happy with the gift they end up with, etc. etc. Next year, I vow to come up with a better structure to this tradition so that this Mama doesn’t end up having to scold any children.

All was well. We were sorta enjoying the calm on the evening of the 26th…until we realized it was the calm before the storm. That evening, we got hit with the plague. I will refrain from going into the gory details. But, I will say that during the night on the 26th, 4 people in my family got sick. My sister’s husband called my parent’s house to tell us Megan was throwing up at the exact moment I was cleaning up Ashlyn from the same. At 6am, when Lydia woke up, Mark and I called my parents from his cell phone (mind you, they were upstairs) to ask them to come get her because we were sick. They couldn’t because both of them were sick. My grandmother and my college cousin also got sick that night. We have no idea what hit us. But, it definitely hit us. Lydia was the last man standing in the end.

Our journey home had to be delayed a day because we just couldn’t make it as we were. But, we’re home now. And, we are finally eating normal food as of tonight, some of us eating off of new food face plates that we got for Christmas.

The good news is that I don’t have to worry about any holiday weight gain this year.

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Comments

  1. lOVE the sleeping in the tents! You are so fun! Looks like a good Christmas (until the sickness)! that stinks…glad everyone is feeling better.

    Happy New Year!
    Sara

  2. SOunds like such a fun holiday…minus the sick part. Glad you’re better now! Loved the fort the kids made…so much fun!

  3. No holiday weight gain – that, my friend is not fair!
    Love the photos of Lydia. I can see her blossoming. she is beautiful!!

  4. Well good gracious! Now that is a Christmas! I was thinking, “Oh how fun!” until I got the bottom part….ooohhhhh noooo! So glad you are on the mend!

  5. Kelly, UGH! the stomach thing is the worst, isn’t it! Glad you all are feeling better and really glad little Lydia didn’t get it. I kind of think I see a smug little smile in the bathtub pic as if to say, “HAHAHA! I didn’t catch the bug!” LOL

  6. So sorry ya’ll all got so sick! The same thing happened to our family 3 Christmases ago…not fun! But love the holiday no weight gain! :) And love the cute pics!

  7. Well, I’m still having major internet issues so I couldn’t get half the pictures to load (grrrr……), but what I did see looked GREAT! Your family Christmases seem so much like ours- days of celebrations that we all look forward to. And DISNEY in 30 days….I’m totally psyched for you guys!!! We LOVED it there- every single minute!!! Enjoy, enjoy, enjoy!

    As for the stomach bug, that happened to us one year on Christmas Day- thankfully we only had Sawyer at the time, but he was too young to make it to the bathroom ever, so it was LOTS of fun. I was also 36 weeks pregnant and ended up in the hospital with severe dehydration. I can relate to not being able to even care for your child because of how sick you are, but how you do it with FOUR kids….oh my. That really must have been awful! It’s going around big time, and since we are magnets for that bug, I’m kinda shocked that we haven’t joined the fun yet. Maybe it’s because we haven’t left the house in a week! :)

    Glad to hear you are all the mend and that you were able to celebrate Christmas BEFORE the plague! :)

  8. What a beautiful holiday–sans the sickness, so sorry!

    These are the most beautiful pictures of Lydia I’ve seen yet. I Love that picture of her in the bath–she’s so gorgeous Kelly!

    Lisa

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