Christmas Festivities

This was a very atypical Christmas for us this year, but still enjoyable nonetheless.

It started the week before Christmas, when I started feeling achey all over.  Friday morning I woke up feeling absolutely miserable and had a fever.  I spent the entire day in the La-Z-Boy or my bed.  Luckily, Kyle only had a half-day of work (from home), so he was a huge help with the kids.  Skyler also started feeling miserable and had diarrhea.  He had thrown up a couple days prior, but I thought it was an isolated incident.  I was wrong.  Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday Skyler and Andon both were quite sick.  Andon acted mostly normal, except for the diarrhea.  Skyler was miserable and weak, lying around, barely speaking.  Sunday night my mind told me to take him to the ER for dehydration.  I was scared.  But after a priesthood blessing and much prayer, I felt calm and like we could give it one more night.  Monday he started improving finally and his diarrhea and vomiting finally stopped. 

We had planned to join my local family (Alva Barney's and Clark's) at Jana and Scott's house for Christmas Eve festivities.  Sunday night Kyle took the turkey and potatoes that I was supposed to make to Jana.  We decided we'd better not risk spreading this yucky sickness.  We stayed home instead and Alva & Wendy dropped off a plate of leftovers on their way home.  It was the first "real" meal we had eaten since the week before since I was still feeling really weak and recovering.

So on Christmas Eve, we opened our pj pants I made for everyone (while I was in Denver in October), acted out our own little nativity, put out cookies for Santa, and went to bed.  We also made an attempt to play the musical chimes I made at Super Saturday.  By this time Kylene had started feeling yucky as well.
 

We didn't get much sleep Christmas Eve.  Between helping a screaming Andon, sick Kylene and Skyler, and trying to contain Spencer's excitement, I was up a lot.  Spencer got in bed with us at 3:00 a.m., and asked me every 15 minutes or so (until I told him NO more!) if it was time to get up yet.  I told him to watch the clock until 7:00 a.m. before he asked me again.

Christmas present opening consisted of a jumping around Spencer, handing presents out to everyone, and a laying down Skyler and Kylene.  Kylene was on the floor in my lap.  It was all very pathetic looking, I must admit.  At least they could open their own presents, right?

The kids and daddy were super excited about the new electric train.  (It has wonderful nostalgia for Kyle.)  Kylene spent most of Christmas day laying around feeling miserable and Skyler took turns between laying around and getting up and playing.  His energy was starting to come back, thankfully.  Poor Spencer was beside himself with excitement about his new toys and not enough siblings to play them with!

So, like I said, an unusual Christmas, but still nice.  I was grateful we were able to lay low and be together as a family.  I was grateful there was no school and work to miss.  I was grateful Kyle was here to help so much.  But I do wish we had missed the sickness altogether.
Kylene is still fighting the fever on day 5.  Skyler, Andon and I are pretty well back to normal.  Kyle got a mild cold and Spencer is still going strong!  This is one of the worst cold/flu bugs I have ever experienced.  I wouldn't wish it on anyone.  It's actually been going around our ward for over a month now.  I thought we had missed it but apparently not.  Oh, well!

Merry Christmas everyone!

Christmas Outings

For several years, we have wanted to see Vancouver Stake's Nativity, but we usually attend the Salem Nativity.  This year, we headed north and had a yummy dinner at Kyle's parent's house boat (on the Columbia River, right near the Portland Airport), then headed over to the Nativity.  Beautiful!


Another evening we decided to head back to our favorite Christmas spots in Salem: Santa's house, Keizer lights and the Salem/Keizer Festival of Lights Parade.

Here we are waiting to see Santa.  I loved the little carolers the same size as Andon.  He was in awe.

We love this Santa!  We have seen him the last six years or so.  The bottom right was when he was asking Kyle what he wanted for Christmas.  He said, "It's been a long time since you asked me for that toy train."  The crazy thing was, we had just bought an electric train for our kids and Kyle was so excited, remembering the electric train he had as a boy.  He must be the REAL Santa!

Here are a few shots from the Christmas Parade.

It was fun to go "home" and see some of our favorite things.

2012 Christmas Tree Search and Decorating

 

Kyle turns....shhh!

Happy birthday to the love of my life!  Kyle celebrated his birthday on November 26th.  (I know, I'm behind and yes, there are a million other things I should be doing right now instead of blogging, but here I am.) 

I think he had a good day.  The kids definitely had fun planning and preparing everything for his party.  They were going crazy trying to make more signs, presents, and gifts for him before he got home from work.  He chose waffles for dinner and carrot cake for dessert.  Yes, we got our full sugar dose for the day.

We love our dad and would be lost without him!  I love how much our kids adore him.  He has been traveling more for work lately and as a result, one of the kids will often pray that they are thankful daddy can eat dinner with us.  It's so cute because he still is here most of the time, but they sure do miss him when he is gone.  He is such a wonderful companion and incredible support and strength to me.  He does the dishes practially every night, and that is just the beginning.  Love you, babe!
 

Thanksgiving Fun

Our Thanksgiving fun began on Tuesday evening when the Barney kids arrived.  Alva and Wendy and their youngest, Kyler, were on a "get away" together in Texas and we were lucky enough to get to watch the five oldest kids for three days and three nights.  We had a ball having them here, and there truly was never a dull moment.  Mikayla and Rebekah were a huge help and the other kids pitched in whenever asked.  They kept my children thoroughly entertained the entire time.  Besides the increased amounts of food and dishes to keep up with, I'd say Kyle & I weathered having nine children pretty well.  (Although I must admit, I don't think I'm ready to have nine kids myself!)

On Thanksgiving day, Logan, Shayla and Ansley joined us for the afternoon and we all had a wonderful time.  Here's a picture when we were nearly done eating, since I forgot to take one at the beginning of the feast!

The top left picture (below) is the beautiful vegetable "turkey" creation Bekah and Mikayla created.  It was yummy and fun to look at:).