Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year (eventually)

Well, by Christmas Kai and Chloe were still pretty sick puppies so we stayed home instead of visiting family.  I was a little sad, but it was fun to stay in our jammies all day and through the miracle of opening presents nobody was grumpy the whole day!  Hooray!  And their fevers vanished a few short days later.  Now if we could just get rid of the coughing and congestion....


Anyway, here are some pictures in completely random order.  Enjoy! 

These are the kids' new Sunday duds.  I apologize for the pictures, I tried everything I could and they still keep publishing sideways.  Oh well.  I had to put them in, though, because I made Chloe's dress and it turned out fantastic!  The dress itself is a pink Christmas plaid with a shiny gold thread running through it and the jacket is crushed velvet with sparkly sequins all over it.  She loves it and I guess that's what's most important.  But I'm still pretty proud of myself!

Unwrapping on Christmas morning.

Unwrapping non-Santa presents.

Our impromptu Christmas ham.  We were planning on going to my Mom and Dad's for Christmas dinner but couldn't because of sick kids.  So we did a ham, but we forgot to buy some pineapple rings and decided to make do with pineapple tidbits.  It tasted great, but looking at it cracked me up.

I don't know why I've never bought the kids Bendaroos before, they are my new favorite toy!  Little scenes like this one appeared all over the livingroom walls.  All three kids were involved and they even worked together without arguing!  Maybe I should have taken a picture of that instead to remind myself that peace and unity in my home is not actually impossible.  I don't know, maybe it was just a beautiful dream.  Sigh.

When Chloe and Graeme were little one of my sisters gave us the Little People Nativity.  My kids have loved it so much that this year I added the Inn at Bethlehem and the Three Wise Men sets.  It's so cool, now we have six wise men and four camels!  My life is complete.

I stuck this picture in as an explanation of why I was so crazy busy in the days leading up to Christmas.  This year I spent a lot of time sewing gifts.  I made three I Spy bags for a friend of mine (complete with embroidered names), lots of Christmas hot pads, Chloe's dress, jammies for the kids, two dinos for each kid in the same fabric as the jammies, and these hooded towels (also complete with embroidered names).  I know, I'm crazy, but I really do enjoy sewing and I have precious few years left to sew for my own kids.  Besides, handmade gifts can't be returned to the store.  Mwa ha ha ha!

I guess if you can overlook the 103 fevers, congestion and coughing, Christmas was actually pretty good.  My sister-in-law came to visit (hooray!), which helped us all to feel a little less isolated, Brian and I didn't get sick (yet) and we got everything done before Christmas Day.  We even got to go visit my folks a couple of days later (I got to hold the baby!), got the house cleaned and un-decorated and went to see Tangled (which I really loved).

As for New Year's, the kids went to bed at the usual time and Brian and I shared a kiss as the ball dropped in Times Square.  It was quiet and no one threw up (unlike last year).  I'll try not to take it personally that the oven broke on New Year's Day, Brian can't drive his car because the door won't close tight (too cold) and Kai's cough is getting worse.  Really.  It's going to be a great year, I can tell.