Sickness-Christmas-Recovery

Last year I got really sick on Christmas night and was sick for a week. This year I got really sick on the Thursday before Christmas and was sick for a week. I hate this trend! On the Wednesday before Christmas, I was up with T from 12-3 while he proceeded to throw up on every bed he laid on (specifically, his bed on the very-hard-to-reach-top-bunk, and the guest bed). When I went into his room the first time he got sick, he was kneeling over this mound of barf (sorry for the details, but if I had suffer through it, I'm gonna make you suffer through it!). So, he was kneeling over this mound, and he looked up and said, "I got sick, but I didn't get it on any of my stuffed animals!) He was right, he didn't. Amazing. I got him out, cleaned him up, and got him settled in the guest bed -- with a big bowl next to him. I also gave him some good 'ole Pepto Bismol. After he fell asleep two hours later, I went down to bed. A half an hour after that, he came down and said, "I did it again and it's really pink!" ARghhh! After getting him cleaned up and settled down again, I went back to bed feeling a bit queasy. Sympathy nausea, I thought. I was wrong! I called in sick on Thursday and thought I was better on Friday, so I got a bunch of stuff done. By Saturday I knew I was not better and on Christmas day I thought I was going to die! I managed to take enough Imodium (we should be stock!) to make it through the three and a half hour car ride to M's folks' house, where I crawled up to bed and slept for three hours. M felt crappy too -- he had it too, but thankfully not as bad as I did. And, even more thankfully, nobody in the Smith house caught it!


Enough about me, now here's Christmas.

We each picked a present to open on Christmas Eve morning. I opened a present from my boys, which was researched and purchased by M. It's a new digital camera. I'm so lucky!! My old one frustrated me to no end because it didn't take good pictures indoors and I always missed the good pictures because I had to wait so long for it to take a picture after pressing the button. Here's the very first picture I took -- it's through a dirty window in the house. Yep, those are wild turkeys in our back yard!



The boys made cookies for Santa and got a carrot for Rudolph. (I'm still learning that I have to manually turn on the flash on my new camera, so some of the pictures are dark, but you get the idea.)

Here are the boys on Christmas morning -- seeing the wonder that Santa left them below.

M and I gave R a new bike. It's red and has really cool pin striping on it. He loves it and can't wait to ride it.

M designed and built an awesome art work bench for T. I had the joy of stocking it full of fun supplies. T loves it!
On the 27th we went with the cousins to the King Tut exhibit at the museum. All of the kids really love it. Here are all five cousins doing their best "King Tut impression." (R is pretending his hands are the cobra on the head-dress.)
It was a fun time with the cousins!