It's Magical, Y'all

Oh my goodness.  This Christmas has been the most magical, chaotic, crazy, wonderful one yet...and its only Christmas Eve!  This is the first year that both kids have understood the magic of Christmas.  Of course they are thrilled to tears that Santa is on his way, and it was ca-ray-zee trying to get them to go to bed tonight (Andrew was wanting to stay up and watch Santa's journey on NORAD) but we finally convinced them to both go to sleep.  Now, I sit here watching a movie (Water for Elephants...never read it or seen it) and thinking about how awesome it is to see Christmas through the eyes of a child again.

Have I lost my cool, wanted to throttle them a few times over the past week?  Yes!  Lord knows they have gotten too hyper  and LOUD with the excitement of it all, but...I understand.  Its magical!

Today we had our "family Christmas" and opened presents from each other.  We thought the kids might be too overwhelmed with all the presents AND the Santa gifts, so we thought we'd spread it out.  They got a chance to play with their presents and put out the reindeer food before we headed to church for the Christmas Eve service.  Afterwards we came home to bake cookies for Santa.  Andrew even offered up his Star Wars plate for us to use.  SO cute. I simply cannot wait to see their faces when they wake up in the morning and see what "Santa" brought.

In the midst of all the Santa stuff, though, I hope we've done an adequate job of making sure they understand what Christmas is REALLY about...the birth of God's Son, Jesus Christ.  As a Christian, I want my kids to know Him and share my faith.  I want them to understand that we give gifts as a symbol of the greatest gift ever given, the Son of God sent to live and die among us so we might know God and have a relationship with Him.  Tomorrow, after the excitement of the morning, we will sit the kids down and read them the story of Jesus' birth so they remember why we do all this...why this season gives hope to so many.

Whoever you are, wherever you are...I hope God blesses you this Christmas with love and peace, and most of all, JOY.

Break from school = Plague upon my house

So apparently being out of school for any reason gives my kids the plague.  Remember Thanksgiving break?  Seriously.

Thursday, Chris gets a call from Hannah's preschool @ 10:30 (approximately ONE hour after dropping her off).  She's throwing up and has a fever.  Awesome.  She's feverish all day, but sleeps pretty well that night.  We put her to bed at 6:30 pm and she slept until 11:30 am Friday morning.  Freakin' awesome.  We're thinking she quite literally "slept it off" and would be just fine from here on out.  NOPE.

Friday is the last day of school for mommy and Andrew, and we're all happy and looking forward to a nice, relaxing break...Hannah, however, has other plans.  She was literally up ALL NIGHT.  Every 30 minutes I was awakened to a serious coughing fit, usually ending in her vomiting up food or, when that well ran dry, coughing up phlegm.  I felt really sorry for her until about 2 am.  After that, I was just seriously wanting sleep.  Believe me, we tried cough medicine, Benadryl (Because, for the love of God, just SLEEP!  Plus, I was thinking maybe it would help dry up the mucus.), Vicks vapor rub, a vapor plug-in next to her bed, a humidifier...It was like having a newborn in the house, but both newborns I brought home from the hospital slept WAY more than Hannah did last night. 

Chris left the house @ 7 am this morning (I think...I was so out of it from sleep deprivation, I can't say for sure) and has been gone all day.  I am so, so very tired.  He has been at the flea market all day trying to sell our crap treasures, so I know he is going to be tired and wanting to just relax and chill out, but ohmydearLord I am exhausted.  I could quite honestly fall asleep ANYWHERE...even right here, typing this.

ZZZZZZZZ...
 

See? I'm not a slacker after all!

Woohoo!  Just ordered my Christmas cards and had to share...Check them out!

Photo Card

View the entire collection of cards.

(This also works to say MERRY CHRISTMAS to all the folks we forget to/cannot send cards to this season!  Love you all!

Back in the Swing of Things!

Watch out.  This cleaning bug is NO JOKE.

Well, we survived the great plague of 2011!

Everyone is FINALLY back to full health and doing great.  Thank you, God.

It was a crazy week at school (for teachers, anyway).  I found myself asking, "Is it Friday yet?" on Monday afternoon.  NOT a good sign.  I usually can make it until at least Wednesday afternoon before that question crosses my mind.  The students are acting like Christmas is tomorrow, and we still have two more weeks until Christmas Winter Break.  Sigh.  I suppose we'll make it. :)

Andrew and Hannah are doing great...This is the first year I think both of them really "get" what Christmas is, and its magical seeing them get into it. Hannah has been singing, "Happy Birthday, Jesus" and Andrew keeps talking about baby Jesus.  So cute.  They love seeing the lights and decorations everywhere (not at our house...yet...but everywhere else).  Of course, they're all about Santa, too, and can't wait to see what Santa brings them.  They both have WAY too much on their "lists" but oh well.  Someone probably needs to explain the economy to them and help them see that even Santa is going to have to cut back this year.  Oh well.

Andrew is spending the weekend with Chris' dad and stepmom and they are taking him this afternoon to see the Grinch at the Fox Theater.  He will have a blast, I know it.  Hannah is really enjoying being the only child this weekend, that's for sure!  Its nice...She's a great helper, which is awesome since I've been bitten by the cleaning bug.  Last week we noticed the dryer was taking way longer to dry our clothes, so this morning I crawled behind it, noticed the hose had come loose, so I reattached it and ended up scrubbing the floor while I was back there.  Who knew it could get so NASTY underneath a major appliance??  Grody.  So anyway, that started me thinking about how much ELSE there was to clean.  (Face it, after being so sick and then traveling to TN, the house was not in pristine condition...not that it ever is!)  I've moved furniture and swept the den, then swept and mopped the kitchen floor.  I'm currently waiting for it to dry so I can move on to other rooms.  (If I dare try to tiptoe across it, Hannah will follow me and I'm afraid she'll slip and fall  Hey, that's my excuse story and I'm sticking to it.)

Dang, I just noticed the floor is pretty much dry.  Off to clean more rooms!  Somebody take my temperature...I must be ill again.