Christmas blur

Greetings.

Well we made it (I think!).

Day one went well with our errands, haircuts, and our New England celebration. We got out of there at a reasonable hour and hit our destination by 9:30 p.m. on Saturday night. CAW and I spent the night in a hotel. He slept nine hours straight (which is awesome for being away from home). We had fun together laying in bed and watching TV and eating Cheez-Its. He got tired of the small room so the following morning we hung out in the hotel lobby. CBW and Uncle D stayed with Grandma Linda and Grandpa Dennis. CBW was wound up when she arrived (after sleeping in the car) and was up until midnight. But we all slept through the night.

Uncle D picked CAW and I up and we headed to the nursing home to visit Uncle D's Grandpa.

Christmas Eve was lots of fun. I so enjoy catching up with our nephews. I got some great video footage of them giving CBW advice for going to school next year. They were so serious and genuine in wanting to help her. CBW was overloaded with great Barbie gifts. We also finally got to tour Uncle D.'s brother's new home. It was simply beautiful and huge.

On Sunday night we packed up the car and headed home. We had a laptop to show 'Dora' which saved us since CAW was not interested in sleeping since he had just woken from a long nap.

At one point he was screaming (Dora and Johnny Cash were no longer working) but we all decided to just ignore him and it finally stopped.

As we got closer to home we realized CBW was sick. She had a high fever (probably around 104 at times). This made for a long night of unpacking, assembling Santa toys, cooking, and getting ready for Christmas the following day.

I had been excited for months for CBW to see her Santa gift. It ended up that she woke from her fever spiking. She wandered downstairs and just starred at the stuff. I felt so bad because she was in no shape to be excited.

We had 13 people for Christmas lunch. We had my family, both my Grandmas, my Aunt and Uncle, and Auntie's boyfriend Gurkan and his sister, Reyhan. My Dad cooked an awesome fish dinner and then had to race off to work. CAW went down for his nap and woke 3.5 hours later. He was wiped out. CBW was a sad case. She spent most of the day on the couch. She had spurts of energy as her fever would come and go. We actually did some unwrapping for her (not what you would expect for a four-year-old).

Everyone took off around 5:00 and we were wiped. The entire family slept until 9:30 a.m. the following morning.

My Mom came to babysit last night. Uncle D and I did dinner and a movie. It was so fun. We saw 'The Holiday' and I loved it. I think even Uncle D enjoyed it. My Mom is babysitting today and I just got a call that CAW has a fever and CBW is complaining about her ear.

I made some efforts to simplify this year and I am left wondering if it did any good as we are all still tired and some of us are sick and the house is full of toys which need to find a home/space. I guess I have 12 months to figure out what needs to be changed for next year.

Hope you all had happy holidays. We are celebrating New Year's at our home with Teresa and Heather's families. It is going to be a great time. The kids will be so fun to watch together. CBW has her new trundle bed and mattress all ready for Olivia. She talked Grandma Sal into sleeping there last night. She thought it was COOL!