A Few Strange Weeks and More Christmas Pics

As the title stated, it's been a few strange weeks. Scott went back to school for a week, then we had a whole snow week. The snow days were unexpected, wonderful and surreal. We baked a lot, played a lot, and just enjoyed each others' company. Then, Eli went back to school, begrudgingly, and it all seemed to be going back to normal... Until, last Thursday night, Keira was up all night throwing up. When I say all night, I mean, ALL NIGHT. She did let me sleep for an hour twice, but most of the time she was up puking or dry heaving every fifteen minutes. Not fun. I came down with the plague on Saturday and Scottie followed suit in the wee hours of Sunday morning. We thought Eli escaped, unscathed, but he finally came down with a mild form of the stomach flu, a few days ago. Now the kids and I have cabin fever, and I'm looking forward to returning to normalcy soon. Again, I'm so thankful to live in our new beautiful house, where being cooped up isn't so bad and the playroom remains an amazing asset. I'm also thankful to live in our new neighborhood -- Keira and I spent a relatively mild evening in a neighbor's backyard enjoying their swing set and sandbox. All of this excitment in the last few weeks has meant once again I'm woefully behind on the blog. All I can do, is plug away...

And, now back to catching up on Christmas...

On Christmas Eve, we spent a mellow day unpacking and playing with new presents. Then, at 5:00 we attended the children's service at church. Both kids enjoyed their first church service in a while and were extremely well-behaved. The service was chock full of great holiday music. Heavy on the music, light on the talking and sermons -- perfect for the kids. After watching the Angel Choir (three to five year olds) perform, Eli has decided to join. When I was putting her to sleep on Christmas Eve, Keira kept popping up and talking to me about her day, she said, "Keira dong (song), Mommy dong, Grammie dong."

I responded, "Yes, Keira, Mommy, Grammie, Eli and Daddy went to church and sang lots of songs. Did you like church?" She nodded an emphatic yes.

We woke up the next morning to an exciting Christmas morning where for the first time we had two kids interested in the stockings and presents -- so much fun.