Christmas Day 2016

We had a wonderful Christmas day at our house this year.

The kids were up bright and early, like usual.

We let them go through their stockings first, and see if Santa ate all of the cookies we left him.  

I didn't take any pictures of the opening of presents, because I wanted to be in the moment with the kids.  We opened youngest to oldest and they were really good at being patient until it was their turn.  

At the end, we noticed Santa didn't leave any presents for us.  But then, we saw an envelope that was tucked in the tree.  It was a note from Santa.

He said, that since our family just loves playing '20 questions' at dinner, he would have us find the gifts he brought by giving us some clues.

We were running all over the house, and the kids were really excited.

Eli got a new water cup and some socks.

Mags got a set of makeup brushes, a makeup bag, and a gift card to Target.

Colin got some Wii figurines, a set of steering wheels for Mario Cart, and a Wii U gaming system.

The Wii U was more a family gift, but Colin was the one that REALLY wanted it.

Getting it all set up!

Mags showing off her Garmin Vivofit watch.

Those have been so much fun to have the kids wear.  We love being able to track their activity levels and have them earn coins.  Probably their number one gift from Christmas, in my opinion.

And a copy of all the clues Santa left us around the house.

We hope you all had a great Christmas, just like we did!

The adventures of Arleigh

So my sweet little niece has been sick, like super scary, big infection sick.

She flirted around with a fever the couple days before our Christmas celebration on December 23rd.  She had blood work, urine tested, all seemed to come back okay.  Then, after our Dudley side Christmas on the 23rd, the Parks family headed back home and found Arleigh to have another fever.  They headed to the ER at Children's Mercy Kansas and that began their roller coaster of a stay at the hospital, which included her first Christmas!

Arleigh was found to have bacterial meningitis, a urinary tract infection, and E Coli.  The doctors pretty much chalked it all up to bad luck, but that was a really terrible infection for an only 7 week old. 

Luckily, Tiff did a great job of keeping her breastfeeding and sleeping well, and Arleigh was able to fight it off.  Not without some struggles, like being a 'tough stick' and needing way too many attempts to find veins for blood draws and IV placements.  The vascular access team was unsuccessful at placing the picc line, so she had to get transported to the Downtown Children's hospital to get that done via the Radiology team.  Treatment was tolerated much better after the picc line was placed and she got the stinkin' IV out of her scalp!

The brain MRI was done this morning and was the final hurdle of their race, which Arleigh passed with flying colors!!  She will be discharged tomorrow!  Praises be!!!

We helped watch Gordon some during this whole process, which was actually pretty fun for us.  I'm sure it was stressful for him, but he got some good playing time in with his cousins!

 Watching paw patrol after nap one day

 Scrub a dub, dubbin' in the group shower!

Maggie and I came to visit Tiff and Arleigh once things got smoother and helped Tiff snap some 2 month photos.

That big ol' chubby gal is one tough cookie!

Love this one of the girls!!!

We love you Arleigh Jean and are so glad you are such a tough baby!!!

Random Holiday happenings

Cleared out some extra pictures on my camera the other day - all Christmas related, so I'm not too far behind, right?!

The kids had a blast decorating the Christmas tree.

That's one of the only decorating activities they get really pumped about, and just love seeing all their old ornaments they've made.

Crazy kids came out toward the end

Eli checking out the tree - probably deciding which ornaments he would rip off next.

He did pretty well with leaving the ornaments alone, but if he did take them off, we'd just re-hang them up higher.  Any ornament that resembled a ball was always the favorite - he even threw one of our glass globe ornaments and it shattered everywhere.  Only a little bit of blood on the floor ;)

Brian with Eli - just hanging out in the kitchen one afternoon (rosy post-nap cheeks on Eli)

The other thing the kids love to do each year is the Gingerbread house and decorate cookies.

Brian took the lead this year - fine with me!

Eli really wanted in on the action, but would've only been a destroyer in the process.

Such concentration

Now the fun part!

So proud of their finished product

They also decorated cookies later that evening.

They did a great job - we didn't do cut-out cookies this year (even though Meemaw made some and brought them to us), I just don't like having all that sugar available to them.

 Sprinkles everywhere!!

Buzz enjoyed eating a Hershey kiss while guarding the house.

So much fun to do these traditions every year!

Christmas Eve 2016

This year we decided to celebrate Christmas on the Dudley side on December 23rd.  It just worked best for all of our busy schedules.  Turns out, it was a blessing, because the Parks family would end up being in the hospital with baby Arleigh from the 23rd until....(they are still inpatient).

Anyway, more on that later.

We decided to do 'snacky things' for our dinner instead of something fancy.  The kids seem to do so much better with a more relaxed meal time setting.

Eli was enjoying some quiet time with Meemaw

Eli was VERY interested in the baby the entire day.

Sorry kid, it ain't happenin' for this family.

We all received very thoughtful gifts and enjoyed everyone's company.

The kids all loved the new bean bag chairs from Meemaw

Mags and Colin got Star Wars sheets for their beds

A random gift but totally fun one is the Etch a Sketch - they have been having a blast with them!

Gordy got some 'Nanoculars' - so fun!

Arleigh just hung out -  she's such a good baby!

Colin's fun glasses holder

Eli's sweaty post-nap hair, opening up his gifts

Gordy was reading Eli one of his favorite books

Such a fun toy (if you couldn't tell from Brian's expression!) :)

And one last picture of the Dudley side cousins before they had to leave.
This was the best I got.  

We went to Christmas mass on Christmas Eve downtown - It was packed, but we get there super early to make sure we have a good seat.  Eli stayed with Grammie and Granddad so we could actually enjoy the mass rather than worry about a noisy 1 year old.

Afterwards, I attempted family pictures in front of the tree...

Testing out my camera placement - they are so cute!

The best one I got

And an outtake...  Eli was not having it!

The kids got to open up their pajamas - they are so adorable!

We set out our cookies and carrots

Had one last discussion with Buzz the elf before he left for the year

Super excited to get to bed!

Christmas Eve is so magical!

Visiting Santa 2016

We went to visit Santa last week at Crown Center.

And, as per tradition, we went out to dinner afterwards.  This year, we headed to Jack Stack.  Brian just loves that place.  The kids did a great job with eating the bbq.  We only had one problem, named Eli, that just didn't want to sit still for dinner.  He's at that 'get up and move' stage that makes restaurants, church, etc very difficult.  But, we had a great time during our rather quick meal out.

Eli did great on Santa's lap, and I just love this picture because Eli is obviously staring trying to figure out who this guy is, and the kids are so excited to see how Eli would do.

The kids gave him their lists of Christmas gift ideas.

Colin's included: a Wii U, and some Wii U video games such as star wars and mario brothers.

Maggie's list had: a gift card for some new play makeup and a makeup bag to hold it all.

She just loves putting on a little (sometimes too much!) blush and lip gloss.

Eli didn't have a list, and will likely get toys retrieved from our basement storage.  Win win for everyone

A little blurry, but Santa was making sure the kids always listened to their Mommy and Daddy.

and as usual, the kids do their 'fist bump with flying reindeer' handshake with Santa.

We love going to Crown Center during the week, as there is usually little-to-no lines and the Christmas displays are so fun to look at.

Next up: decorating our Gingerbread house!