Christmas, New Year's, and Sickness

Christmas break was great (and not so great with all the sickness), but we’re glad to be back to normal life again.

We kicked off the celebrating early with my dad’s birthday on the 23rd. Jarl surprised me with gorgeous roses. Then we went to my parents and enjoyed hanging out, eating dinner, and watching football. My dad had a great time playing with and reading to the kids. We gave him a page-a-day Dilbert calendar. I love Dilbert. We got to open a Christmas present early. We got a very cool video camera. The downside to the evening was Makayla throwing up all over herself and Jarl. Luckily I had spare pair of pants in the van for her. Jarl ended up wearing a pair of my brother’s pajama pants since his jeans got covered. And thus the days of sickness started.

Makayla and Kaley threw up all night. We debated about going to Jarl’s family’s Christmas Eve celebration and finally decided we would and just warn everyone that they held Kaley at the peril of getting thrown up on or sick themselves. The most memorable part of the celebration was Grandpa Jacobson passing out high-quality kazoos. The Jacobsons had a blast with them while a few of us wished for ear plugs. The kids still play with their kazoos. Kaley loves her and knows exactly what to do with it. If I ever have a minute to figure out how to get the video clip onto the computer and then onto the blog, you all could enjoy the kazoo fun too.

Kaley got a push/ride on toy that she loves from her great-grandparents at the Christmas Eve celebration. This has got her thinking that walking is pretty cool and she loves doing it as long as she has something to hang onto. This means I’m spending a lot more time walking her around so she can practice.

Jacob and Makayla had fun setting out a plate of cookies and a glass of milk for Santa. They each added a piece of candy from what their Aunt Camille had given them. When I asked them if I we should put out two cookies Jacob thought we should definitely set out more and thought four was a good number. He also told me to be sure to get out the grown-up milk (1%) because Santa is a grown up. Once we got the kids to bed it was time to finish the wrapping. Jarl was feeling awful so he laid on the bed or the bathroom floor while I wrapped presents for almost two hours. Finally the wrapping was done. And Jarl finally threw up. Then we set everything out and went to bed.

7:00 came and I woke up and waited for the kids to wake up. I went downstairs and waited with the video camera. Kaley and Makayla woke up first as usual. I could hear Makayla asking Kaley if she thought Santa had come. She was so excited. Ten minutes later Jacob woke up and went and got Makayla and down the stairs they came. They were so excited to see the presents and to see that Santa had eaten their cookies and candy and drunk their milk. We had lots of fun opening presents. It didn’t take long for Kaley to figure out what to do and to enjoy pulling the paper off her presents. Jarl and the kids gave me a warm hat.

After presents and pictures, I helped the kids get ready and Jarl made the traditional Christmas breakfast of sour cream waffles. We enjoyed eating breakfast and then we enjoyed my brother Michaels phone call from Mexico. My dad set us all up on a conference call which was wonderful. Michael was in a great mood and so much fun to talk to as always. Jacob especially liked hearing him speak Spanish. After the phone call Jarl and I got ready and then we pulled out the Wii Fit. We had so much fun playing it that we were a bit late getting to my parents. It was fun to get together and to open more presents. Who needs Santa Claus when you have Grandpa Claus (that’s what my dad was calling himself)? The highlight of the present opening was my sister-in-law Liz’s much squealing as she opened a very big flat screen TV from Matt and our parents.

After presents we ate and played on the Wii. Matt and Liz stayed much longer than they were planning because we were having so much fun on it. The best was watching my dad play the flying game. Seriously fun. All in all, Christmas was a huge success and we were very spoiled.

Saturday I wasn’t feeling well and the kids were still up and down in how they felt. We decided for the sake of everyone’s health that we’d skip Jarl’s mom’s birthday lunch. We were sad to do so, but felt it was for the best. I felt worse and worse as the day went on. About 7:30 my stomach hurt so badly that I asked Jarl for a blessing. Then I went to bed and tried not to move. I was awake at 4:30 because my stomach was hurting more. I asked Jarl for more medicine and mentioned that we should look up the symptoms for appendicitis because the lower right side of my stomach was killing me. Jarl did so and we called his parents to come stay with the kids while Jarl and I went to the ER since I had all of the symptoms of appendicitis. Two and a half hours later they sent me home to see how the next eight hours went with the understanding that if I was the same or worse I was to come back since the CAT scan didn’t show that anything was wrong. We went home and I slept and started to feel a bit better. It was slow but eight hours later I was definitely better than I had been. I didn’t feel pain-free until Monday afternoon but I was grateful that I got better instead of having to recover from emergency surgery. Luckily Jarl was able to stay home Sunday and Monday to help out with the kids. Monday evening I was much better and life went back to normal. We did enjoy all the time home with Jarl despite the illnesses and we played lots and lots of Wii.

New Year’s Eve Jarl got home a bit early to start the long weekend off. We hung out for a bit and then met the rest of my family at Texas Roadhouse for dinner. The place was packed. We had a good time though and the food was delicious as usual and I wonder why Jarl and I don’t go there more often. It was fun to see everyone again. We then headed home to play the Wii and then send the kids to bed at 8:30 (rather than their normal 7:30 bedtime). I was tired so Jarl and I went to bed before 10 and it’s a good thing since the kids were up by 7:00.

Friday we hung out at home. Jarl found the piggy bank he was going to give me for Christmas that keeps a running total of how much money is in it. He patiently put all our spare change in and discovered we had almost $80. We decided that was enough to justify us springing for Guitar Hero. We really like this game and it’s one of the reasons we wanted a Wii. Now we have tons of fun stuff to do on the Wii and not nearly enough time to do it all.

Sunday we had our new church schedule. 9:00 church is going to be heaven. Jarl doesn’t have to leave until 8:30 so he has time to help get the kids ready. Then he was home shortly after 2:00 and spent the rest of the day home with us. Wonderful. His Tuesday and Wednesday nights will be longer with the meetings he had on Sundays but since he’s gone those nights anyway, having him gone later shouldn’t be too big of a deal.