Rocky Start

I love December. Christmas has always been my favorite holiday, and now it's also the month we celebrate the day we became a family of four! Ayden and Rylee have added so much excitement and joy to the holiday season. I've always thought Christmas was pretty magical, but I had no idea how magical it truly could be! Experiencing everything through their eyes is pretty much the best thing in life.

Friday night, we attended our local tree lighting ceremony that takes place at the College every year. The kids were so excited to go to it! They had a difficult time waiting all day for it. We arrived 20 minutes early, so we could be sure to get a good spot and didn't miss anything. I later really, really wished we hadn't arrived so early! The event was supposed to start at 6:00 with a little parade before the actual tree lighting. The parade was a very sad and pitiful parade that went on forevvvvvverrrrr. They also had a podium set up with a couple commentators, but we couldn't understand a word they said the entire time, despite being directly across the street from them. It was a pretty miserable hour and ten minutes of wrangling the kids by myself (because Tony was still on his way home from work) in a big crowd, in the dark, in the rain. However, the 30 seconds of the actual tree lighting was AMAZING! They turned off all the lights in the buildings and on the street, and there was a countdown, which made it all exciting. And then they lit up the giant Sequoia tree! In the end, the kids were happy and that's all that mattered.

Our Elf on the Shelf made his appearance on Saturday, the first day of December. The kids had been asking if the elf would be back again this year, and even remembered that they had named him Macaroni and Cheese last year! The first year, when they were two years old, his name was Baby Elf. When they were three, he really didn't have a name. Then last year, he got the name that seems to have stuck!

Day 1: So excited to discover Mac & Cheese finally came!

Day 4

The kids are participating in a children's musical this coming weekend and had play practice Saturday morning, followed by Ayden's karate class directly after that. We came home and ate a quick lunch, and then went to a local Santa Train event. While the tree lighting ceremony was pretty lame, the Santa Train was fantastic! We watched Santa and Mrs. Clause arrive on a train, decorated cookies, made Christmas ornaments, wrote and mailed letters to Santa, and got several goodies to take home, including a toy from Santa.

Aaannnnnnd then......

A few hours after being back home and having a little quiet time, Rylee started complaining that her tummy hurt. That is not unusual for her at all because she struggles with constipation. After about an hour of her complaining, I put some essential oils on her belly to hopefully help her feel better. About 5 minutes later, she vomited alllll over herself and the couch. I hadn't expected that at all! Oh my God, the smell. The mess. I had a very hard time keeping it together myself so I could clean it all up, but I survived. I called Tony on his way home from work and asked him to grab some Pedialyte on his way. After being put to bed, she proceeded to vomit 4 more times over the next few hours. When we woke Ayden to take him potty at 10pm, he was crying that he didn't feel very good either. At 12:30am, he vomited in his bed. I assumed he would follow in Rylee's footsteps with several more episodes during the night, but thankfully we made it the rest of the night without anyone getting sick again. The next morning, the kids felt pretty puny and we kept the buckets close by all day, but they ended up not being needed.

It was a low key, lazy day. We watched a lot of tv, played on tablets, played dinosaurs and cars, and colored a bit. I kept them home from school on Monday, just to be on the safe side. We hung a few more Christmas lights outside, and they rode on their bikes and scooters while I did some yard work. They were feeling much better, but then Tony ended up having to come home from work early because he was feeling puny. And then he puked. I will spare you the details of that. I made homemade chicken noodle soup for dinner. The kids still didn't have much of an appetite, but they did eat a little bit of soup at least.

Homemade soup!

Tony kept himself isolated in our bedroom. I gave the kids baths and got them into bed for the night, thinking that they would wake up this morning feeling much more rejuvenated. Boy was I wrong! Ayden woke up super cranky, and Rylee woke up not feeling well again and asking for a bucket. I am feeling traumatized by all the vomiting going on around here! She only got sick once this morning, and Ayden thankfully got over his grumpiness and started feeling better, but it was another VERY lazy day at home. Well, lazy for everyone but me that is! I've been busy doing a million puky loads of laundry, cleaning bathrooms, mopping floors, and trying to sanitize our house! Tony is still not feeling well and will be staying home from work another day, and of course I won't be sending the kids to school again tomorrow. Ugh!

At least she's cute! Poor thing.

I'm glad we were at least able to start off the month with a few good memories before the sick hit, but I hope this stupid virus makes it's way out the door fast! I keep waiting for it to hit me. With everyone else getting it, I can't imagine being so lucky that it will pass right on by me, but so far so good. Fingers crossed it stays that way!

We HAVE to be healthy by this weekend! The kids have their Children's musical, and Rylee has her ballet recital next week! She had to make it to her class on Saturday and the dress rehearsal on Monday!