Merry Christmas!

Our family would like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas!

We spent the entire Christmas weekend at home as a family – but not just to enjoy the boys’ first Christmas together – we were sick. 1 sick baby + 1 healthy baby + 1 sick dad + 1 healthy mom does not equal a very fun Christmas.

Last weekend we started the first of the holiday parties with my mom’s extended family Christmas on Saturday. We had to travel a little bit to attend the party at my aunt & uncle’s house out of state but it was fun to visit with all of my aunts, uncles, cousins and little 2nd cousin. We had seen most of them at my cousin’s wedding back in November but everyone was still excited to see the boys and see how big they have grown. The boys nap schedule got thrown off a bit but they did fairly well and were able to sleep for most of the car ride to & from the party. Sunday, my parents watched the boys while Cory & I did a bunch of Christmas shopping (it’s a little hard to get things done between feedings with two little ones to haul around).

I took the entire week off before Christmas to get most of my Christmas shopping done, a little more Christmas baking done and to just spend some time with my little boys. I really enjoyed the week away from work and accomplished all of my goals. We even made a trip to the local mall with my sister & nephew on Wednesday to get out of the house and to see Santa. The line was a little too long to stand in to still get home in time before the boys lunch feeding and my nephew is too timid to sit on Santa’s lap so we just walked past him and watched the other kids take their turns. We’ll have to attempt that next year! We took a little break so my nephew could play in the play area while my sister & Colton watched him and Wyatt and myself made a quick stop at Old Navy for a gift. Wednesday night we had our second Christmas party at Cory’s aunt’s house with a bunch of family & friends – it was fun, however Colton wasn’t too fond of having so many people & so much commotion going on in a small space and had a slight meltdown – we’re working on getting the boys out of the house more & more to hopefully settle him down a little bit. Starting Thursday, Cory had off of work – so we each took some time to wrap up some final gift buying alternated with hanging out with the boys at home.

Christmas Eve, we got together with Cory’s mom, dad, brother, neice and his brother’s girlfriend for lunch & gifts. Cory had a slight headache before we went…little did we know that the headache was just the start of things to come. While we were there Colton started to get fussy again – which ended up in 3 huge diaper messes (including 3 times being rinsed off in the tub) and 2 destroyed outfits. Wyatt was able to enjoy some time visiting and opening up presents but Colton just wasn’t feeling up to it – poor little guy. We headed home early (although we live just a block and a half away). I talked to the pediatrician on call in case Colton got worse overnight and ended up making a run to Wal-Mart to pick up some Pedialite just minutes before they closed for the Christmas Eve holiday. Needless to say, we did not make it to Christmas Eve church services this year.

Christmas morning we were only able to open up the boys’ stocking stuffers before Colton decided that he didn’t feel well enough to do anymore. We were able to get a little bit of it on video though but I’m not sure we got many still pictures. We continued opening up presents with Wyatt while Colton slept but made sure to leave Colton’s presents and a few of the “both boys” presents until Colton was up later in the day.

We ended up skipping two Christmas parties on Christmas day (Cory’s mom’s extended family & my immediate family) and one on Sunday (my dad’s extended family). Colton drank the Pedialite really well and finally had some formula back in his diet yesterday. We saw slight improvement in Colton later on Christmas day (even though he slept like crazy) and even more improvement yesterday. Cory felt worse on Christmas day and felt slightly better yesterday. Wyatt and I ended up running to my parents’ house on Christmas day to drop off the gifts for everyone else and just to get out of the “sick” house for a little bit. We both remained healthy through the entire weekend and as of today as well.

So, that is the story of my little boys 1st Christmas. We didn’t go to Christmas Eve church service, we didn’t get pictures of the boys with the mountains of presents or their stockings on Christmas morning, they didn’t wear their cute “Santa’s Little Helper” outfits for everyone to see – but we did spend it together as a new family of four and that is what the spirit of Christmas is all about.

Cory & I were able to spend the entire Christmas weekend with the two greatest gifts in the world – the two blessings sent from above to us by God.

We are planning on getting together at my parents’ house this weekend to have a belated Christmas party and to let the boys open up all of their presents they missed out on Christmas day.

Merry Christmas everyone!