December Fun

2007 12 December 2

The month of December is always so full of activity and fun. Christmas is the whole month instead of just one day!

Kelby's class had a special third grade tea party on Friday the 14th. The students made their placemats, napkin rings, and place cards. They were served in fancy tea cups by the parents. Then they performed some poems and it was so adorable.

Tegan's class and the rest of the 1st grade put on a concert on a Monday evening. They sang Christmas carols for us. Tegan was so proud that she could spell "Santa" in sign language for one of the songs.

Michael got me a new tiny camera for Christmas and I got to open it a little early so I started snapping more pictures. I'll try to take more and post them for you. I can carry the camera with me everywhere I go because it slips right in my purse. I gave Mike a camera bag for Christmas so he can lug around all his stuff easily too now.

Life was fun and really low stress in those days before Christmas. I enjoyed another tea party with the girls where I had to confince Tegan to quit pulling out all her teeth. She already had the two front teeth gone...just like the song!

We had our annual ornament party, but it was a much smaller ordeal and much better. I almost didn't do it this year, but the girls wanted to do it so I invited just one friend each instead of the bunches of kids we had in the past. They had fun making cards and ornaments to deliver to the retirement home. Kelby said it made her feel so good inside. The girls even sang for the residents.

The weekend before Christmas we got to go to the Great Lohmans and play games and have pizza. We started worrying when Kelby didn't eat all her pizza, because she can usually put it away. She just didn't feel well. When we got home we realized she had a fever. That started our downhill slide into Christmas eve. Kelby was completely wiped out and had a horrible barky cough. On Christmas eve we had to skip our traditional sledding trip and took Kelby to the doctor. He was worried about her and had me take her over for a couple chest x-rays and a blood draw. The poor thing was not happy with me that day. All that testing did was tell us she had a virus. We kept thinking she was going to get better, but she just didn't. Gramma and Grampa came over that evening to drop off presents and a humidifier. We knew we were going to have to skip Christmas at the Wright house the next morning because we just had too many germs. Anika started coming down with it too. It was such a horrible bug that we sure didn't want to share it.

To make our Christmas eve special we had clam chowder and watched "The Nativity". Then we read the Christmas story with a special nativity scene that the girls seemed to enjoy. It had a poem and boxes to open with each part of the nativity scene in one. The last box is "What God wants for Christmas" and it held a mirror. It was a sweet, fun way to do the Christmas story. Then we got the girls off to bed.

Luckily Santa came even though we had the germs! The girls got up and still enjoyed the presents and stockings. He brought them MP3 players and little stuffed animals that are also speakers. They weren't impressed at first, but now they love them. We had a yummy breakfast and opened more presents.

Then my parents made it to our house! They made the day. Even though Kelby and Anika weren't much fun, they were still happy to have special visitors to make our Christmas special. They enjoyed opening their gifts from the Morrow side of the family. Then Mom and I got my turkey in the oven (which should have gotten in earlier) so we could have a special turkey dinner. It had been a long time since I had last cooked a turkey. The dinner turned out yummy and I really didn't have to cook anything for three days because we had so much left over.

We really took it easy that whole week that Mom and Dad were here. We kept hoping the girls would start feeling 100%, but it took a long time. The sickies were in a bedroom together keeping each other awake with their coughing. I had so much fun putting puzzles together and playing games with my parents. The girls played a ton of "Aggravation" with Gramma and Grampa. We also played a fair bit of Wii games. Santa brought me Dance Revolution for the Wii, so we used it as a workout for our holiday calories. The weather was VERY gray, so we got a little stir-crazy...especially our Ariozonan visitors.

Finally on Friday, Anika's birthday, we got out of the house. I had promised to take Anika to Build-A-Bear for her fourth birthday so we drove up to the Bellingham mall. Anika chose a cute pink bear. Gramma bought the girls each an outfit, so everyone had fun. Then Grampa took them to a movie. They got a little spoiled that day, so that was really fun. They deserved it!

I had planned to have my big prime rib dinner on the Saturday so my parents could enjoy it this time. I usually do Anika's birthday dinner on New Year's Day...to give everyone a break between the festivities. The problem was that no one really wanted to come...well, they wanted to come, but just couldn't with all the sickness. Some were sick and didn't want to double up on germs. It was a "come at your own risk" thing at that point anyway because we had no idea if the girls were still contagious. Anyways, we ended up with a whole lot of prime rib and side dishes left over. That's okay because we had yummy leftovers and again I didn't have to cook!

Mom and Dad left on New Year's eve. They got on an earlier flight by going stand by. By then Mike was sick and we had sent Mom home with the germ too. We didn't do anything special that night, but we did get up the next morning to go sledding. The sledding trip was great fun. You wouldn't believe how much exercise sledding is!

Now we have the girls back in school and things will go back to a new normal. The girls are very thankful for all the nice gifts they received. We wish we could have seen everyone for Christmas...but you probably wouldn't have wanted to see us (because of our germs). Happy 2008!