Our Christmas season this year was joyful and challenging all at the same time!
Earlier in December we had wonderful celebrations in preparation for Christmas.
Will's choir sang at church one night. It is always so much fun to hear children sing songs of praise!
Will and Anna's preschool had a great Christmas program about the star that shone over the manger.
Anna was a beautiful angel and Will was one of the stars. Anna's favorite song to sing for the program was Joy to the World (my personal favorite too!)
And then came the week of Christmas and people at our house started getting a stomach virus. Boo! Elizabeth was sick on Sunday and Monday, James was sick on Monday and Tuesday, Jay was sick on Tuesday (Christmas Eve), and Catherine didn't feel well on Christmas morning. So we all stayed home pretty much the entire week and tried to help the sick ones, keep the well ones entertained, and sanitize the house all while celebrating Christmas!
We really tried to not over-do the gifts this year. It seems to multiply quickly with lots of children. Santa brought each child one big gift and a few small things in their stockings. Catherine's big gift was a marble run maze, Will's was a barn/tractor/horse set, Anna's was a pet vet kit, Elizabeth got a baby doll, and James got a car garage. Then they each had 4 presents to unwrap from us. And consider it a Christmas miracle, but none of the toys required batteries! We did a lot of games, puzzles, and books this year. And I tried to get things that they can play together.
Mimi and PopPop had planned to come over on Christmas, but we even gave the virus to Mimi and she was sick all Christmas Eve night and Christmas day. On the 26th she felt some better so we went to their house for Christmas gifts and enjoyed spending the afternoon with them.
On Friday afternoon we headed to my family's. We spent Friday night at my dad's with all the cousins. Here are 9 of the 10. Next year there will be two more on this couch! The kids always have a great time playing at Papa and Kay's: feeding the cows, playing with the puppies, riding on the golf cart with cousins. On Saturday morning, Papa even took Will and Jay hunting---in the 20ish degree weather! No deer this time, but Will was very excited.
On Saturday we headed to my grandmother's house to spend some time with my mom and grandmother. We are so thankful that my grandmother was feeling well. She's had a rough few months with a broken hip and some bleeding in her brain but she was still her usual spunky self. My mom took the big kids for a walk around the farm there and taught them all kinds of interesting family and farm facts.
And now, I have finally put away the Christmas decorations and most of the toys. We were thankful to celebrate the birth of our Savior even if the circumstances weren't perfect this Christmas. One thing we are learning by having a big family is to be flexible and make the best of the situation so that's what we tried to do! But I'm not going to lie---I'm feeling pretty over the stomach virus right now!
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