Catching Up

Happy New Year!  I hope everyone had a safe & happy new year.  We rang in the new year...sick. 
Dustin woke up New Year's Eve with a throat on "fire" and was sick for a few days.  My cold is still lingering....but much less bothersome.  Emilynn is fine, Carson is mostly over his cold.  He now has diaherrea and has thrown up once each day.  Poor guy.  This has been going on since Monday.  Now before you go thinking I'm a bad mom and all.....he has had no fever, has been very active, and it hasn't been constant.  I AM going to call the dr. tomorrow and possibly take him in to get checked out. 
I hope we are getting all this sickness out now.  I feel like we are quarantined.  We missed a birthday party, church, and our weekly dinner at Nanny's over the weekend, and I have yet to take my Granny her Christmas gift.  Maybe next week???  Tomorrow is going to be busy though because I'm going to the eye dr., then possibly take Carson to pediatrician, then dance, then a Relay for Life meeting.  Lots to do.  We've done nothing most of the week, so I will be exhausted tomorrow night. 

Christmas was wonderful, it was much slower paced than in years past.  Dustin wants to stay at home even more next year, so we'll see if we can re-arrange some stuff for that to happen.  As it was, we all got naps each day which helped.  We let the kids play till lunchtime too, so that was nice before heading to our first stop-my grandma's house.  Dustin woke us all up on Christmas, he was more excited than the kids!  The biggest "hit" from Santa was a Step 2 Train Track table.  The kids both loved it!  They didn't even look at their other toys that day and they played really nicely together with it, which surprised me.  Emilynn did get a Graco twin doll stroller, just like our big one, a pack and play for her babies, a carrier.  The train thing was technically Carson's, but they both play with everything.  They also got books, 2 movies, clothes, new bath towels, Melissa & Doug play food-another big hit, toy vaccuums (from us), and of course the usual socks, underwear, undershirts....can you have Christmas without those?  I think not.  A fur-real kitten was also a big hit, and kid sized bag chairs.  As far as other people go, Meme & Poppy were kind enough to give us a baby grand piano for Em & a drum set for Carson.  How thoughtful right?  They are a hit, but I have relocated them to their bedroom for my sanity.  :-)  Boo Boo gave Carson a tool box with his name on it and tools inside, which he loves.  Emmy got the chunkiest baby doll ever from Aunt Amanda, which we have named "Chuckie Sue" off of Sesame Street-one character has a hamster by that name.  Oh, and Emmy got those plastic play high heeled shoes from my Nanny, she loves them.  A monster truck from my Nanny is also popular with both kiddos because they watch Monster Jam with Da-da.  All in all, they got lots of neat toys and things.  I have packed some away for the long winter when we can't go outside.  Oh, and their b-day was filled with more toys and fun-will post on that later with cake pics.....
I am glad I don't have to think about Christmas for a while, cause you know I start thinking about it in the summer.... :-)   I need a break for a spell.  We did do a good deal of riding to look at lights, and all the church services throughout the holiday are so nice.  It really helps keep things in perspective about the true meaning of the holiday.  The twins are really into birthdays now, so I hope next year we can focus even more on Jesus' birthday. 
Now I'm on to working on the baby's room in full force, since all the gifts are out of there.  I have washed about 6 loads of stuff for the little guy.  I got his crib bedding done, cradle bedding done, blankets, burp rags, newborn clothes, 0-3 month clothes in case he's a chunk :-), car seat cover, big blankets for winter travelling to and from places, and other stuff I'm probably forgetting.  I've had the machine going non-stop. 
One thing about being sick, I got SO behind on laundry and housework.  It's hard to keep up when I'm not sick.....and all the new stuff doesn't help because the twins drag it all out every day.  The toys probably are the hardest thing to keep picked up, even with them helping to the best of their ability. 
I have found that I need to do a load of laundry every day to keep up.  It's good to run the dishwasher too every day, but sometimes I can let that slide two days. 
Well, as a resolution I've been trying to get to bed earlier these days.....so I'm off to read a while before bed.  Oh, I almost forgot....MY favorite Christmas gift was....an Amazon Kindle Fire!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I LOVE it!   Call me out of the loop, but I had not even heard of it.  Yes, I am not only quarantined but cut off from the latest and greatest gadgets.  The thing is, I have a kindle, the first one that came out actually.  And I love it.  And I'm always kind of frugal, so I hate to splurge on me.  Especially because my other Kindle worked just fine.  Or so I thought.....until I opened my gift from my grandparents and there it was.  I still had no idea how cool it would be until I asked my technologically saavy sister Abbey that night what I could do with a Kindle Fire.  She was immediately jealous I had it, so I knew I was on to something!  Hehe.... Christmas night it took me all of 5 minutes to set up, transfer all my books over, and start surfing the web.  Here I thought my laptop was convenient.  I LOVE LOVE LOVE it!!!!!!  I had asked for Amazon gift cards to buy some new releases that I wanted and boy was I surprised with my new toy instead.  I did get a gift card from my Dad & Dawn, so I got the Kindle and new books.  Awesome!   And I know I've gone on and on about it, but it was a true surprise and I don't know when I've gotten so excited about a gift, especially as I've entered my ahem....thirties.
Anyway, I'm off to read and then call it a day.  More later....I will update on ALL of our recent dr.'s visits.