In our 10 years of raising a family we’ve never had to deal with illness over Christmas.  I’ve spent my share of New Year’s Eve, and Valentines Days nursing sick kiddos… but never Christmas.  This year changed all that; we pretty much spent all of Christmas break taking turns being sick.  I was the last and the hardest to fall.  Truthfully I’m still not fully recovered but I’m slowly (much too slowly) starting to feel more like myself.

Despite all the fevers, and stomach bugs we did have some sweet times together.  

Decorating the GIANT Christmas tree Justin and the boys brought home.  They love getting out the ornament box every year.  They each have favorites that they look forward to putting on the tree; which can be the source of a few squabbles.

We did our annual Christmas cookie baking and decorating day.  They consumed ridiculous amounts of sugar, my sanity barely held, and a week later I’m still sweeping up red and green sprinkles.  

This girl… she was in sugar heaven.  She couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t let her eat sprinkles straight from the bottle.

Between the winter storms we found time to get some fresh air.  A little walk down the canal and though the orchard.

Evenings were spent being cozy near the fire.

Justin kept the Miss P occupied one morning while I did Christmas baking.  She loves making block towers.

The kiddos went ice skating for the very first time and loved it.  Miss E met the challenge with her usual dogged determination.

J has his own set of roller-blades, so he was speeding across the rink in no time.

Even G enjoyed skating.  He’s my guy who’s usually apprehensive to try something new.  I was pleasantly surprised when he lace up and headed out onto the ice without any coaxing on my part,  I was so proud of him!

Christmas morning was a little unusual.  Justin had been up early with J who had thrown up during the night.  J managed to open his gifts but climbed into bed as soon as all the presents were opened and slept most of the day.

G loved the trapper cap I got him and the boys played many, many rounds of checkers with their new checker board.

This guy also celebrated his 9th Birthday!  He was such a good sport.  We had planned a fun birthday outing  to The Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, but we ended up having to delay it because I came down with the flu.  Poor guy!  He enjoyed his presents, pizza and chocolate cake nonetheless.  And suddenly, just like that, it’s a new year!

I’ve got some fun Christmas projects that I’m excited to show you all, hopefully soon!

Hope your Christmas was wonderful and much less germ-riddled than ours