Christmas.

Ryan's first Christmas started at my aunt's house where we usually celebrate Christmas Eve with my dad's side of the family.  Naturally, I forgot my camera (I've got a serious case of mom brain) so these first two pictures are from my mom's camera.

My uncle is supposed to email the pictures he took on his camera so I may be posting really late Christmas photos.

Christmas day we opened presents at our house.  

Ryan was all about presents!

 This picture of the three kids in front of the tree cracks me up.  They're all disheveled and in their pj's still looking half asleep.

 Kaeleigh got a Kindle.  Can you tell she's excited?

 I was EXTREMELY spoiled this year.

 I got a new camera!  Thanks honey! 

Later we had brunch and opened gifts over at my parent's house.

I didn't get too many pictures with the new camera because I hadn't figured out all of the settings yet. (Still haven't.)

We had such a great day and lots of wonderful memories for Ryan's first Christmas.

Christmas cards.

I had hoped to be caught up on 2012 before 2013 but that's clearly not the case.

Early in December I purchased a deal online for a photo session hoping to get a nice photo for our Christmas cards.  The photos all turned out really great but the photography place I chose owns the rights to the photos so we couldn't print them on our own.  I bought a CD just so I could post them to Facebook and here on the blog.

Here are a few of my favorite shots:

Ryan was throwing a fit in this picture.

Ryan was so tired by this point.

This is the picture I ended up using for our cards.

Not as professional but just as cute.

Santa.

Ryan met Santa yesterday.

See how thrilled he was?

Christmas.

Merry Christmas from my family to yours.

This week...

Yikes.  A week and a half since I last blogged? 

I would blame the holidays but that's only part of the reason.

The last time I blogged Maylyn was fighting pneumonia, the flu and an ear infection.

A couple days later, Kaeleigh got an ear infection as well.

By the time Christmas rolled around I had a sinus infection.

And here it it, three days after Christmas and Maylyn is sick again.  :(

Last night we made a trip to the emergency room because she started running a fever again and the right side of her neck swelled up.

The poor child had to get blood drawn, and an IV put in, and have an ultrasound done on her neck.

She fell asleep in my lap.  :(



My view of the waiting room...Maylyn's IV and the tv.

It turns out that she has a deep lymph node infection.

She looks so miserable it's breaking my heart!

The ER doctors said to keep an eye on her, that she might have trouble breathing with all the swelling so I have her sleeping next to me on an air mattress in the living room.

I'm not able to sleep because I'm listening to every sound that she makes so I figured since I'm up at 3 am, I might as well catch up on some blogging!

On one of the few days that we were all relatively well, we took a trip to the zoo with our friends.  Apparently, right at about 10am is the perfect time to visit the zoo.

All of the animals are getting fed or are about to be fed and are up walking around in anticipation.

We saw a ton of animals that we normally don't get a few good view of.

 Christmas Eve was spent with my dad's side of the family...it's tradition.

I got this awesome shot of all of the "little" kids.

They're not so little anymore!

 We took a TON of photos.

Here's a pose that my mom requested.

My parents with their children.  The spouses of their children.  And the grandchildren.

I thought I had loaded the pics from Christmas day on my computer but I guess not.

Imagine us in our pjs and that's what a lot of the pictures look like.

Only a couple of more days until the new year.  Here's hoping everyone is well at our house...

Christmas.

Our holiday traditionally starts on Christmas Eve with my dad's side of the family.

While the rest of us pigged out on tamales, the kids ate chicken nuggets.  Bleck.  They totally missed out.  My grandma tore it up this year!

First round of presents on Christmas Eve.

My sister's husband was in town for the holiday.

We ended Christmas Eve by putting out a plate of cookies for Santa.  Along with some carrots for the reindeer.

After the kids got in bed I had the husband go outside and shake some jingle bells.  LOL

The kids totally thought it was santa.  I told them they better hurry up and fall asleep because santa doesn't stop at the houses where kids are awake.

Man, they were asleep in record time!

Christmas morning started later than I expected.  Kaeleigh had said she was going to be up at 5am, but we had to wake them up after 7am!

Kaeleigh was looking a little sleepy, but very excited also.

Santa got a little carried away with stocking stuffers.  I had to put a couple of things in bags.

Our stockings were hilarious.  I found them last year at Bed Bath & Beyond. 

Maylyn's said, "Dear Santa, I can explain..."

And Kaeleigh's said, "Been good all year...nearly."

Even Jake got a stocking!  I've never seen that dog so excited.  He kept running from toy to toy.

See how excited they were about their stocking stuffers?

I was equally excited about my stocking.  The husband knows me very well.  Hello Starbucks, I'll be seeing you soon.

I don't even have to go out for coffee anymore if I don't want to.  The husband got me the coffee maker I've been talking about for months!

See my excitement?  I am spoiled.

Santa brought the girls what they wrote to him for.

The rest of Christmas day was spent with family.

We headed to my parent's house for Christmas round 3.

These kids cleaned up in the present department!

We got to spend time with some new family members.  My sister's in-laws came and the girls got to hold their new cousin Madison. (When I wasn't stealing her away.)

My brother even took the girls outside to jump rope!

We ended our Christmas celebration back at our house with my father-in-law and Christmas presents round 4 and a lot of baked goods.  I tried a new sugar cookie recipe this year and it rocked!

We had a great time this year, but I'm so glad it's over!  I had that Christmas tree down the very next day.

 I hope you all had a wonderful holiday!