Resurfacing

Happy New Year! I can't believe it has taken me this long to get around to actually writing this update. I uploaded the pictures a few days ago, but didn't get any further before certain small girls awoke early from nap time. I hope you had a wonderful Christmas. Ours was great, that is until it was terrible, no good, very bad, don't ever want to do that again. The original plan this year was to visit my grandmother Hope on Christmas day as she has recently moved into a nursing home and a visit from two smiling great grandchildren is sure to brighten her day. Because we would be getting up early and piling into the car for a 3+ hour car ride I thought it would be a good idea to have Christmas a day early. It seemed cruel to give the kids (well Otto really) new toys and then strap him into a car seat all day. Since he doesn't know what day it is unless we tell him, we just told him that Thursday was Christmas and went on our merry way. Wednesday we had a Christmas Eve dinner with friends. That night we hung our stockings and put out cookies for Santa. After the kids were asleep eric and I played Santa and Nisseman for the first time and had fun putting out all the gifts and filling stockings. The next morning bringing Otto was downstairs was so much fun. He was quite excited to see all the presents and learn that in fact Santa DID come. We have video of the kids from the morning but the camera is experiencing some data transfer problems. We will get it posted, just not right now. We had a wonderful laid back Christmas. The kids opened presents, we played with toys, ate yummy food, baked cookies. It was just about perfect. Then that night after dinner I started to not feel all that great. Clammy, off stomach, just kind of yucky. At about 1:00 a.m. I was the first to fall. I was hit with the most violent stomach flu I have ever experienced. While I was sequestered in the bathroom Mette woke up. When eric went in to check on her he found her in a sea of vomit. 20 minutes later Otto was awake and throwing up. It was rough. Thank God eric wasn't sick. I don't think we could have survived the night without one of the adults being able to take care of stuff. He called the doctor because Mette throwing up was kind of scary, started laundry, changed jammies and kept the house afloat. The next day Otto, Mette and I were still down for the count. Eric was kind enough to hold Mette and help her sleep while Otto and I snuggled, watched TV and napped on the couch. By the afternoon Mette was feeling better and by that evening Otto and I were getting back to normal. It was not a day I ever want to do again, or really think too much about for that matter. I had always planned on remembering Mette's first Christmas, but there is no way I am going to forget this one!! I am SO glad we did Christmas a day early because this would have totally ruined presents for sure. The one good thing about the stomach flu this year is I wasn't 9 months pregnant, it didn't put me into early labor and I didn't have to recover from it AND a c-section. Always look on the bright side.

So enough of our sick saga, there were some good things and I do have some great photos to share from the last week. I don't have a lot of Christmas morning since there will be a good video of that to come..

I made stocking for each of the kids this year. I am very pleased with how they came out if I do say so myself.

One of Otto's big hits was a CARS racetrack. It is incredibly loud and wonderful all at the same time. Eric is sporting his gift from the kids, his own pair of footie jammies!! Dinos none the less.

Photographic evidence that the box is really what they will play with.

Otto and Mette sporting Hannah's. Otto's from Grandma last year and Mette's from GrandmaBah this year.

Mette is ever helpful when it comes to building with blocks.

Luckily Mette has grandmothers who buy her girl clothes. Yia-Yia to thank for this adorable number.

By Sunday we all had a serious case of cabin fever so we headed to Reptiland for an outing.

We stopped for lunch on the way home where Mette sampled the french fries. For a girl who doesn't really seem to like food, she was pretty OK with the fries.

Pigtails, need I say more?