Happy New Year 2017!

You know I've got a four letter word to describe our holidays.....S...I...C....K. In fact I looked back over 2016 posts just to remember all that happened and that little word was part of most of our year.

I want to first share a few pictures from the holidays...

I absolutely LOVE this picture with Santa

Here's what happened afterwards!

Poor kid....my son in these pictures had a respiratory infection and pink eye. Thanks to his sister.  This was right before Christmas so both of them had it......then right AFTER Christmas it came to me in the form of gunky cough and most likely strep throat. I went to Dr. finally after 6 days and got some antibiotics. I am finally on the mend.

So, that means we had sickness in our house from Dec 19 - January 6. Happy new year indeed.

Our Holidays....on the bright side I was so happy with the presents I gave everyone....my girl got her crutches and sparkly pink drum.....my son got a push shopping cart that he hasn't stopped pushing since Christmas.  I ended up with 6 presents each and that felt about right. Although when we added the presents from friends, relatives, and my sister....it was a lot under the tree.  My goal is to make Christmas not SO big.....I want them to enjoy presents, but not be overwhelmed and just unwrap one gift, throw it down, and go on to the next.

We did go to Christmas eve candlelight service at the church my girl goes to preschool at. It's the first time my girl could hold her own candle, and first time my son went.  Let's just say it was not easy keeping him busy during the service. He wanted to be BUSY...MOVING....and not sitting, and not keeping his hands to himself. He spent time drawing, coloring, getting up, getting down, taking a diaper wipe and 'cleaning' chairs and other people.

One moment that made me cry was when one song came on (there was a lot of music) both of my kids spontaneously decided to 'dance' in front of their chairs and with each other.....I just looked over at both of them and my heart just welled up. In that moment I would say I felt joy. Joy at having my children, seeing them so happy, healthy, and free to express themselves.....it was just wonderful.

On the downside...some of my sister's visit.  You never really know how it's going to turn out, and this one wasn't a great one.  I don't know what happened, but most of the visit....so--much--tension.  It all started when we were doing some shopping on the 23rd and I was exhausted from everyone being sick and not sleeping that I was a little irritable.  I noticed it and apologized to her. Well later into that day and into Christmas Eve she just started talking much shorter, talking less, and being quite snarky.  As an example, we were wrapping gifts on the 23rd in different rooms and we were sharing tape...for some reason I only had one. When I came out I stuck my arm out so she could give me the tape so I wouldn't look at all her presents--she throws the tape on the floor instead of giving it to me. Rude. Then later after we all wrapped our gifts she starting putting the presents under the tree....I said we should probably put them in the closet so the kids wouldn't get into them and she snaps back, "Why, don't your kids know the meaning of No?". Ummm.....yes they do, in fact. However you can't expect a 4 and 2 year old not to touch a big heap of presents under the tree. Gimme a break.

So later that evening I came out and tried to talk w/ her....I told her I didn't appreciate what she said about my kids and how she was acting towards me. She says, "I'm sorry" in a snarky tone. I said it didn't seem like she sounded sincere and she flips off, "Well, it wasn't".  I ended my attempt at talking w/ her after that. In fact, I simply decided I'm not going to feed into it and we simply didn't talk much.  It made Christmas eve and Christmas day just not a lot of fun. You could cut the tension w/ a knife as they say. She was barely talking and I didn't feel like trying to mend it. I tried, didn't work......and frankly I got so upset in my mind that I kept saying over and over....she needs to be accountable for her actions. She needs to understand that she can't just come here, act rude, and expect it to just be fine when she decided to start talking again (which she did closer to when she went home).

I wholeheartedly feel like she owes me an apology. The thing that gets me is I paid for half of her flight. For her to come and act like this with no apology? No thanks.

What I hoped was that my children didn't feel the tension, but they are pretty perceptive. In fact, since there isn't much conflict in the house in general, I think my girl felt some of it and it probably was strange for her....my girl would tell my sister--you need to speak nicely to mommy! (even if my sister was kidding about something).

There were some good times sprinkled in there.....the three of us played go fish at night, my sister cooked a lot and our Christmas day dinner was absolutely amazing (prime rib, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, sparkling juice), opening presents and seeing the excitement.

Interesting though, my son wanted NOTHING to do w/opening gifts. Same thing he did at his birthday. He walked around, went into the kitchen, played w/ a toy here and there. He didn't want to open anything.

Overall it wasn't the easiest of times this holiday.....all the sickness, the up and down visit w/ my sister, the lack of sleep, etc...but we still managed to have some fun, decorate inside and outside the house, get the tree up, put up all the ornaments, got everything I wanted to get for everyone, and enjoy some time together...and some special moments w/ the kids.

I was going to review 2016 and talk about 2017 but I may save that for next post.

We spent new year's at home w/ the kids and our old nanny amy came to stay w/ us shortly after my sister left until Jan 2--for 5 days. It was so nice having her visit. 

I didn't want to do fireworks for new years so as the kids were done w/ their baths, jammies on......we were all sitting in my girls room. She said she had an idea and got a bunch of rubberbands....she said they could be our fireworks!! It was such a GREAT idea!! So we started shooting them at each other, into the fan, etc. we had SO MUCH FUN! We even turned on Katy Per.ry's Fire.works song on and at the top of our lungs we were singing her song, shooting rubberbands in the air, and dancing in the room.

Now THAT's my idea of a Happy New Year! :)