Dreamer.Thinker.Player.

This year had all the promise to be be a great year, yet it wasn't all bad, but it wasn't all good either...
***Warning...this is long!***

Why should it be a good year? Well, 2 answers...Jonathan and Benjamin! Of course I could go on and say Scarlet and Will too! The Kids! They make everything happy and fun again. This year Jonathan is 2 years and 8 months and he is "into it"! He learned how to sing Jingle Bells, he loved all his Christmas books, he determined his favorite Christmas time character is Frosty the Snowman...it was a fun month leading up to the big day! (The only thing I will say, it's pretty confusing to a poor little kid...on Christmas Eve, Michael and I made a big deal about going to bed because Santa is coming! And poor thing has asked pretty much every evening since if Santa is coming again...we try to explain, he only comes once a year...etc, etc...but the next night, "Santa's coming??")

Jonathan had 2 weeks off of school and we had already started things off so fun with the news of baby brother Ben! But Friday morning, the first morning of his break, he woke up with a runny nose and drippy eye. Both continued thought the weekend so I decided to nip it in the bud and take him to the Dr on Monday. Ugh! But a big frustration of mine as a mommy is getting diagnosed with a 'virus'! Basically what that says to me is...yup, he's got something, but we don't know what it is and won't treat him. :( Very unhappy mommy went home with no answers and a still sick baby and 3 days until the Christmas festivities begin. Plus, when he doesn't feel well he stops eating and when he doesn't eat, things get tense around the house. Not very Merry...

Michael and I were also excited because he was going to have off 11 days of work!! YEAH! We had plans to get so much done around the house and preparing for Ben! So, Michael's first day off was Wednesday, Christmas Eve, Eve. He and I had decided it was the perfect day for him to put up Jonathan's big Christmas gift...the SWING SET!!!! That day a cold front came through and dropped the temp to the 40's! The 3 of us bundled up and headed outside to start building. 30 minutes into it, Jonathan and I were cold so we left Michael out there. Let's just say, Swing Set's are not the easiest things to put together and they don't have the easiest directions to follow either. Michael was out there a while. When he came back inside he didn't look the same. That night he wasn't feeling that well.

The next morning we woke with excitement! It was Christmas Eve! We always used to go to my parents on Christmas Eve, so Amy and my families have kept the tradition and we switch-out hosting every year. This year was our turn to host! We decided that all of us would meet up at the noon Candlelight Service at our church, then lunch at La Bistro, then back to our house for presents and dessert!! And that is just what we did and we all had a great time! The service was great, although Waylen and Scarlet missed a little bit of it. To our surprise, Jonathan sat still and really enjoyed it. He loved the candlelight part! It was a great memory! Lunch at one of our favorite spots, La Bistro was delicious! And present opening did not disappoint with the 2 kiddos! But, Jonathan had a bit of a melt down toward the end, poor buddy, he still wasn't feeling that great still and had skipped nap time (it was already 4:00 pm, and he usually naps around 2:00). He actually requested to go to bed, so we put him down and slept the whole rest of the time that the Day's were there...oh well. Michael was a trooper too, you could tell he wasn't himself all day and was starting to cough a very bad cough.

Santa Clause was not the only visit our house got in the middle of the night on Christmas Eve...Michael got a visit from the "Fever Fairy", along with chills, sweats and body aches! When we woke up the next morning I knew he was really sick when he asked me to call his mother and let her know we wouldn't be making it over there that day. - You see our Christmas Day plans were to wake up and have "Santa" with the 3 of us at our house, a special breakfast that I was going to make and then we were going to head to Pat's for lunch, then presents.

Jonathan and I waited for Michael to wake up and when he did I got a chance to take his temp for the first time and it was 102.0! Yikes! So, I called his Dr and he told me that nothing was open but the hospitals and he didn't feel comfortable prescribing a fever that high over the phone. So after a lot of convincing Michael, we headed to the hospital. The good news, we were in and out in 2 hours, the bad news, Michael had a bad case of Bronchitis. They gave him a Z-Pac some pain killers for the aches and sent us on our way!

More bad news, over night that night, I started coughing... a lot! The next morning I wasn't feeling so great and had a temp in the high 99's (which is high for me since I have a very low base). It was Sunday, so I call my Dr...I told him about both my sick boys and what was going on with me and he promptly called me in a Z-Pac. Yeah! By Monday I was feeling better and continued to get better quickly, which I was so thankful for, I hated coughing and shaking little Ben all around! :)

Monday brought more bad news though, now Jonathan was coughing pretty bad and his other symptoms hadn't gone away. We called his Dr, but he was off all week, so we decided to take him into the Cook's Childrens' Urgent Care. He had a temp in the low 100's and since he hadn't eaten, they put a "Fall Risk" bracelet on him...poor buddy. But yet again, the Dr that saw him said he had a 'virus'! UGH!!!! BUT! She told us to get him Mucinex for Kid's (we had been giving him Benaydryl because that is what the other Dr told me to do.) Once we started the Mucinex, things started getting better. Yeah!

The rest of the week the 3 of us laid low, we barely left the house or couches for that matter. It was a good thing we had bought each other lots of movies for Christmas! Michael bought Jonathan all 3 Toy Story's and Fantasia. Jonathan and I bought Michael "Car's". Michael bought me all 3 Shrek's! So all 3 of us cuddled up each day and watched a movie. It was fun and memorable. It's not how either of my guys expected to spend their Christmas Break, but I think all 3 of us got some nice quality time and some much needed rest.

I hope all of you had a wonderful Christmas!

Michael's Birthday and Christmas present from his mom, Pat! Thank you Pat! (it came the week before Christmas!)

Michael is getting started on the Swing Set with his little helper!

We had to take a break to look at the Lady Bug.

Our first slide down the slide!!!

Christmas Eve was a nasty rainy and cold day...but also perfect to give Jonathan an early Christmas gift...a Toy Story umbrella! He loved it!

The Kiddo's in front of the tree, and the only picture I got of them, so it's not the best.

Amy and Waylen opening gifts for Will...Jonathan and Scarlet are on hand to help with any present opening!

Reading her new books.

Jonathan took Scarlet's new Little People car.

From Amy, Waylen and Scarlet to Jonathan...but I think it's really more for me...it is a teddy bear hand made out of one of my Dad's favorite shirts. I love it, love it, love it! Thank you!

Later on Christmas night we finally did "Santa" and all the other gifts!

What I loved about Jonathan this year was that when he opened each gift, he took time to enjoy each one of them. In other words, he didn't just toss them to the side and dig into the next gift! *Note, the book is upside down! :) Love it!

From "Santa" - new Matchbox cars, it was hard to pull him away from these!

Our Mantel! Jonathan insisted on getting in the picture. :) My mom made the stockings for Michael and I many years ago and they were the ones we used at her house. So, it was an honor to have them at our home this year. (Don't worry, I'll be getting newer, nicer ones for Jonathan and Benjamin for this coming year!)

Jonathan in front of his Christmas tree. It has all his ornaments and my ornaments from when I was a kiddo. He loved this tree and looking at all the ornaments!

This ornament was a gift from a school mate and for some reason Jonathan decided this was Benjamin, his little brother. So any time I would ask Jonathan where Benjamin was, he would run to his tree and point at his ornament and say "Here he is!" If I or anyone else would say, "No he's in my tummy." Jonathan would get really upset. - Thankfully, that phase ended once the tree went down. Now he will tell you that Ben is in my tummy! :)

Amy and I sold my parents house this past month. It was an extremely difficult thing to do, but now that it is done, and we know the people who will be living there, I feel very good about things.
We closed and handed over the keys on Dec 6, the Friday before, Jonathan and I went together and took a lot of photos and tried to have fun (it's hard not to with this little guy!)! I thought some of you would like to see them too...(okay some of these photo's were taken at an earlier date)

I love this kitchen. They did such a great job updating it.

Sitting at Mom's original sewing desk...so many fun memories of sitting on that desk and talking to her.

We painted the dinning room just a week before the offer came in. Amy and I both really liked the paint job, it brighten and made the room twice as big!

This was my favorite bathroom!

Sitting in Mom & Dad's bedroom window.

So many fun memories in this tub! When we were a lot younger, we would put on our bathing suits and fill the tub with bubble bath and then turn on the jets! It would make the bubbles over flow! It was so much fun!

This is the under the stairs closet. One of my favorite places in the house when we first moved in (I was 7).

My dad made each of these wooden steps.

This was also one of my favorite features of the house. The room with the built in desk. Amy and I argued over who got that room. She won cause she was the older sister. I ended up getting the better deal after all!!! Her room was directly over mom and dad's room and they could hear almost everything she did!!! HAHA! I was over the garage! No one cared how late I stayed up or how loud my music was!!!