Santa CAME!!

Merry Christmas!!

Santa came...

Sometime in the middle of the night...

And he did IN FACT bring the stomach bug...

Or maybe not... :)

But Justin woke up in the middle of the night with it... ick!

And so it was time to hold our breath until the next one bit the dust... because there is almost always another one... :)

But... we had to wait a bit...

By Christmas morning Justin was over the worst of it and was ready... albeit barely, to sit in his chair and watch the Christmas morning festivities unfold.

Of course, I wasn't ANY better and even worse... but we both had to rally... 

Christmas was here!! No time to WASTE!!

And despite the mom and dad of the group being quite the sickly pair our kids didn't even seem to notice and had the BEST Christmas morning checking out and playing with their goods!

It was the "what I want to be when I grow up" Christmas... :)

A football player... and a mama!

Two better aspirations couldn't be had!

After we finished our Christmas morning fun and the kids dined on Cinnamon Rolls... I drove 30 minutes into Austin to a grocery store that was OPEN!! :) Praise the Lord and thank you Randall's for having stores open on Christmas! I will forever be grateful to you! 

I needed to be sure we had stuff... I had literally no food in the house to get us past breakfast because we were planning to be in Corpus celebrating Christmas with my crew by lunch. And I only had one bottle of Pedialyte... and I just knew we'd be needing more of that! And some crackers... and just food in general while we're at it! :)

So Caden and Kaki ended up spending a lot of Christmas day like this...

Sweet Justin tried to insist we go on to CC but ain't no body want the stomach bug coming to their house for Christmas so I knew we would be staying put... 

And I was still NOT better and my voice lasted for mere minutes at a time...  and the coughing... oh the coughing! I don't think they wanted me anymore than they wanted Justin!

Merry Christmas, indeed!

I cried off and on nearly the whole day... 

Sometimes I was crying happy, grateful tears that despite our unfortunate sickness turn of events we really did have SO much to celebrate and be grateful for. I was with my people and I cherished that time so very much.

Other times my tears were sad because I was missing out on being with my family on Christmas day.

And then still others were tears of anger and self-pity because I had already missed my birthday celebration with my parents this year due to sickness and now Christmas! 

I was a sad, angry and grateful mess of tears!!

And my mom was too... and since my voice wasn't exactly cooperating there were times where we just sat on the phone together and cried... sad... I know!  What a day!

But restoration came...

Of our health... and of our time missed with family... 

I just had to be patient and wait it out a bit longer...

I just needed to get to 2014!! :)

It wasn't my favorite Christmas on record by far, but I remain thankful that I spent my day with a home full of people I love, with presents to share and moments to spend cherishing our time together which we know is fleeting. It was a good Christmas and at times it was even Merry. We have much to be thankful for!

Merry Christmas!

(When I think back at Christmas NOW I want to laugh (I lie... I am still sad/mad about... but I'm almost ready to laugh...almost!), but I tried to write this post with the emotions that did not have me laughing in the present... only so in 10 years I can revisit it and LAUGH hysterically at our string of bad luck in holiday celebrations in 2013... Mercy!)