Aftermath!

Christmas 2008 is now "history." It wasn't all smooth sailing -a few bumps along the way -but overall, things ironed out and it was totally a good thing!

The "bumps" for us actually began Monday morning although we didn't see it as such at that time. Mandy had a doctor's appointment that day for Kurtis and had planned to take Maya with her so I could have the house to myself to sleep, recuperate, as it were, from the "all-nighter" I'd pulled Sunday night into Monday morning embroidering the table cloth.

Things didn't quite work out that way though as right after she and Maya got out of the shower, Maya got sick to her stomach and threw up all over the bathroom floor. Ok, that ended the idea of Mandy taking Maya with her and also, put the kabash on my getting a little bit of much needed sleep then too. I did get Maya to lay down with me in my bed, put a video in the dvd player there and was able to doze off for about an hour while she was occupied watching the video.

Monday night, I caught a couple more z's sitting in the recliner early in the evening -enough so that I pulled yet another "all-nighter" in order to get the embroidery work completed then! THankfully, I finished up about 9 a.m. and was able to sleep -peacefully -until about 2 p.m. Got up then and started gathering the items I needed to begin doing some baking. I did up double batches of all the cookies I baked except for the peanut butter cookies and that recipe, I tripled. (My older grandson is a huge fan of peanut butter cookies and I planned to make up a tray of cookies that he could take home with him to share with his Dad.) We ended up with chocolate chip cookies (about 14 dozen of them), Gingersnaps (8 dozen) Sugar cutouts (12 dozen), Chocolate oatmeal chips (8 dozen) and Fudge Fantasys (9 dozen). So far, we are down to about half of what I baked being left now!

While I baked, Mandy was kind enough to get the gifts I had purchased out and wrapped them for me. About 3 a.m. Wednesday morning, Mandy went to bed, leaving me here as I tried to polish off more blog readings. Along about 4 a.m., I heard a strange sound coming from Kurtis and glanced over just in time to see him sitting up and barfing all over himself and the playpen! Not a pleasant sight, for sure! I hollered upstairs to Amanda, telling her I really needed her to get up and come down and help me. Now, cleaning up barf is probably no one's favorite task, I'm sure -I know it isn't mine -but for Mandy, it's something really difficult as it is all she can do not to add to the mess. However, I was so proud of her in that she managed to take the pad out of the playpen and scrubbed it down, replaced the pad too with a spare one, while I took the little guy and scrubbed him from top to bottom.

Then came the task of trying to get him to settle down, go back to sleep which was made more difficult because apparently his first go round with the upset stomach hadn't cleared everything out and he ended up throwing up again, this time all over Mandy and the recliner where she was sitting, holding him! Got that cleaned up and about a half our later, same procedure -shampoo, rinse, repeat -ya know! The poor little kid was just exhausted but after the third go round, it was pretty evident he had emptied his little stomach then and finally, he fell asleep then. Heck of a way for him to start Christmas Eve, wasn't it?

I had wanted to go to the early church service at 4 p.m. because Maya was singing at that service with the Children's Choir, but because of Kurtis, I ended up staying at home, putting the finishing touches then on our Christmas Eve supper - barbequed meatballs for meatball subs, macaroni and cheese, watergate salad and lots of cookies!

A little tidbit here from Maya occured at the end of Pastor Carrie's sermon which was that Pastor Carrie had said "Hooray, Christ has come." THen repeated the HOORAY! After she did that, Maya then piped up too saying "Hooray!" in a pretty loud voice. As you can imagine, this reaction by Maya was met with a lot of chuckling then among the congregation and upon hearing the laughter, Maya turned and asked Mandy "Why is everyone laughing?" Too cute though and Pastor Carrie and I shared a little more giggling over Maya's comment after the 9 pm. Service ended.
Here's the five siblings -Kurtis, Sierra, Shane, Katie and Maya -after having opened their gifts on Christmas Eve.
Here's Kurtis and his dad (Bill) opening one of his gifts Christmas Eve. As it turned out, this package was one of his favorite gifts -a package of about 15 airplanes -and he was totally thrilled to get this -kept running his hand over the cellophane cover on the box, trying to touch the airplanes behind the wrapping!


After supper, the three step-grandchildren were here so they, along with Maya and Kurtis, had their gift exchange then. About 8 p.m., my son arrived at the house -all decked out in his "Sunday go-meeting" finest apparel -yes, he really looked quite sharp -and he brought with him a female friend of his, her daughter and another young girl who is a friend of the daughters to go to the 9 p.m. Church Service with us.


Now, having my son go to church with me for ANY service is something that really makes me quite happy but to have that happen when I had not begged him, had not tried to put him on any guilt trips, and the like -but rather it was all of his own volition, well that was indeed the very best present I received Christmas Eve!

After the late service, Mandy, Bill, my son and I exchanged our gifts then and by 2 a.m., Clate had gone home and I was in bed! Hard to believe that I actually was in bed and asleep in record time too that early on a Christmas Morning!

Thursday morning, Maya woke me up -shaking me and all wide-eyed, she informed me I had to get up because "Santa has been HERE!" To say she was excited and very happy, would be a bit of an understatement. Even little Kurtis got into the fun of unwrapping his gifts and frequently, when asked what this or that item was he had just opened, he was able to articulate and tell us -"Car" or "Elmo" and such! There was another great gift for sure to hear him able to name so many of his gifts!


Thursday afternoon, Mandy and I had the ham in the oven and because I was still a bit tired, I lay down for an afternoon nap, leaving her to fix the scalloped potatoes we were going to have with our dinner. The older daughter, Carrie, her fiance, Robert and the older grandson, Alex, were due to arrive about 5 or 5:30 for supper -and big surprise here, they were actually a bit early in their arrival! Talk about a shocker, that was one as normally, Carrie almost always tends to run late!

After supper, we had our final gift exchange then with Carrie, Robert and Alex! Both the girls were very happy with the tablecloths I had made for them and my son was the recipient of a little lunch cloth and a set of pillow cases that I had done with him in mind. He likes little things like that so was very pleased then with that part of his gifts -along with several clothing items that each of us had given him. My son had been shopping the other day and saw this really sharp Navy blue "Pea coat" and thought when he saw it that maybe Alex would like something like that too. So he had phoned Bill, Alex's dad and inquired if he thought Alex would like it and Bill had said yes, he was fairly certain the boy would appreciate it. The store where Clate found the coat was having a very good sale -buy one, get a second for half-price -so he got a coat identical then to his for his 11-year-old nephew and yes, it most definitely met with Alex's approval as he wore it the entire evening then! He and Clate, standing together with their new coats on both looked so handsome!

Here's Uncle Clate and nephew Alex modeling their new coats as they shared a toast using the Guinness glasses sister, Carrie, had given her brother -along with a tee shirt that says "Guinness" on it too!

This is Carrie, my older daughter, looking a bit shocked here. And rightfully so too because Mandy had just informed her that the two packages of "princess" underwear she had given Maya were adult underpants, not a size for a child Maya's age! Needless to say, Carrie was rather dumbfounded to learn this! She said she's going to go back to that store and complain to them that they shouldn't be peddling underwear with those designs on them for adults, especially when adults who are shopping might just b e really tired and not realize the sizes on the package were adult, not children's sizings.

Here's a little video of the two little ones as they were opening their "Santa"presents on Christmas morning. It was so great to be able to watch both of them, see the look of pure enjoyment and happiness spread across their little faces! I don't know who enjoyed this part of the day more -them or us, the adults, watching them!



So that took us then up through Christmas Day's activities. Late last evening, I was trying once again, to read blogs, get caught up there a bit and decided to give myself a treat by way of a nice cold bottle of beer to indulge in while reading. No problem with that, is there? Normally, no. Ok, I had one bottle, then decided I could handle a second one and opened it. About 1/3 of the way down this second bottle, my stomach started feeling a tad on the queasy side. I told Mandy about this and we both agreed that it surely wasn't from one full bottle of beer and 1/3 of a second one that could make me feel a bit on the yucky side there. As I finished the second one off, I started feeling very cold then -chills, big time. Oh no, not a good sign at all! My stomach was churning and churning all the more but I was really tired too so I decided, for safety's sake, I would sit back in the recliner, pull a big old blanket over me to try to get warm and maybe I would be able to fall asleep and wake up to this all being gone, everything being ok, ya know.

About 4 a.m. I woke up alright but unfortunately, things were far from alright as I ended up then making a mad dash for the bathroom just in the nick of time! Got the first batch of whatever was making me sick out and back to the living room this time, I ventured to the sofa and before I lay down, I had gone ot my room and removed a thick comforter from my bed, placed it over the blanket I'd had around me earlier and lay down, trying to get warm! This reprieve lasted till about 6 a.m. when I awoke with a rerun of the same yucky sick feeling in my gut and yes, made a second trip to rid myself of this bug!

Thankfully, apparently the last bout of being sick did the trick as I haven't had any repercussions since then, but I have been just really, really tired all day and still a bit on the cold side too. I took a very long nap then this afternoon so when our friend, Joe, stopped by for a cup of coffee, I was out like a light and he and Mandy ended up chatting over the coffee today.

Now I'm going to relax for the next couple of days, dig into the books my kids gave me this year -I got five new books! Yay, yay! From Mandy, I got "Dreams From My Father" by Barack Obama and "The Longest Trip Home" by John Grogan, author too of "Marley and Me" -which my kids and also, Grandson Alex, all loved! Carrie gave me "The Invisible Wall" by Harry Bernstein and Clate presented me with two books -one is a beautiful book by Better Homes and Gardens called Stiching Pretty with all kinds of lovely Cross-stitch patterns in it. However, these are geared for "counted cross-stitch" which I am not very adept at, so I'm gonna have to get my friend Shirley or her sister, Kate, to maybe help me if I try to do one of the patterns in that book. The other book Clate gave me is "Me of Little Faith" by Lewis Black and I've already started reading it. So far, I have to tell you, it is hilarious -very irreverant to be sure, but hilarious all the same!

This afternoon, when Mandy went to pick up the mail, she brought home a package for me. I had forgotten all about this -that last week, I had ordered about 5-6 more items to be embroidered from Herrschnerrs! So now, I have my embroidery stash very well stocked up -should last me the better part of the year to work on and finish all the projects involved there!

The church services on Wednesday were beautiful -two of my very good old friends from back in the day (a LONG time ago) when I was in the choir, and also, when I was organist, came back to sing in the choir for the late service Wednesday night. Always makes me feel so good to see and hear Marge and Larry up there, singing!

Now, if I could just get rid of the crick in the back of my neck and across my left shoulder in the back -and get warm and stay warm too -I think it would be the topper for a beautiful holiday for me, for my kids and especially for the grandkids!

Sickness aside, it has all worked to be all very good things for this Friday!