Christmas Day

Another wonderful day. I did the counting this morning, and figured out that we had 21 people over yesterday (My mom & dad; Jeff, Cheri, Jena, Brittney; Karil, Todd, Kim, Ali, Quest; Janet, Craig, Jessica, Christopher, Alexis, Alicia; Mark & I, Matthew, Nathan). Mom made sure to get family photos of each of their children with their families. I can't wait to get copies -- it's really something special to get the entire family together these days! Especially with many of them in college. Oh, I have to mention that my niece Brittney heads to Brisbane Australia for her next semester of college. You go girl!! She is at this moment working toward becoming a Nurse (RN). I think that's wonderful.

Anyway, on to today. After doing the math, I determined that we again had 21 people, only we swapped part of my family for Mark's this time around. So today we had: My mom & dad; Jeff, Cheri, Jena, Brittney; Janet & Craig; Grandma Doris (Mark's mom); Mark's Uncle Nick & Aunt Gladys; Mark's cousin Bob and his son Mitchell; Mark's sister Karen, husband John, kids Kirsten and Tyler; and our family of 4. Whew! Different menu though. Special thanks and love to Cheri for being my chief helper in the kitchen -- I couldn't have done it without you!

This morning, Mark and I were awakened by 2 little boys exclaiming "there are presents under the tree! Santa was here! Can we open them?" Mind you, this was at exactly 5:00 a.m. I told them to go back to bed and they could open presents at 6:00. Well of course, they never went back to bed, but instead came in our bedroom every 5-10 minutes until I finally dragged myself out of bed at 6:00 to let them open presents as promised. The family received a Wii from Santa. In addition, Matthew got a new MP3 player and an I Dog, and Nathan got an Eye Clopse and Commander Sun for his Planet Heros collection. In addition to many other things. I hope these boys know how lucky they truly are to get all these wonderful toys.

Nathan's cough is getting worse and he's starting to complain of a sore throat, plus he's running a fever. He is at this moment sound asleep on the couch, where he's been for the last 2 hours. Poor thing. I already called Theda Care on call to schedule an appointment for tomorrow morning. When we were in on Monday for the Pink Eye, the doctor heard a very small wheeze but didn't feel it was necessary to expose him to any radiation unless the cough got worse. So here I am fearing pneumonia and/or strep. And we're supposed to go to Wisconsin Dells on Sunday for 3 nights! So I'm getting him checked out, because there is no way I'm taking him to the Dells without knowing for sure what's going on. Poor kid. What a trooper though -- he never compains.

Matthew is having a blast, moving from one new toy to another. He's been ripping CD's onto his new MP3 player, playing Wii, and even playing some Play Station 2 games (which is now hooked up in their bedroom with the Wii in the family room). I know, I know -- they are 2 very lucky little boys! He's been very very good these last 2 days, and I'm glad he's keeping himself entertained while Nathan and Daddy are both napping and I can blog and do whatever I like -- which I think will be a very early bed time for me tonight. Unless of course Nathan wakes up and has a second wind by then. Oh well, I will deal with whatever comes.

We are truly blessed. To everyone reading this blog who helped us celebrate this Christmas, thank you for making it a special one. I was happy to have each and every one of you. May you all have a peace-filled and blessed 2009!!