Sickness

Our family (like most everyone else) has been fighting sickness. Oliver got Croup which is as scary as it sounds. It involved barking like a seal and not being able to breathe with no treatment at all. The croup went away after a few days and left behind this wretched cough. He was just pitiful. He needed to be held all of the time, which made me pretty pitiful too. We were out of commission for over a week and then Sam got sick at the tail end of that.

We have been really fortunate (knock on wood) with sickness so far, of course they've been sick but only for a few days - no prolonged illnesses yet. We've had the occasional ear infection or cough but all in all, they've been pretty healthy. I hate to lay blame, but the YMCA is very germy. They love to go and I love to go and work out, but they get some funky illnesses there. It isn't easy to balance the kids when they're sick and I have a realr espect for parents who have to deal with this in a big way. I am not trying to complain here, just marking an event in our lives. It is silly to say, but the cuddles and they cling that come along with them when tey feel sick, feels kind of nice (for the first couple of days). well, we are out on the other siad and everyone is tip top.

Christmas

Let's just start by saying that I love Christmas. We live in a house with a 4 and a 1 1/2 year old so it's hard not to get excited. But even if we didn't have them, I still get pretty worked up around the holiday, having kids definitely legitimizes my excitement. Sam has been asking for the same gifts for a while. I thought he might keep adding to the list, but he stuck to his little trio of gifts bravely. He wanted a Saxophone, trumpet and a clarinet. He was almost as adamant as Ralphie and his gun. Luckily the instruments can't "shoot his eye out".

We decided to have our first ever Christmas at our house. We've always traveled before and it's nice to get away, but it was nice to be home too. Although there was a serious amount of cooking. Next year we'll have to borrow the elves (if they moonlight) and get some help. It was a lot of work. Since we are usually in Asheville, it always feels little like a long holiday. It was great and much easier (cooking aside) to be here, but it felt more like a day. There was a lot of ..."we can do it on Friday". It's fine but if we were in Asheville it would be more... it'll have to wait until we get home.

So, the Christmas Eve pageant. Our church has a family service at 5:00 on Christmas Eve. We've never been in town before, so we've never been. All of the kids meet up about 1/2 early and get dressed up as animals, angels, shepherd or wise men., Mary and Joseph have to rehearse. Mine were a lamb and a recorder playing donkey.
It was hysterical. I was asked to lead the animals up the side isle and they could go up to the manger and be with Mary and Joseph. Well I didn't give very much stage direction because they all went up and stood smack in front of the manger and didn't move. No one could see anything. Oliver decided to upstage everyone so whilst everyone was looking at the baby he walked towards the congregation sat down facing us and put his finger up his nose and stayed like that for the last 1/2 of the play. He wasn't really picking his nose, he sort of seemed to be letting his fingers hang out up there. After a while he changed fingers. So, as I mom I know that they are very talented actors, but a little more practice is probably what they need.

Sam was more into Christmas this year and he had more questions. He would mention that Santa probably couldn't get down our chimney and that if it didn't snow, would his sleigh still work. The best part was putting the cookies out the night before. We put out the cookies, milk and a carrot for the reindeer (only 1 carrot not 9 - hopefully some other people thought about them too). The best part was that on Christmas morning the fact tat the cookies, milk and carrot was gone was the evidence that Santa had come. The fact that the tree was no longer visible behind the presents didn't really seem to tip him off. He ran up and got me and showed me the crumbs and said he knew Santa had come because the cookies were gone.

So everyone got together Joel, Sam, Oliver, me and Joel's parents and we got started. Sam was very excited with Santa's presents and Oliver - who is a little easier to please) was happy with his Wiggles guitar.

For the rest of the day we ate, ate, ate and all was well with our world.
Merry Christmas!

Oh, the fall

Fall is clearly my favorite time of year. It gets chilly, but not too cold. The leaves change. There is a lot of outdoors things to do. It has Sam's and my birthday in it, Halloween (not a huge fan but it's fun) and Thanksgiving. Our fall has been great we traveled to Asheville for fun, Pawley's for Thanksgiving and otherwise, just stuck around here. Sam's birthday was scheduled to be at a park (nice and easy, little clean-up or chaos) around 4:00. It was a great day, but it started raining at 3:36 - seriously, when does that happen. We had it our house instead which was fine, the kids stayed in the basement and didn't get up to too much mischief. I iced the cake again, this time Sam branched out - it wasn't Thomas, it was Gordon - makes sense I guess Gordon is number 4. If the stay at home mom thing doesn't work out. Clearly I should go be an artist on the island of Sodor.He had a great day, I wonder if it'll be a train theme next year.


Halloween was hysterical. Sam was a SWAT team police officer and Oliver was a tiger. They fully understood about the candy this year and they took it all very seriously and got heaps of candy.





Enter Peter Pan - Sam is now Peter Pan. It all started with a book on tape that I had had for ages and he never wanted to listen to. Then he wanted to hear it all the time. Then came the movie and last but not least, the Peter Pan costume.
So, I am Wendy, Joel - John, Oliver - Michael. If he comes across a woman she is Tinkerbell and if it's a man, that person is usually Captain James Hook. He flies to Neverland (the top of the fort in the back yard) it's great but as you can see, even Peter Pan needs a rest sometimes.










We headed down to Pawleys for Thanksgiving. The whole Lavelle clan was there and we had great weather and the cousins got along for the most part. Liliana and Oliver had some tuffs, but other than that