Christmas

What should have been one of the most wonderful times of the year ended up being the week from hell for our family!! So, it wasn't that terrible, but a lot of things didn't go as planned! Most of the family was sick the week before, and both Ian & I ended up sick on Christmas day. For me, the best gift I received was an i.v. on Christmas day. The wonderful benefit of your dad being a doctor is that I didn't have to go to the emergency room.. the fluids came to me! Although, it was a bit tense when I realized neither my dad nor my mom (who used to be a nurse) had done an i.v. on someone in quite a long time! And even worse, my dad couldn't find a vein on me!! Luckily, he did on the first try and after, all was well! I started to feel MUCH better after that!

We were blessed to be joined on Christmas by my mom's brother Bob, wife Connie and our cousins Zach (13) & Cordell (2). Despite all the sickness, we had a really great time having them here and Christmas Eve was a lot of fun as everyone opened their gifts! The tree was already full of gifts underneath when Christmas Day came, so the foyer of our house was pretty packed!

It was neat to experience Esther's first Christmas and she had a blast! She was, however quite overwhelmed with all of the gifts she got. You could just see it in her eyes as she grabbed a gift, unwrapped it, looked at what was inside and then threw it to the side ready for another gift! She wasn't too happy when she realized she had unwrapped all of her gifts and it was now someone else's turn! The poor thing burst into tears on Christmas morning when she saw the array of gifts Santa Clause had brought! (We think now that she saw that all of the gifts were not wrapped and she was upset because she thought someone had opened her gifts!) Both Esther & Emma received Leapsters for Christmas, and they ended up being the favorite toy, along with the Princess clothes Aunt Irma sent! The girls love their princess outfits and play dress up every day! They also got some more books, Barbie's, baby dolls, baby accessories & clothing! Elena got an iPod nano, which she was thrilled with. Kayla got probably close to 20 new books and she was overjoyed since she loves to read! Ian got some cool new toys- a spy car complete with a camera (oh boy), laser tag & dart guns. He was really excited about all of his gifts and kept mentioning how much he couldn't wait to share his toys with Asher when he comes home.

Overall, Christmas was interesting this year! However, we are reminded of how blessed & fortunate we were to be able to celebrate Christmas together as a family as many people in this world weren't able to experience this. Just another Christmas to be remembered for years to come!!

And, just three days after Christmas, Dad and I left for a 5 day medical missions trip to Honduras! More pictures & info coming tomorrow.. but wow.. what an amazing experience it was!