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Introduction
December 26, 2003
Christmas day certainly didn't turn out the way that I had anticipated, but it was wonderful nonetheless. I'll get to our Christmas story in a few minutes. Let me start with last Sunday...when our celebrations started.
On Sunday we all got up and got ready for church. I made a big breakfast of bacon, sausage, eggs and toast for my family. We went to church and enjoyed the service so much. They didn't have the children's class that morning but did have the nursery open for Matthew and Christian. After the service was over, my parents took Autumn, Gabriel and Matthew with them to their house while Mark and I went to the grocery store to buy some desserts. Then we went to my parent's house to have dinner with my family. My brother is the general manager of the Papa Johns in Branson, so he ordered pizza for us all to enjoy for lunch. Yum! After we had our lunch Andrew and Heather entertained us with some Christmas music. Heather played her cello and Andrew played guitar and we all sang along. It was beautiful! Then it was time for Andrew and I to sneek out and record ourselves on a CD for my dad. It took over an hour to get the whole process done and get back to my parent's place. We all sat in the lobby of the hotel and opened our gifts from one another. My parents bought our whole family season passes to Silver Dollar City. SDC is a theme park in Branson with rides and roller coasters, food and stores and loads of fun things to do for families. It's a place that I've visited since I was a little girl and I am THRILLED to know that we'll be making some wonderful memories next year with our family again. Andrew and Heather gave Autumn a personal journal/diary which she loves. They gave Gabe a mechanical walking spider. Matthew got a DVD of sing-along-songs from The Lion King. Christian got a multi-level car track which lights up and makes noises with two cars. They also gave Mark and I a gift certificate. Since Matthew and Christian don't need passes for SDC my parents bought Matthew "A Bug's Life" on the new collector's edition DVD and gave Christian the Little Tikes Basketball hoop and ball. One of my cousins was also there and gave gifts to us all as well. Then we ate a quick dessert and drove over to the IMAX theater to watch "Santa vs. The Snowman". It was an hour long movie which we all enjoyed...especially Christian. He sat on Mark's lap for the first part of the movie and started cracking when the snowman started scooting across the snow. I absolutely love it when Christian gets tickled about something. That deep-belly laugh is the cutest thing I've ever heard. We were all laughing at him laughing at the movie. Before to long though he lost interest and wanted down to run and play. Nanny took him for us and let him run along the back of the theater. I got some popcorn for everyone to share and before we knew it the movie was over. We all headed out and drove back to our home for the night. I kept Ben and Chris with us so that Andrew and Heather could go and see Return of the King. Mark and I had taken Autumn and Gabe the week before and LOVED it. I kept the boys over night and watched them the next day while their parents worked.
On Monday night I got a gift from my friend Gay, in Texas. She makes and sells candles and sent me two of her top sellers. They are chocolate cake and creme burlee...heavenly! Then on Wednesday Mark only had to work half a day. At one point I called him to see how long it would be until he got home since we were all getting ready to go to his mom's for dinner. He told me that he still had some jobs to do but that he'd call before he came home. I was upstairs putting on my makeup when the bathroom door opened and there was Mark. I said "Hey...you're suppose to be working, how come you're home?" He said I had to lie to you because I was picking this up for you and he held out a diamond wedding ring. My heart skipped a beat and I started to cry. I had lost my wedding set years ago and felt really uncomfortable not having a ring on my finger. He knew just how important it was for me to have one and this surprise made my Christmas. On Christmas morning I also opened another diamond ring for my other hand and a silver braclet from him. We left for his mom's house and enjoyed a wonderful dinner with her and Mark's brother Kasey. We exchanged presents with them and then gorged ourselves on homemade candy. Freda had made five or six different types of candies inculding peanutbutter and chocolate fudge. Yum!
After eating all day long we were all feeling lazy while we sat around and watched television and talked. Autumn came over to me and said that she wasen't feeling that well. I told her that she'd probably had too much to eat and to go and rest on Grandma's bed. She did and I found her awhile later in the middle of the bathroom floor. She was shaking and her face looked really pale. I asked her what she wrong and she said that she felt like she might throw up. I told everyone to get their shoes on and gather up all of our thing so we could get her home. She seemed to get better on the way home and her daddy even had her laughing out loud. I figured that she'd just eaten one to many pieces of candy. We all stayed up late that night and I finally told Autumn and Gabe to get to bed. After awhile Autumn came back down stairs and told me that she was feeling bad again. I told her that she just needed to go to sleep and settle down. I thought that all of the excitement might have her really wound up but before I knew it, she was running to the bathroom and throwing up. She continued to do so all through the night. Then around three in the morning Gabriel came in to our room to tell me that he didn't feel good and he was crying. I got up with him and he ran into the bathroom to...you guessed it. Pukey number two! I gave him a bowl to keep by his bed and went back to sleep. Around five I heard Christian crying and gaging so I ran in to his room to find him stand in a pool of throw up. Ahhhhh what a way to start Christmas huh? I cleaned Christian up and put him in bed by Mark then threw his sheets and blankets into the washer. I headed back up stairs and fell asleep for about the fifth time that night. Sometime around eight on Christmas morning Gabriel came into the room to wake me up by saying "mom I'm ready for Christmas." I smiled at him and asked him if he felt better. He said that he did a little...so we woke up Autumn and dad and went down stairs. As soon as we got down to the living room Gabe ran for the bathroom and got sick again. Autumn was feeling pretty good so she opened all of her gifts and then Gabe wanted to open his. They both got nearly everything they asked for and they were thrilled. The sad part was that they spent most of the day leaning over the toilet or sleeping away their sickness. Christian only threw up that one time in the night and was fine on Christmas day. Later in the evening he did get a low grade fever but was better by this morning. Today when we all woke up the kids were 100% better and they finally got to enjoy all of their gifts they opened. I spent most of the day cleaning up all of the messes from yesterday and Mark went back to work. It certainly wasen't the holiday celebration that I envisioned but it was special in it's own little way. We were all together and got a lot of rest. ;0)
Happy Holidays~
Jennifer :0)
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