Christmas and New Year's!

This may end up being a really long post...so I apologize. I'm soo behind! I haven't blogged in over a week and so much has happened!!! First of all, I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and New Year! Since Jonathan's family and my family live far away from each other we swap every other year for Thanksgiving/Christmas. This year was Christmas with my family. I think it's different for females than males being home at Christmas and doing all of the family traditions. I missed them so much last year and it was nice to be able to be there this year!

Both of my brothers families were not coming in until later on Christmas and then on Sunday so Christmas Eve and Christmas morning ended up being quiet with just the four of us. My parents have been attending a new church, so we went to one of their seven (7!!) Christmas eve services. (There ended up being over 20,000 people in attendance at all 7 services.) It was a really great service with great music! Luckily we knew to get there early so we could get good seats. Then we went to my Aunt and Uncle's house for their annual Christmas Eve party.

Christmas morning was the four...er...five including Dakota (since he was our main entertainment opening his stocking and presents) of us so we had a lazy, quiet morning opening presents and eating a yummy brunch of egg casserole and homemade sticky buns. In the afternoon we worked on a puzzle, my mom made a yummy dinner and then we played a rousing game of domino's. Fun memories! Here's the sad part...Christmas night Jonathan woke up sick. And when I say sick, I mean throwing up every 15 minutes. He couldn't even keep an ice chip down. It was horrible! So Saturday we loaded him into the car and drove him to the ER where he got an IV of fluids and meds. Poor thing. I've never seen him so sick. They said it was a 48 hour stomach virus. (Can't wait to see the bill from that since J has special insurance that only works at UK...but what could we do since we were 5 hours away?)

The good part about Saturday was that Lily's (if you know me well you know I LOVE Lily's) was having a sale on all of their Christmas stuff 50% off!!! I always stock up on stuff from there when I'm at my parents...but 50% off??? That's awesome! So I got a TON of great stuff for next year. I was going to take pictures and post a blog about it but it didn't happen and they are now packed in bins in the attic. Guess you'll have to check back next Christmas to see:)

On Sunday my one brother's family left and my other brother's family came to my parents' house. We were playing a fun Christmas movie trivia game and all of the sudden it hit me! I was sick! Luckily since we knew what it was, as soon as I was sick my mom got on the phone and got a prescription called in for me so I didn't get to the point that Jonathan had been. Tell you what...that virus was so draining! I missed seeing the kids open their presents and all of the fun family stuff while I was sick! Such a bummer!

The next morning, Jonathan still wasn't feeling well but we had to leave because I was working the next day, so he dressed me and practically carried me to the car and I slept the entire way home. J got me into bed when we got home and unpacked everything for us. 3 more adults and 3 kids in my family ended up getting sick after they left my parents house. It also ran through my aunt and uncle and cousins houses. Crazy!

Skipping ahead a couple days... We usually do a big New Years Eve party at our house, but some of our friends were out of town and with not feeling well during the week we just kept things low-keyed. Billie, Derek and Eli came over to celebrate. We had a great time. We watched The Hangover and laughed until our stomachs hurt. And the guys played the New Super Mario Bros game for the Wii...until almost 2am! We did watch the ball drop though! I know... We were a rowdy crew! We always do chocolate fondue on New Years so we made some and it was delicious!

I went to For Love when I was in Toledo. My orange scarf was $5 and my gold earrings were $4! I might need to post the rest of those deals later! (I discovered that I LOVE scarves during Old Navy's after Thanksgiving Day Sale since they were cheap. Now I can't get enough of them!)

Cute family!! Love them all! :)

Is Eli not the most beautiful baby? He is just so precious!! Look at those eyes:)

Today we took down all of the Christmas stuff and I got my normal house back! I love the Christmas stuff but after Christmas I am sooo ready to declutter! I did leave up some winter decorations to be fun!

It's been a crazy week. I can't believe it's already 2010! The beginning of the 2000 I was a college student. It's crazy to think about how much has happened since then! This past year has been a good one. I can't wait to see what 2010 brings!